Royal Opera House

Contract	Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Value
Client	ROH
Employer	Alan Baxter and Associates

Alan Baxter and Associates were structural engineers for the Royal Opera House development for over ten years. They were eventually replaced during the troubles that surrounded the project but in my time I was associated with the following works:-

Design of the Fly Tower
Refurbishment of the Phase 1 building to allow relocation of businesses from Russell Street into James Street
Construction of temporary Accomodation inside the Floral Hall to provide changing areas for artists displaced from the Phase 1 building.

The Fly tower was to be a monumental structure over an even more monumental basement. The latter to accomodate new set building areas and lifts to bring the completed sets up to the stage. Four concrete legs containing stairs and access lifts provided support for trusses supporting the roof, stage equipment and wall cladding. Unfortunately this element of the works necver came to fruition under ABA.

The Phase 1 accomodation works and the temporary accomodation in the Floral Hall were more successful. The former involved forming openings for stairs to convert the old changing rooms into a two level bar/ restaraunt, and filling in old unwanted voids. The biggest challenge was trying to dissuade the tennant's designers from requiring us to dig up most of the heavily reinforced piled basement slab in order to re-arrange the drainage.

The temporary accomodation inside the Floral Hall was a major structure in itself, being 3 storeys high in composite steel. We also had to prove the existing jack arch slab and its cast iron supporting beams. This we did by a combination of analysis and a historical study of its previous use.