Celebrating the transformation of Bury College’s campus in a recent statement, Mike Bromley, Head of Estates and Health and Safety at Bury College, said: “Leading this project over the past three years has been a real privilege. Working alongside our fantastic design team and builders, we’ve made huge improvements across many parts of the College estate. In what feels like three very short years, we’ve transformed the College and made a real, lasting difference to the learner experience. The best part has been seeing these new spaces come to life and genuinely make a positive impact – not just on the college community, but on Bury as a whole.”

Continuing our successful relationship with the College and 10architects, our team provided building services designs for this significant building. With sustainability a key project theme, our specialists focused on reducing operational carbon emissions and minimising energy consumption in use. This saw the installation of air source heat pumps, 100 sqm of photovoltaic panels, and a passive natural ventilation system with night cooling. Together with a highly efficient building envelope, these measures deliver a 45% improvement over current Part L CO₂ targets.

In a further boost to the facilities on offer in the campus’ southern area, the most recent development saw the construction of a compact new stand-alone catering facility. Known as ‘Our Lady’s’, this sits adjacent to the St. Vincent’s building and provides a kitchen space and break-out area for students. Our team provided the building services design for this scheme which completed in September 2025, once again seeing us work with 10architects to deliver a highly functional catering facility.

Tasked with unlocking the potential of the existing building, our structures specialists undertook deep analysis of the existing frame, enabling the vast majority to be retained. Our design solution for the internal spaces focused on maximising available space for clear, column-free office floors, whilst also increasing available amenity space and accommodating the four new roof terraces. At the top floor level extension, the exposed concrete and steel structure punctuates the space. The fully exposed precast concrete soffits are clean and uncluttered, facilitated by a new underfloor air ventilation system and perimeter trench heating and cooling solution. This can provide free cooling for up to 85% of the year and provides a simple and adaptable low embodied carbon solution for the additional floor.

Our all-electric building services strategy features a Hybrid VRF heating and cooling system with low GWP R32 refrigerant connected to branch controllers that provide flexible, water based on floor heating and cooling circuits feeding fan coil units. Through the use of carefully designed raft ceilings, the office spaces will feature a striking balance of semi-exposed services and structure. In a further boost to efficiency, building controls will utilise Synapsis and Demand Logic platforms to map energy consumption and quickly identify equipment faults or inefficiencies. This real-time analysis ensures equipment operates as designed throughout its entire lifecycle, helping to close the performance gap between design and reality.

In a boost to accessibility, the scheme also saw the creation of a new entrance which is designed to accommodate all users and removing the requirement for separate entrances. Our structures design enabled this feature entrance, with our specialists also unlocking the potential of the revised internal spaces.