Embassy Village: Tackling Homelessness in Manchester

architect's CGI mockup of embassy village

Manchester homeless charity Embassy is planning a new community to help the city centre’s homeless get back on their feet: Embassy Village. Crookes Walker are proud to be providing our services free of charge to this worthy scheme, and helping to make a real difference to the lives of homeless people in Manchester.

The Vision

The Embassy Bus has been operating in Manchester for two years, offering temporary overnight shelter to the homeless in a re-purposed tour bus. Whilst this provides much needed respite, it cannot alone end homelessness or help promote independence.

Embassy Village is something else: a community to provide support through the transition from life on the streets back into local communities.

The site will consist of 40 modular “pod” homes, with a village hall serving as multi-purpose community space. A reception pod will provide site security and the surrounding area will be transformed into green space with allotments, sports facilities and social spaces.

Each resident will have their own private home, enabling them to secure employment, claim benefits and gain the skills to move onto fully independent living. Embassy estimates the average stay will be around six months, with wrap around support provided by their team throughout that time.

The proposed village site is a self-contained, currently derelict site between the Bridgewater Canal and River Irwell in Manchester City Centre, comprising 22 railway arches.

16 Pods and the village hall are planned for phase one, with a further 24 pods to be added in later phases.

Crookes Walker’s Consultancy Services

Crookes Walker are providing a range of services to ensure the site is developed efficiently in a safe, cost effective and sustainable manner.

Our initial duties included site surveys to identify existing services and limitations which may impact on the wider design team’s proposals.

We will be providing design solutions for the external service routes for pod installations and determining the servicing strategy within pods and the village hall, in line with acoustic limitations, fire safety and energy planning requirements.

We aim to celebrate the village’s location with strategic lighting design to enhance the visual impact of the railway arches and local environment.

We look forward to collaborating with the wider design team throughout this project, working together we can have a real impact on the lives of vulnerable people in our local community.

Next Steps

A public consultation on the scheme runs until 18th February 2021. Visit the Embassy Village website to have your say om the proposals.

Following the consultation, Embassy aims to submit their planning application in early Spring 2021.

You can also support Embassy’s work by donating via their website: https://embassybus.org/

To mark INWED22, we spoke with some of our women engineers about what made them decide to be engineers, and how their careers are developing with CWC:

ellie schofield, building performance engineer

Ellie Schofield

Building Performance Engineer

Time at CWC:

2 years, 11 months

Was engineering presented to you as career option in school / college?

No, engineering was not presented as an option to study at my school and the careers available in the sector were not discussed. I was influenced by a family member and a tutor at college that engineering / construction could be a rewarding career, and then became very interested in sustainability within construction whilst at college.

What’s your favourite part of your job?

My favourite part about my job role is feeling like I can make a difference. Due to the negative impacts of global warming at the moment, we work closely with clients to reduce CO2 emissions, which will, in the long run, have a positive impact on the environment.

What is the most valuable lesson you have learnt during your studies and career so far?

My most valuable lesson so far has been to do what I want to do, without the influence of others. For example, I didn’t have any friends studying a construction or engineering-based course when I started my studies, but did it anyway as I knew it was what I wanted to do as a career.

What do you think puts women and girls off engineering / construction?

I don’t believe females are necessarily put of the idea of working in the industry, but they are not given advice on the opportunities in the same way that males are. Therefore, I think this leads to many females not having the confidence to go for an education or job role within the sector.

What do you think the industry can do recruit more women?

I believe the industry should aim to work more closely with schools, to ensure that children understand the roles within the construction and engineering sector, so girls know from a young age they can take an engineering career path.

What advice would you give to girls considering a career in the construction industry / engineering?

The advice I would give is that females can be successful in the construction / engineering industry, it does not matter what gender you are. If you are interested and willing to learn, anyone can build a good career.

jessica seddon, cad / revit technician

Jessica Seddon

CAD / REVIT Technician

Time at CWC:

3 years, 10 months

Was engineering presented to you as career option in school / college?

In all honesty, it wasn’t. It was something I looked into myself along with other similar roles such as architecture. In high school student were also pushed strongly towards university, with apprenticeships and work-based learning routes really downplayed. They unfortunately had a reputation of being only for ‘naughty’ or ‘less intelligent’ students, which is completely incorrect!

I imagine things have improved since 2012 when I left school. I really think that if we want to bring more women into the industry that’s where it starts. At that age when students are thinking about their careers, we need to help then identify the best way to get there.

How have you developed in your current role?

For the past two years I’ve been steadily managing the CAD/RVT/BIM workload within our Liverpool office. I am progressing away from the standard expectations of my role as a technician and more into a lead/management role, which I have been enjoying a lot.

For me it has felt like the natural progression of my career path. I enjoy the challenge and balancing the changing workload. I want to help develop and improve processes and understanding, for myself and the business as a whole. I am passionate about what I do, and I want that passion to translate into the quality of end product CWC puts out there.

What role do you think digital engineering will play in the future of the construction industry?

I really think that Revit and the process of BIM is still being underutilized industry wide. The potential is there for truly collaborative design and I hope to see everyone across the construction industry invest a lot more resources into understanding it.

I feel in our industry that communication can be lacking between different parties involved in a project, and that slows things down. This is where I think Revit and the 3D Collaborative design process can be utilized to its fullest. I’d like to see more projects using cloud based services such as BIM360, where all disciplines feed their model information into one central file.

This level of collaboration does pose its own unique challenges, and it is very different from the standard information releases used across the industry at present. But it has so many advantages, and if used correctly it helps the 3D modelling process to aid pre-emptive design, helping to eliminate problems that could arise in the construction phase early on.

To me, this is what Revit should be used for. It’s a fantastic bit of software that is so much more than just 3D coordination and making nice looking renders for presentations.

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