Holiday Inn Express at Trafford City shortlisted for “Offsite Project of the Year” at 2018 Building Awards

The Holiday Inn Express hotel project in Trafford City, Greater Manchester, has been selected as a finalist in the “Offsite Project of the Year” category for the Building Awards 2018.

The Building Awards is one of the longest-running and most prestigious events in the UK construction industry calendar. The awards ceremony will take place on 6 November at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

The 220-bed Holiday Inn Express, opened in June 2017, is constructed from purpose-built steel shipping containers complete with factory-finished interior fixtures and fittings, all of which were installed before being delivered to site. The scheme uses a bespoke system developed by modular manufacturer, CIMC, which worked closely with the design team, led by Chapman Taylor, to develop a full-scale, brand-compliant prototype for the project before progressing manufacture for the whole scheme.  

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 6,000m² hotel, located next to Manchester’s EventCity venue on a 1.75 acre site, was a joint venture between Topland, Marick and Mill Lane Estates. The hotel, operated by Tower Hotel Management, is the first Holiday Inn Express ‘Generation 4’ in the UK to be built using a ‘modular’ construction process.

Chapman Taylor’s Manchester studio, alongside the main contractor, Bowmer & Kirkland and modular provider CIMC, developed the Detailed Design for the hotel by adopting a completely different design process. We created a co-ordinated 3D BIM model, complete with input from other members of the design team, including Capita, which enabled off-site works to commence in line with an ambitiously accelerated building programme.

The project was previously named 'Retail/Leisure Project of the Year' at the 2018 Offsite Construction Awards, where it was also highly commended in the 'Best Use of Steel Technology' category. It also won the ‘Offsite Construction’ Award at the 2018 North-West Regional Construction Awards. 

Chapman Taylor is a keen advocate of the potential benefits of off-site construction to clients and interested parties across all development sectors. We believe that volumetric modular development can save substantial time and money for clients while offering a very high quality of finished building.

Congratulations to everyone involved with the Holiday Inn Express project for this well-deserved shortlisting.