University Arts Building, Manchester

Having set a sustainability agenda to improve environmental credentials across their campus, the Manchester-based University wanted to achieve BREEAM ‘excellent’ on their latest project. The new £55 million arts building was designed to incorporate a 350-capacity theatre, radio and television studios and a full-sized art gallery.

The design of the building naturally lent itself well to rainwater harvesting technologies. A vast roof area of 4000m2 and a high daily occupancy of over 2,000 students created the ideal scenario to prevent the use of high-quality drinking water from being wasted for toilet flushing. Stormsaver was able to provide our non-pressurised rainwater harvesting system to provide a sustainable water supply for 76 WCs within the building. Our team specified a large 50,000-litre capacity storage tank located below ground to enable the site to achieve optimum water savings.

We were also able to provide additional UV (ultraviolet) filtration for the site to ensure microorganisms are removed from the rainwater supply prior to distribution to points of use.