The newly refurbished Beacon Building at Bury College has been transformed and repurposed to provide best in class teaching and practical training spaces to accommodate an increasing number of students at the Greater Manchester further education facility.
The hair and beauty department will be moving into the building, relocating from the nearby Woodbury building where their current space is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. The ground floor is home to a 12-bay media make-up studio, two commercial 24 station hair salons, a hair dispensary and a laundry room. Three 12-bed beauty rooms, including facilities for nail and a beauty treatments, have been fitted out on the first floor with another hair salon created on the third floor, alongside general teaching space to support the specialist classrooms. Selected salon areas will be open at specific times for members of the public to enjoy discounted beauty treatments.
Working alongside Wilson Mason architects, UK RLB and Gardiner and Theobald, our building services and structures team provided consultancy design services to enable the building’s transformation.
Careful consideration was given to water services due to the likely need of high simultaneous demand from the hair and beauty departments. Hybrid ventilation heat recovery units were also included throughout the design. The solution not only delivers energy efficient air supply, it includes a purge boost extract facility to dilute and deal with the smells from the variety of beauty products used in the spaces. radiant panel heating provides an effective way of heating the larger teaching spaces.
Our team provided structural advice throughout the project, designing the openings for the new window and ventilation panels through lightweight cladding panels which were integral to the MEP strategy. We created new local penetrations through the existing suspended precast ground floor slab including below ground drainage modifications. We also coordinated the architectural and building services layouts to ensure they had the least impact on the existing framing structure in order to economise project costs.
Michael Bromley, Head of Estates at Bury College, shared his delight by saying: “We are extremely proud of what has been achieved with this refurbishment project. The fit and finish throughout is excellent with the heating, cooling and ventilation systems meeting the needs of our curriculum perfectly. We are looking forward to welcoming current and future students into the new state of the art facility.”
Tim Davies, Director for Building Services commented: “I am delighted to see another one of Bury’s College projects reach the finish line. This project adds to the list of ongoing work at the education facility and we look forward to continuing our work with Bury College into 2024 and beyond”.
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