A refurbishment of a 1850s Victorian five storey Grade-ll listed building, originally a mill has now been turned into deluxe studio apartments for university students studying at Lancaster University.
We worked with the design team to create building services that would meet the needs of the student tenants, with an onsite games, café, gym and study facilities. Keeping a touch of history, some of the old mill machinery has a permanent place stored within the museum on the first floor.
With more than 100 student apartments, designing a ventilation system to run through a Grade-ll listed building was met with one or two challenges when the heritage would not allow for openable windows and due to constraints of the fabric on the building and no insulation or covering allowed to go on the outside wall, we were faced with issues with solar gain during the summer periods and delayed heat gains as the suns energy transferred through the 500mm solid brick wall intensifying the heat within the apartments during late evenings. The heritage later agreed to natural ventilation by allowing openable windows, completed by mechanical ventilation to increase the ventilation rates. Windows also had to be designed to match the existing window frames of the former mill from single glazing to double complete with solar reflective film to reduce the sun’s rays.
Full M&E design provided throughout the Building.
