Providing essential services and collaborating with a wider team to create new homes, offering fresh starts and renewed hope for the people of Manchester.
Embassy Village, Manchester
Providing essential services and collaborating with a wider team to create new homes, offering fresh starts and renewed hope for the people of Manchester.
Housing - North West
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- Embassy Village, Manchester
Project Overview
We have partnered with Embassy to provide homes and tackle homelessness in Manchester. Embassy are a Greater Manchester-based charity that breaks the cycle of homelessness by offering homes, skills training, and comprehensive support.
Embassy Village, set for completion in 2025, will feature 40 high-quality homes, a village hall, and open green spaces for sports, gardening, and other wellness activities. The campus will also include educational, training, and mentoring facilities to help residents develop new skills and secure employment.
Located beneath 22 railway arches, adjacent to the iconic Bridgewater Canal and River Irwell, Embassy Village represents a long-standing effort from the Curtins team to be part of this purpose-built community project.
Curtins has been involved from the beginning of Embassy Village, providing Civil and Structural, Transport Planning, and Geotechnical services on a pro-bono basis. Our collaboration with various local construction businesses has been crucial to the project's success so far.
We believe this is just the beginning of our partnership with Embassy. We see numerous opportunities to work together to give back to communities, extending beyond creating spaces and buildings, and we look forward to continuing to positively impact the community in Manchester.
The Challenge
The small plot of land for Embassy Village faced numerous constraints: a canal on one side, a river on another, railway arches above, contamination, a collapsed river wall, no drainage, and difficult road access.
Our Solution
We discussed several innovative solutions to the constraints, including using prefabricated containers, but this was not feasible within the budget for the number of homes required.
As an alternative, we returned to traditional methods using masonry and timber. This approach was ideal for the project, and our newly qualified engineers gained valuable experience with these less common techniques. It felt refreshing for the whole team to go back to basics.
Sid Williams | Co-founder & Director at Embassy Comments:
"We realised people spend too long in shelters, so we wanted to cut the middleman out and provide a longer-term housing solution. We were offered land in Manchester which is when we met Curtins. They came onboard very early on with Structures and Civil and other services, offering them Pro bono.
This was my first time working with Curtins, it was my first time venturing into construction, and I am so glad I had the support of Curtins. They have been involved right from the beginning of the project up to completion, which I am very grateful for. They’ve also been looking for other ways to help, such as company Volunteering Days, bringing me in to talk to staff in the Manchester Office, some of which have been working on the Embassy Village. We even have staff members supporting us now by donating to Embassy on a regular basis. It feels as though it started as one thing, and it evolved into loads of different ways of support.
We recently won ‘Social Impact Initiative of the year’ at RESI Awards and, we sent out the framed version to the whole team including Curtins, because we felt it should be owned by the whole team. ‘It takes a city to raise a village’ and that is what is happening here, the award belongs to everyone.
We will see success, for Embassy Village through the lives changed in the long run, and by seeing how those people will go on to impact others positively in the future.
There are many companies out there that could have jumped in, but Curtins did, and it takes a certain generosity of heart to do that and make this impossible thing happen. I wanted to commend Curtins for being those people."
Awards
‘Social Impact Initiative of the year’ at the RESI Awards 2024
Testimonial
“Curtins have been involved right from the beginning of the project up to completion, which I am very grateful for. They’ve also been looking for other ways to help, such as company Volunteering Days, and bringing me in to talk to staff in the Manchester Office - some of which have been working on the Embassy Village... There are many companies out there that could have jumped in, but Curtins did, and it takes a certain generosity of heart to do that and make this impossible thing happen. I wanted to commend Curtins for being those people.”
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