Relocation into the new home of Engineering and Materials kicks off

13 May 2022

Our Teaching, Learning and Student Experience Team lead a programme of relocation of colleagues continuing throughout the Summer

Following an eight-year design and construction phase, the new home of Engineering and Materials, previously known as Manchester Engineering Campus Development (MECD), opened its doors this week to the first academic and PS teams relocating from North Campus into new purpose-built workspace. This marks the beginning of 16 weeks of people move activity which will see over 2,000 colleagues, PGRs and PDRAs moving through the Summer, ahead of the full opening in September 2022.

Colleagues from the School and Engineering and School of Natural Sciences Teaching, Student and Learning Experience (TSLE) led the way, moving into the Third Floor of Engineering Building A, where they will be joined by our Control, Communications and Signal Processing, Aerospace, Aerodynamics and Autonomous Systems and Fashion Business Technology Teams throughout the next week. Diana Hampson, Director of Estates; commended the work of our teams in bringing this to project to life:

“Planning a large-scale move like this requires a dedicated and determined team, focused on delivering a smooth transition for colleagues against a busy move schedule.  This is the most significant relocation of our people and facilities that we’ve undertaken as an institution and is represents one of the largest moves of its kind ever attempted in the sector. 

“It’s so rewarding to see our original vision of creating an innovative, collaborative workspace come to fruition, thanks to the hard work of countless colleagues.”

Gianpaolo Vignali, Academic Lead for MECD said:

“I'd like to offer a huge and very warm welcome to all teams who’ve moved in. In the new home of Engineering and Materials they will find a purposefully designed workspace that offers a vibrant, thriving space to foster innovation and creativity. As we populate the buildings this will become a hive of activity that works just as well for our colleagues as it does for our students, who moved in last year.

“The new workspace brings together those years of planning and design along with extensive testing with colleagues to create a space that is fit-for-purpose. It’s fantastic to see people starting on their journey and it’s an exciting time as the moves continue to progress.”

The completion of the MECD project represents a step-change for the Faculty of Science and Engineering, in aiming to bring greater connectivity and inter-disciplinary collaboration across Departments in solving some of the world’s most pressing issues, through breaking barriers and providing new state-of-the-art facilities. More information about the facilities on offer is available via a dedicated website.

For general queries around the new Home of Engineering and Materials plus its new facilities, please contact the Project Team directly at askMECD@manchester.ac.uk