block housing

Date: 2017

Location: Manchester, UK

Field: Architecture, Electrical

Use: Apartment building

Size: 2300 sqm

In the context of a riverfront block housing complex in central Manchester rolling out its second phase of implementation, Plan de Lucru was commissioned for the complex’s technical design. Specifically, the task was to incorporate installation plans (i.e., electrical, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, water and plumbing) into architecture plans and provide a technical solution for any issues arising from the overlap, and produce complete technical plans and construction details ready to be used on the building site.

Our key goals were to make sure that details were resolved with a minimal loss of surface area and in a manner that allowed for easy execution and a clean look, as well as for flexibility in space use (e.g., accounting for future changes to furniture location). To make our lives easier and those of builders, particularly given the large number of apartments, we also aimed to identify typologies in apartment layout and thus detail solutions. This was made difficult by the irregular façade (with shifting positioning for windows) and the lack of symmetry in the level plans. We did however manage to find room typologies, rather than apartment typologies. This instead minimized the amount of detail drawings needed and allowed us to focus on the quality of the details.