Cobbett House, Manchester

We provided the MEP engineering design from initial concept to detailed design and were appointed to provide construction phase monitoring for the refurbishment of Manchester NHS Foundation Trust’s Headquarters building, Cobbett House. The project involved the total refurbishment of the third & fourth floor within Grade II English Heritage listed building. Works also included the refurbishment of the lifts together with the ground floor toilets and teleconference facilities on the upper floors of the building.

The MEP designs utilised bespoke lighting and smart energy-efficient daylight dimming along with air source heat pumps to provide low carbon heating and cooling. Due to the Grade II Listing and age of the building, we had to work closely with the architects and structural architects to ensure adequate ventilation, heating and cooling were provided without any external plant being visible.

A “Mock-up” room at an early stage of the design was created to ensure all services were coordinated and met the client’s needs, whilst verifying the quality of the installation. The electrical installation was carried out by AC Electrical and the mechanical installation was carried out by Cheshire Refrigeration.

The project was the second phase of an overall masterplan to refurbish the whole building. Phase 1 was the refurbishment of the first floor of the building to accommodate the Trust’s payroll / HR operations and the department remained fully operational during the subsequent refurbishment of the upper floors. We developed detailed MEP strategies for the overall refurbishment of the building following 3D photo surveys of the entire building and basements, which include designing new heating plant and distribution pipework together with forming new MEP risers to serve future phases.