Located at the site of the former Scandinavian Hotel in Liverpool’s Chinatown, the new scheme will be a 241-bed student housing project. It will create mix of cluster rooms and studios, plus ground floor retail.
The site consists of the four-storey white stuccoed frontage building facing Nelson Street, with a return on Duke Street, and the larger steel-framed brick warehouse building to the rear. The building will be built in two stages – pre and post WW2 – and would vary in height from four to six stories. To the south west of the 1859 building and within the site boundary, a pair of dilapidated one- and two-storey structures complete the existing buildings.
Unlike previous design approaches, the new building will be constructed in the premise without demolishing the previous structure. It will retain the oldest facades and roofscape. It will also keep as much of this existing structure and fabric as possible while sufficiently incorporating new design elements.
The accommodation building will feature a void through the centre of the new buildings, which will allow sufficient natural light to penetrate. It will also feature a full height entrance space animated by new circulation, lifts, staircases and bridges.
The new scheme will also open up a lost link to Cummings Street, connecting Chinatown to the East Village complex, the wider Ropewalks area and Liverpool One.
The design for student accommodation within the existing building aims to provide an inclusive development. The existing buildings have a complex circulation system with many staircases accessing multiple levels. One of the primary challenges for successfully reusing the building is to introduce a new circulation system that reconciles these levels and is clear to all users of the building.
