Cultural Buildings

Theatres, museums, libraries, event venues. Often listed.

What we take on

• Structural design for new build, alteration and extension
• Intervention in listed structures, agreed with the heritage authority
• Verification for stage machinery, store and archive loads
• Strengthening of historic floors and roof structures

Listed means: as little as possible

The task is not to build an adequate structure but to make the existing one adequate with the smallest defensible intervention. That requires the actual material properties to be established rather than assumed – masonry testing, timber probing, steel analysis. Designing conservatively here loses the listed fabric.

Loads that surprise people

Library stores and museum archives reach imposed loads above many industrial floors. Stage machinery hangs from the roof structure at points and dynamically. Both have to be fixed before the concept.

With the heritage authority

We agree interventions, reversibility and material choices with the heritage authority early. The approach for existing buildings is under existing structures.