The 220-bed Holiday Inn Express in Trafford, Manchester, is constructed from purpose-built steel containers complete with factory-finished interior fixtures and fittings, all of which were installed before being delivered to site.
The modules were stacked on top of each other without the need for additional supporting structures, to enable fast installation on site. Each module consisted of two bedrooms and a section of corridor, with all of the 220 bedrooms placed on site in less than three weeks, ready for external cladding to commence.
The nature of branded hotels such as Holiday Inn Express requires bedrooms to be relatively uniform anyway, so volumetric construction was ideal for the client’s purposes – they received a superior, factory-installed quality of floorspace, furniture and fittings at a much lower cost and in a greatly reduced timeframe.
The external envelope was applied once the modules were in place, using pre-finished rain-screen cladding and single-ply roofing systems, which were fixed to specific areas of the module to maintain an airtight seal.
Working collaboratively with other specialist consultants appointed by the main contractor, Bowmer & Kirkland, Chapman Taylor developed a fully co-ordinated BIM model to inform the detailed design and enable the off-site works to commence, in line with the ambitious programme.
Employing this type of off-site modular design required a completely new approach to the traditionally linear design process. Driven by the lead-in times associated with the off-site works, the design team were required to fix the details and specifications of the guestroom finishes long before scheduling out the accommodation which was to be provided at ground floor level.
Employing volumetric modular construction meant that overall construction time was massively reduced, as were costs, and this, in turn, allowed the client to begin trading much more quickly, to everyone’s great satisfaction.
