Half-built walls, stacks of bricks and a couple of wheelbarrows. It might look like a job someone forgot to finish, but this is exactly how The Manchester College’s new brickwork workshop should look.
The workshop is the centrepiece of a multi-million pound project at the college’s Wythenshawe campus, which Medlock has now completed for LTE Group. Delivered in five phases over 30 weeks, the work gives students more space to learn practical trades along with better places to study and socialise.
A college focused on skills
The Manchester College is the UK’s largest further education college and sits within LTE Group, the country’s biggest education-focused social enterprise. It has six campuses in and around Manchester, with Wythenshawe opening in 2010.
This latest project expands the campus’s construction and engineering facilities to create spaces where students can get hands-on experience of the trades they’re training for.
What’s new on campus
The new steel-framed workshop gives brickwork and construction students a large teaching space, supported by several smaller ancillary rooms off the main area.
Air source heat pumps provide hot water and supply heating through overhead panels, whilst a specialist dust extraction system helps keep the workshop safe.
The project then moved on to the existing buildings:
Block A: A double-height workshop became new classrooms and an engineering workshop with a new mezzanine floor making full use of the space.
Block D: An existing workshop became additional classrooms and office accommodation.
Blocks E and F: Summer works created a new reception area, social space, prayer rooms and shower facilities.
Building on a long-standing relationship
The project marks another chapter in Medlock’s work with LTE Group, which began at Wythenshawe when we remodelled a campus unit for HGV training. The work included new roller shutters, an external holding bay and a vehicle exhaust extraction system.
At the college’s Openshaw campus, we’ve since created a mock hospital ward teaching studio, a library and a digital resource centre in the Cube Building. We then returned to add four new classrooms and a new SEN provision in the main campus building.
From HGV training to mock hospital wards and now brickwork, each project has helped students train for working life. We know these campuses well and we look forward to laying the next course with LTE Group.
