Coop Live Arena – Project Overview
Schedule
Tue Mar 24 2026 at 06:00 pm to 08:00 pm
UTC+00:00Location
GHD Manchester office 2nd Floor, 4 Piccadilly Place, Manchester, M1 3BN | Manchester, EN
About this Event
The presentation will cover the key technical challenges, from substructure to movement joints at roof level and the experience of constructing the UK’s largest indoor arena. Matthew and Sara were both involved in the structural design from an early stage and were on site throughout construction.
Speakers
Matthew Efford
Matthew Efford is a structural engineer in the Buro Happold Manchester office with 8 years in the industry. He has experience working on projects of varying scale across the globe from heritage retrofit to large scale newbuild, with several award-winning projects in the North West. Early in his career he took part in Buro Happold’s Sustainable Materials Task Group, which has since transcended a small committee and has developed into a standard of wider knowledge sharing across the business.
Matthew was part of the design team for the new Coop Live Arena and spent time on site observing the construction works from substructure to topping out of the roof.
Sara Lonsdale
Sara Lonsdale is an Associate Director at Buro Happold. She has been at Buro Happold for over eight years and leads the Manchester structures team. Sara has over 17 years of experience within the industry and prior to BH worked in London at a number of firms of varying size within the UK and also spent time working as a site engineer in France.
Sara has worked across a variety of sectors including Educational, Commercial, Infrastructure and Aviation leading structural design on large multidisciplinary teams, including a number of key projects in the North West.
Additional information
Complimentary food and drink will be served from 6pm for a meeting start at 6:30pm.
Where is it happening?
GHD Manchester office 2nd Floor, 4 Piccadilly Place, Manchester, M1 3BN, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00


















