Chetham’s School of Music provides specialist music tuition for students with exceptional musical talent. The school houses approximately 320 students from age 8 to 18 with over 70% of the students being boarders.
The site contains a number of buildings with a Grade 1 listing, including one that houses the oldest public library in England.
In order to meet the specialist musical needs and meet national curriculum standards, a new nine storey teaching facility was procured adjacent to the Medieval Buildings to provide national curriculum subjects along with specialist music teaching, recital, recording and editing facilities. A large 350 seat world class concert hall/auditorium was incorporated with opportunities for use by the BBC Philharmonic and Halle Orchestras when not being used by the school. NDY was appointed building services consulting engineers responsible for the design, documentation and construction phase administration of the mechanical, electrical, communications, security, fire protection and sustainability (including BREEAM) systems.
The School is located in Manchester City Centre adjacent to Victoria railway station, and the MEN concert venue presented significant acoustic and access challenges for the design teams. With the acoustic performance requirements and energy minimisation objectives, the following systems were integrated into the design strategy:
- Displacement ventilation systems
- Active chilled beams
- All air ventilation systems.
Significant design coordination was required to meet the very stringent acoustic performance of each space, as well as maintaining the overall aesthetics and feel of the building. Our fire protection team worked closely with the services design team to produce a fire strategy, which addresses items such as extended travel distances and atria linking floors.
Project Details
Market Sector:
Education
Client: Chetham's School of Music
Architect: Stephenson Bell
Location:
London
United Kingdom
