Manchester College progresses Openshaw campus overhaul

Architect Reiach & Hall has revealed designs for a regeneration of Manchester College’s Openshaw campus, part of a wider estates strategy which will see the college open a new site at the Boddington’s Brewery.

The plans for Openshaw centre on building a four-storey sports and social care building, featuring a six-court sports hall, gym, exercise studio, strength and conditioning labs, and classrooms.

There will also be a floodlit artificial turf football pitch build at the site with spectator seating, along with a single-storey extension to the existing Whitworth House to act as teaching space for construction skills.

Existing buildings, including the Westlands Building, the Nursery Building, and a single-storey engineering workshop, are due to be cleared to make way for the new elements.

According to the architect, these existing facilities “do not meet modern teaching requirements”, with “inaccessible areas, poor-quality building fabric, and rooms and structural grids that are the wrong size for modern teaching spaces”.

IBI was previously attached to bring plans for the Openshaw campus to RIBA stage two, alongside Waterman Group, before Reich & Hall was brought on board.

The College’s estates strategy will see a number of assets brought to market; the 39,000 sq ft St John’s building by Spinningfields is earmarked for redevelopment, as is the 97,000 sq ft Shena Simon campus just off Chorlton Street.

It will also relocate a number of its key functions to a central campus at the Boddington’s Brewery site, where a £45m, 215,000 sq ft education facility will be built. Place North West revealed in April that Willmott Dixon had beaten four other contractors to the first phase of the job, where SimpsonHaugh is architect.

The professional team on the Openshaw campus also includes BDP, Hoare Lea, Scott Hughes Design, Rider Levett Bucknall, Pearson Fraser, Brookes Ecological, Orion Heritage, and SK Transport Planning.