A new build Premier Inn has just been completed close to Piccadilly Station in Manchester.
As the fifth Premier Inn in the city centre, architects have worked hard on the design of the new hotel to ensure it fits in with the existing buildings in this historic area of Manchester.
Using Manchester’s industrial past as inspiration, the design of the building has taken elements from the surrounding warehouse structures.
Project Architect Andrew Edmunds from Manchester firm Roger Stephenson Architects told Premier Construction about the new build project. He said:
“The design is a contemporary interpretation of the historic buildings around that area of Piccadilly, the design took influence from adjacent warehouse buildings to ensure it would be in keeping with the surrounding context.”
The main contractor on the £10 million project was Russells Construction Ltd and the architect was Roger Stephenson Architects.
The project began in the planning stages in 2010 and was completed in September 2012. The hotel opened in October 2012 for customers.
The building, which is only 200 yards from Manchester’s Piccadilly Station, provides 193 rooms over 11 storeys; with front of house facilities, conferencing facilities and event space on the ground and basement levels with views over the canal.
Andrew said:
“The building has been configured to respect the scale of the adjoining buildings, whilst ensuring Dale Street is treated as the prominent street frontage and elevation, with views over the canal basin. Lena Street is an intimate environment, and the reduced scale of the proposal along Lena Street aims to engage with the six-storey height of the adjacent warehouse structures, re-instating the urban grain associated with the density of warehouse structures so evident throughout Manchester.
“The carving of the mass has been implied with the use of a different material, which provides a subtle variation and interest to the treatment of the façade’s.
“The external facade was predominantly brick; we used two types of black brick, one had a slight reflective coating that was used for the majority of the façade. The other was a matt finish that was used to articulate the recesses/carving within the main form.
“The massing has been distributed around the site to reflect the character of the adjacent streets, with Lena Street being a lot narrower than Dale Street, resulting in a reduced mass on Lena Street and more articulation at lower levels to reflect the more intimate environment of this street.”
Before completion the project was already award-winning, scooping first place in the Unbuilt Commercial category at the 2012 MSA Design Awards.
Andrew added:
“Although we have completed other projects within this sector, including the Radisson Blu in Manchester, the Premier Inn was a great achievement in producing a project of architectural merit on such a limited budget.”
REC Ltd
Resource and Environmental Consultants (REC) Ltd specialise in environmental and geotechnical consultancy and offer a diverse range of technical services including, acoustics & vibration, air quality assessment, ecology, flood risk assessment, land regeneration, health and safety training, renewable energy system installation and asbestos and legionella compliance.
REC has been operating since 1995 and has grown from a single office in Manchester to 14 regional offices in 2012. This allows them to offer a national consultancy with a strong emphasis of local, sustainable, project delivery.
On the premier Inn, REC advised on ground conditions, ecology, flood risk, noise and vibration and air quality.
Andy Edgar, Associate Director at REC Ltd said:
“This project gave us an excellent opportunity to show that REC has diversified and matured into a leading multi-disciplinary consultancy and our consultants always take great pride in being associated with the successful delivery of a major development.
“As we work in a wide number of technical disciplines our client base is also extremely varied and the temptation is to list prestigious national clients that we work with, like Premier Inn, Redrow Homes, Persimmon, Russell’s, CBRE Investors and Global Renewables. However, all of our clients are important to us and on a local level we also work on single property developments for private individuals.
“We pride ourselves on being focused on solutions, for both large and small projects, but we also pride ourselves on being approachable. With 14 regional centres anyone who wants advice can be sure that they are speaking to a local professional who understands their needs completely.”
