Acoustics case study

New Cross, Manchester (Broadside)

Background

274-unit mixed residential scheme at New Cross, Manchester. The £65m scheme opened in Summer 2020, comprising a mixture of one-to-three bedroom apartments, rooftop pavilions, basement car park, courtyard concierge and ground floor commercial units.

Challenge

One of the challenges surrounding the ground floor commercial units was to reduce risk to the client and provide assurance to building control that noise from the commercial units would not adversely affect residents in the apartments above. Given that the operators of the commercial units were unknown, we based our assessment on typical restaurant noise levels.

Solution

We set noise limits in the commercial units to maintain acceptable levels in the apartments above and placed responsibility to the operators to provide upgraded sound insulation if these noise limits were to be exceeded. This reduced the risk to the client of future noise complaints.

We allowed for a programme of four site inspections, arranged in close collaboration with the site team to observe a range of site-specific issues over a period of 9 months. On a scheme of this size, comprising two blocks and a construction duration of around 2 years, this allowed us to monitor workmanship through contractor changes and identify potential acoustic related issues at a stage of the build where they could be rectified.