7 minute read
David Adams goes behind
from Connections - Summer 2019
by NICEIC
Most electrical contractors who carry out work in major theatres have fi rst completed similar projects in much smaller theatres. But Playfords, which has its headquarters in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, has taken a diff erent route. Th e fi rst major theatre refurbishment project to which its staff have contributed was at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.
Playfords provided the electrical, mechanical and plumbing services for the Opera House’s Open Up project: a £50.7 million remodelling of a large part of the building. It has entailed a complete redesign of the Opera House’s entrance foyer, which has been extended by 50 per cent to create an 11,000-square foot social and cultural hub. Th is is now open to the public every day from 10am and includes a new café, a 250-seat restaurant, and public performance areas. Th e Opera House’s secondary venue, the Linbury Th eatre, has also been upgraded, turning a studio theatre into a beautiful 400-seat auditorium with state-of-the-art acoustic and lighting systems.
Th is isn’t a leap from obscurity to the top table. Th e fi rm fi rst worked at the Opera House in 2012, successfully designing and installing a 3200A TPN generator distribution system that would allow the building to maintain power in the event of transformer failure. Having observed the way Playfords dealt with the space issues and other practical constraints of working within the building, the venue put the company’s name forward when the time came to fi nd contractors who could complete the enabling and early works for Open Up.
Playfords started working on electrical and mechanical systems for the relocation of the venue’s toilets in autumn 2015, then won the contract for electrical and mechanical works on the main project. Up to 50 Playfords staff
BY DAVID ADAMS
Curtain call
For a fi rm making its stage debut, the Royal Opera House is quite a location to choose. But that’s exactly what Cambridgeshire fi rm Playfords did, working on not one but two projects
and sub-contractors worked in the Opera House at various times between September 2016 and project completion two years later.
MAPPING THE BUILDING
Th e fi rst phase involved identifying and locating the existing services within the building’s complex labyrinth. “We had to plan how to isolate and divert various items: sub-mains, cold water systems, supply and extract ventilation, sprinklers, fi re alarms, stage systems and so on,” says contracts manager Steve Wood. “It’s a very heavily serviced building, mechanically and electrically. You’ve got multi-
292,350: THE NUMBER OF METRES OF CABLING REQUIRED ON THE PROJECT
discipline lighting and power trunkings, multiple stage lighting and AV trunkings, so there had to be a lot of tracing and diversion work upfront.” 3D modelling was then used to plan how the requirements of the project were to be met within the architect’s designs. A huge quantity of cabling was used to connect every individual speaker, spotlight and M&E service in the diff erent spaces in the building. In total, the project required 292,350 metres of cabling. Th e complex plans for the way the services were to be routed around the new systems were also subject to disruptive change at short notice.
The Linbury Theatre has been turned into a 400-seat auditorium with state-of-the-art acoustic and lighting systems – seen here before the ceiling was put in, with the electrical work still visible
Wood cites one particularly problematic example, to the fl oor in the building above the Linbury Th eatre. Th is entailed the removal of a 12-duct system and re-instatement of a more complex 10-duct format to enable maintenance access to the theatre’s new ‘fl ying’ systems above a new technical grid. Th e ducts had to be realigned to fi t alongside containment systems and multiple pieces of scenery, lifting equipment and structural steelwork. “Th at was quite challenging,” says Wood, with a trace of understatement.
While the work continued, the Opera House’s main auditorium, which seats 2,256 people and stages more than 900 performances per year, remained fully operational, adding signifi cantly to the challenges facing Playfords and other contractors. In September 2018, Alex Beard, the Opera House’s chief executive, told Th e Guardian that completing Open Up while the Opera House’s programme of performances continued had been “akin to open-heart surgery while running a marathon”.
As Playfords began the commissioning phase of the main project in early 2018, the company also took on more work in the Opera House, installing a full M&E package in its new shop and working on an upgrade of the main auditorium’s fl ying systems alongside stage mechanics specialist Tait. Th e two companies developed a valuable working relationship and are now working together on other theatre projects.
Th e business also installed a new external LED lighting scheme on the exterior façades, including a colourchanging system that allows the Opera House to seemingly change colour at the touch of a button – for example, turning red, white and blue to commemorate national events, turning red for Valentine’s Day, or showing the colours of the rainbow for an LGBT-related event.
OPENING NIGHTS
Th is fi nal part of the project was completed in August 2018. Th e new foyer spaces opened offi cially to the public on Friday 21 September 2018, with the Linbury Th eatre opening on 3 December. “It’s by far the most architecturally and technically challenging job I’ve ever worked on,” says Wood. “Very, very high pressure. From day one to completion your brain is nowhere else. But we developed very good relationships with the client and the construction management team. I feel immensely proud to have worked on the project and extremely proud of the team.”
Playfords managing director Alan Tuohy also highlights the importance of teamwork, both in collaboration with the other contractors and specialists working on the project, and among the Playfords team. Th ree members of the Playfords site team – site manager Ashley Snart, mechanical supervisor Dean Mason and apprentice Francesca Di Stefano – were interviewed about the project on BBC television’s Th e One Show.
Th e Playfords team is now looking forward to its next major theatrical project, just up the road from the Opera House at the Th eatre Royal, Drury Lane – one of the oldest and most famous of all London’s theatres. It closed for a £45 million refurbishment project in January, which is due to be completed in time for the opening night of the new stage version of Disney’s Frozen in September 2020.
Playfords will be delivering electrical and mechanical services throughout. “It’s a very complicated building to work with and they’re putting in as many services as the Opera House,” says Tuohy. “We’re looking forward to it.”
£50.7M: THE TOTAL VALUE OF THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE’S OPEN UP PROJECT
IMAGE: HUFTON CROW
The Royal Opera House’s new foyer includes a café, a 250-seat restaurant and public performance areas
David Adams is a freelance business journalist
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