Heritage & Culture
Royal Opera House
Client
Royal Opera House
Location
London
Value
£5.5M
Architect
Stanton Williams
Principal Contractor
Rise
Project Overview
The Royal Opera House ‘Open Up’ project is now complete following an extensive three-year construction effort, in which Swift Crafted played a key role in the design and procurement of internal building finishes. This prestigious project tested our joinery manufacture and installation skills and gave us the opportunity to utilise our supply chain to procure various other specialist finishing elements. These included GRG profiled ceiling coffers and columns, STO acoustic ceiling and drylining systems, polished plaster, patinated brass and stainless steel linings, parquet flooring, and tiling.
With inviting new entrances, extended foyers, bars, and terraces, the heart of this project is the brand-new Linbury Theatre. Working with Stanton Williams architects, the first six months of the joinery programme focused on designing the solid American black walnut balcony fronts for acoustic and technical performance. The design team and M&E trades would regularly meet at our joinery factory to coordinate the various elements making up each bespoke unit. Due to the complexity of working with multiple radiuses and the high volume of services running through the balconies, we agreed that the best approach would be to build a 1:1 softwood mock-up of the most difficult unit. Trying to fit the 24 individual runs of conduit that power speakers, AV control boxes, cameras, and LEDs proved to be an extremely difficult task, requiring three attempts at the mock-up and ultimately leading to a completely new fixing methodology put forward by SCL.
Scope of Works
Linbury Theatre
- Solid timber balcony fronts
- Solid timber removable stalls parterre walls
- Orchestra pit timber wall linings
- Side walls and stair timber linings
- Timber stair balustrade cladding
- Timber stair balustrade capping
- HW stair finishes
- Technical level PPC balustrade
- Timber panel ceilings
- Timber blade wall linings
- Control room timber acoustic windows
- Control room acoustic panel system
- Oil tempered hardwood stage floor
- Hardwood parquet flooring/boarders
- Patinated brass edge trims/movement joints
S1 Foyer & Green Core, S2 Linbury Foyer
- Timber batten ventilation ceilings
- Timber batten suspended acoustic ceilings
- Timber batten acoustic wall linings
- Timber batten/veneered drink shelfs
- Proscenium wall showcase joinery
- Timber batten / veneered reception hub walls
- Reception hub counters/bars
- Picture hanging tracks
- Hanging rack systems
- Cloakroom shelving systems
- Internal patinated brass wall linings & soffit panels
- Internal stainless-steel wall linings & soffit panels
- Internal patinated brass wall linings & soffit panels
- Internal stainless steel wall linings & soffit panels
- Reeded glass linings
- GRG column casings
- GRG profiled ceiling coffers
- GRG profiled entrance panels
- Fire & smoke curtains
- Polished plaster finish
- Acoustic STO ceilings
- Acoustic tile suspended ceilings
- Suspended aluminium cell tile ceilings
- Lino/vinyl floor finishes
- Hardwood parquet flooring/boarders
- Patinated brass edge trims/movement joints
Paul Hamlyn Hall
- Existing floor strip-out
- Engineered solid timber floor finishes and trims
General
- Studwork partitions, drylining, plastering, firestopping
- External render finishes
- WC ceramic & porcelain floor tiling
- Decorations
- Internal factory painted timber doors
- Internal hardwood veneered doors
- High pressure laminate doors
- Pivot doors
- Ironmongery
- Wall mirrors
- HW timber skirting
- MDF skirting
- Sanitaryware
Project Showreel
Challenges
After a lengthy pre-construction phase that required the coordination of over 300 design drawings, as well as the development of a complicated sequencing programme, our contract works on-site commenced in January 2017. Due to the intricate fixing details and the high quality required to satisfy a demanding architect, the team quickly realised this was going to be a challenging project. Effectively working across three ‘mini-sites’—from the S1 Main Foyer & Green Core, downstairs into the S2 Linbury Foyer, and further down into the new Linbury Theatre—three separate teams were established to manage each area.
Led by our operations director Paul Smith and senior commercial manager Jack Hearle, one team started joisting and decking out the new steelwork in the theatre, while two others began setting out and building internal walls, as well as preparing the sub-grids for GRG, STO, and acoustic slatted ceilings in the foyers.
By autumn, the structural flooring and stair substrates had been formed, and balcony units installed, allowing the main scaffold to be struck in the theatre. Every single ceiling and stair panel was then carefully set out and templated before being sent to the joinery factory for machining. This proved to be critical in minimising quality issues, with fewer than 10 out of approximately 500 bespoke panels requiring on-site adaptations or replacement.
Project Completion
Meanwhile, in the foyers, the reception hubs had started to take shape, with the pocket door elevations installed and the metalwork first fix for the large counter units complete. GRG ceiling coffers had been positioned with the surrounding STO finishes underway on S1, while the broken-out curve in the slab of S2 had been lined and prepared for finishes.
Working closely with the M&E contractor, setting out was a time-consuming complication at the ROH. Achieving the intricate joint lines and intersections required to satisfy the architect, while efficiently housing and providing access to the substantial amount of services required to satisfy the technical team, was a challenge. Throughout winter 2017 and spring 2018, the lengthy finishes programme saw the joinery team grow to over 30 carpenters, accompanied by a team of 10 specialist floor fitters.
The ROH was a once-in-a-lifetime project that Swift Crafted are extremely proud to put their name against.
“Simply spectacular”
“I cannot fault the team they provided, the design they completed or the quality of the joinery itself which was simply spectacular.”
