3rd July 2003
Manchester’s first five star hotel enters into its final phase of construction
Built by McAlpine Laing, the design and build team has faced a number of challenges throughout the project on this tight city centre site.
The existing grade II listed hall was designed in 1856 by Edward Walters as a permanent structure for the Free Trade Movement, and became home to the Hallé Orchestra for 150 years. Bomb damage in the Second World War left two retained facades.
The Italianate palazzo references in the Peter Street facade are skin deep. What currently lies behind is not the series of grand spaces that one might expect, but awkward wedge shaped slithers of space surrounding an auditorium, shoehorned onto the site in the 1950’s redevelopment by Leonard Howitt. It is acknowledged that such expressions of functionality was not part of Walter’s architectural ethos, however, this does not preclude the opportunity of enhancing the architectural expression for the new use of the facades.
The symbolism, spirit and social history of the building and site, which are of enormous importance, will be symbolised by retaining the well loved Victorian façade. The intention is that the vestigial “palazzo” Peter Street block will, in effect, be a memorial to the importance of the site also containing the retained artefacts from the old building. Thus the two parts of the building reflect and express their functions, in the epitome of present day architectural credo, and a fitting balance is created between the old and the new.
The building’s listed façade has had a number of implications on the design of the hotel including height restrictions imposed at planning stage. A sensitive retention and enhancement programme was undertaken to provide a prominent façade for the new hotel. 'The stunning façade is a monumental heavily embellished and richly detailed stone in an Italian renaissance style with an arcaded ground floor'.
The Italianate palazzo references in the Peter Street facade are skin deep. What currently lies behind is not the series of grand spaces that one might expect, but awkward wedge shaped slithers of space surrounding an auditorium, shoehorned onto the site in the 1950’s redevelopment by Leonard Howitt. It is acknowledged that such expressions of functionality was not part of Walter’s architectural ethos, however, this does not preclude the opportunity of enhancing the architectural expression for the new use of the facades.
The symbolism, spirit and social history of the building and site, which are of enormous importance, will be symbolised by retaining the well loved Victorian façade. The intention is that the vestigial “palazzo” Peter Street block will, in effect, be a memorial to the importance of the site also containing the retained artefacts from the old building. Thus the two parts of the building reflect and express their functions, in the epitome of present day architectural credo, and a fitting balance is created between the old and the new.
The building’s listed façade has had a number of implications on the design of the hotel including height restrictions imposed at planning stage. A sensitive retention and enhancement programme was undertaken to provide a prominent façade for the new hotel. 'The stunning façade is a monumental heavily embellished and richly detailed stone in an Italian renaissance style with an arcaded ground floor'.been fully realised in plan form. The proposals for the redevelopment of the site as a 263 bed 5 star hotel, create; a classically proportioned block from the main Victorian facades accommodating the appropriate large volume rooms within. A cleared site to the rear was created to allow a fifteen storey contemporary accommodation block to be constructed, principally clad in stone and glass.
The structural depth and services voids have been squeezed to a minimum in order to be able to fit an extra storey in to the restricted height. The extra accommodation created was necessary for the project to be viable.
The positions of the new contemporary structure responds to one of the two axial city grids, with the ?Pallazo? block responding to the other. A lightweight triangular glass atrium provides a unifying structure between the two, allowing individual architectural and functional identity of both blocks to be fully realised.
From early in the project fire engineering design and risk assessment played an important role in the collaborated co-ordination of architecture, structure, acoustic and building services performances in to an appropriate package of fire safety measures. Retaining the listed facade of the original building limited fire service access to the new accommodation and compensatory measures have been included to ensure that adequate provision is made to fight fires. Means of escape from the highly populated banqueting and function accommodation required a detailed fire scenario planning so that maximum use was made of all staircases in the building. The analysis facilitated the use of the main foyer 'open' staircase as an escape route. In conjunction with Stephenson Bell a compact scissor staircase maximised the occupancy levels of the high revenue generating areas whilst reducing the area taken up by multiple conventional staircases.
A key architectural feature of the design is the main entrance foyer. This space, a four storey atrium bounded by banqueting facilities, conferences rooms and bedrooms contains large areas of glazing. In order to remove the necessity to sprinkle the building or enclose the atrium in expensive insulated glass, an alternative approach was adopted for the atrium enclosing walls. By using fire dynamics analysis, FEDRA demonstrated that sprinklers were not required and that integrity only glass provided the required levels of fire protection to the windows resulting in extensive cost savings for the developer.
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