New research has uncovered almost forgotton details about the first halls of residence.
Several of these images are from the Architects North West (April, 1965). The article, ‘Appraisal: Halls of Residence, Royal College of Advanced Technology’ has been sitting quietly in a cloud folder since visiting RIBA’s archive in May. After some investigative work, we have some newly confirmed details for the University’s first halls of residence.
Unfortunately, the word ‘former’ is just that, as the Davy, Joule and Faraday buildings no longer exist, demolished in the 1990s. If this residential site was here today, I’m sure the buildings would be a welcomed addition to the University’s disappearing portfolio of modernist architecture. The buildings, which look like one single block, are three separate halls, each with common rooms, library facilities and accommodation for more than 500 students, academics and service staff. This vast student residential site was north of Peel Park, past the former Castle Irwell Student Village, and toward the tip of Kersal Wetlands. The main entrance was located on Oaklands Road which opened onto a steeped site with southerly views towards the City of Salford and neighbouring Manchester. Each block had its own common room with sliding partitions allowing the reconfiguration of space for social events and functions. A large kitchen facility serviced all three of the halls.
The students, staff, and facilities entrance had a continuous pedestrian walkway enabling access to all three blocks where communal and administrative accommodation were accessed. Individual study bedrooms were above or below here. Nine study bedrooms created a unit with staircase access, pantry, bathrooms, WCs, showers, and storage. Individual bedrooms had built-in wardrobes and washing facilities. Most study bedrooms were above the main pedestrian access point, but as the valley fell, this changed with bedrooms located below this access point (mainly with Davy Hall) and the communal residents above. The layout of all three halls was executed by designing smaller elements to reduce the scale of individual buildings and create exciting spaces and multiple viewpoints of the campus and city skylines. Positioning of terraces, the main access level, and common and dining rooms all played a role in dramatically changing the viewer’s perceptions, depending on where they were standing or walking.
Each building was built on pile foundations with brick cross wall construction and concrete floors. Dining and kitchen blocks were built using brick and steel foundations. The roofs had timber joists and a three-layer bituminous finish on woodwool slabs. External walls are in facing brick apart from the access level where extensive use is made of a timber framed glazed and boarded panel system. The halls of residence were heated by a central boiler house with an oil-fired boiler, radiators in the study bedrooms, separate metered electric fires and top-up heating in each block, and under-floor heating across certain communal areas. The scheme was funded by the Ministry of Education and cost £726,000, excluding furniture and equipment. The Architects North West described the “finishes, in general, are what we have come to expect from this source of patronage, the materials are robust but sensitively chosen to give an informal and pleasant environment.”
Building work started in 1962, the project handed to the client in October 1964. Architects were Tom Mellor and Partners, with the Job Architect: S. Bradley, Structural Consultants: Ove Arup and Partners, Quantity Surveyors: Langdon and Every, Service Consultants: Hoare Lea and Partners, and Contractor: J. and G. Seddon Ltd.
Tom Mellor (1914-1994), a name which until recently, was unfamiliar. Mellor was a regional architect from the North West of England, born in Blackburn, and who remained loyal to his roots. Many of his buildings are still present today. His work from 1949 and 1967 is described as gentle reasonable modernism with European and Scandinavian architectural inspiration and the values of the 1951 Festival of Britain (Powers, 1994).
Deemed unfit for military service, Mellor worked with the influential post-war architect and town planner William Holford (1907-1975), responsible for drafting the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, and Liverpool’s city architect Lancelot Keay (1883-1974), who led the city’s redevelopment from 1925. He went on to work with Sir George Grenfell Baines (1908-2003) at the Grenfell Baines Group, which later became Building Design Partnership, and saw him involved with the planning of Newton Aycliffe New Town. A War Memorial Housing commission in Lytham St Anne’s in 1947 led to Mellor starting his practice. As the practice developed, it included public and private housing, churches in Lancaster (St Bernadette) and Preston (New Longton). Educational buildings; schools and colleges in Lancashire and Yorkshire and university buildings here in Salford, Sheffield and Birmingham. He worked at the University of Lancaster with Sir Peter Shepheard (1919-2002) as part of Shepheard, Epstein and Hunter, designing several buildings, including the library. Mellor Architects still operates today from their offices in Preston.
Tom Mellor retired from architecture for reasons of health at 53 years old. As well as a highly respected architect, he was a celebrated (slight surrealist) artist inspired by Eric Ravilious and Paul Nash and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. In a short interview in 1955, he stated that he disliked watching television and reading about new brutalism!
“While accepting the main tenets of modernism, Mellor recognised their limitations and from his imagination supplied the quality so often absent in post-war architecture” (Powers, 1994). Further information: Powers, A. (1994, 12/24/1994 Dec 24). Obituaries Tom Mellor. The Independent, p.16.
More Flickr images.
