Apartments rise up in former hat making district

Steelwork has recently been completed on a new luxury eight-storey residential block at Milliners Wharf, Manchester.

The apartments represent the first phase of a City Lofts residential scheme, involving two more blocks, in the former hat making district of Ancoats.

Working on behalf of main contractor Ocon Construction, The AA Group (TAAG) erected all structural steel on the project.

To minimise the depth of the 7.8m span floors, Westok Ultra Shallow Floor Beams (USFB) were used. Typical sec- tions used included USFB 314 x 165/305 x 71.5 and USFB 314 x 254/368 x 130.

At the basement car park level, heavier USFB transfer beams support columns to the above eight residential floors. Stability to the steel frame is pro-vided by concrete cores which contain stairs.