Sound delivery at MediaCityUK

MediaCityUK is the new home for the BBC in the North

The Theory

Located in Manchester, MediaCityUK is the new home for the BBC in the North and one of Europe’s biggest, most ambitious and technologically-advanced building projects ever undertaken.

Work on the 200-acre development is set to be completed in 2011, when it is anticipated that MediaCityUK will become a leading worldwide centre for the creative, broadcasting and digital industries.

Phase one of the development, which started in June 2007, covers more than 36 acres and has seen the creation of one million square feet of studio, office and retail space across five buildings, residential apartments, a hotel and a public piazza.

The project’s management contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, began its search for the right mechanical and electrical contractor at the beginning of 2008. NG Bailey was chosen to take on the challenging building services remit, after proving its aptitude for extensive attention to detail and rigorous standards in quality.

The Practice

For NG Bailey the £69m contract represented the largest measured ongoing account for building services.

Work included mechanical and electrical, fire alarms, access control, CCTV and plant rooms. NG Bailey’s specialist ICT arm delivered a separate £3m contract, dealing directly with the BBC, to install sophisticated structured cabling.

Over 500 NG Bailey personnel were involved during the course of the project, including a 40-strong management team, half a dozen of them working exclusively on the budget, to keep the main contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, and the end user client, Peel Media, fully informed about all financial aspects.

Whilst on site, two critical factors influenced the entire construction process. Firstly, both buildings had to remain able to broadcast throughout the project. Secondly, noise had to be eliminated.

The NG Bailey team ensured that any equipment which clanked, buzzed or moved was isolated, to protect the buildings from vibrations and then acoustically treated for sound. Getting the systems to work noiselessly together and then changing over from one to another as a result of failure, required innovative thinking and detailed design to create a robust and dependable solution.

Acoustic testing was completed to an ISO standard, with the sound split into different octaves and investigated for problems. In order to counteract unwanted sound, white noise was introduced or grills were amended to achieve a different air flow and resonant noise.

Extensive and rigorous checking, double-checking and cross-checking was a constant feature of the installation work with an independent commissioning engineer appointed to witness every aspect of the project and prove compliance.

Although NG Bailey’s practical completion for the entire project was achieved earlier in 2010, post-contract changes are taking place as MediaCityUK gears up for the arrival of the BBC in 2011.