Makers Place, Great Charles Street

Located in Birmingham city centre, in the heart of the historic Jewellery Quarter, Makers Place development is a modern build-to-rent residential community designed to deliver high-quality urban living. The project contributes to Birmingham's growing residential skyline, providing contemporary accommodation and amenity space within a well-connected city centre location.

Great Charles Street – Block C forms part of the Makers Place Block C residential development. The wider scheme comprises three residential buildings arranged around a podium and a lower-ground car park. Block C is a six-storey residential building operated by Moda Living, with a top occupied floor approximately 17.5 meters above ground level.

Jensen Hughes provided external wall fire engineering services to support completion of the EWS1 assessment. The commission included a desktop review of the façade design, a review of material classifications and fire performance, an assessment of cavity barrier and fire-stopping provisions, a review of construction quality assurance records and construction-phase site inspections to verify key elements of the external wall installation. Regular site inspections were undertaken during construction, alongside a high-level review of contractor quality assurance records and specialist cavity barrier inspection reports.

The assessment covered three façade systems comprising precast concrete panels, curtain walling and aluminium spandrel feature bands. Jensen Hughes reviewed the external wall construction against the Building Regulations requirements, including the fire performance of façade materials, compartmentation, cavity barriers, fire stopping and façade interfaces. The project also included verification of the external wall construction to support EWS1 certification, with the completed assessment identifying the façade as suitable for an EWS1 Option A1 classification.