Lyons O’Neill have been shortlisted along with 4 other practices for a new installation in the heart of the City. The sculpture marks a part of London’s High Street 2012 initiative and will remain in place for the duration of the 2012 Olympic Games. It will stand on a site historically known as ‘Ale-Gate’, so called because it was the only City gateway open to all. It is hoped the new landmark will underscore the fact that the City now welcomes, rather than drives away, its neighbours. We responded to both the temporary nature of the installation and the congested nature of the site by introducing a light touch structure which can be installed using the minimum of plant and without closing the road. This fully interactive installation can be simply demounted leaving the site exactly as it was and can easily be reinstalled in another location as a more permanent piece.
As part of an exhibition piece Lyons O’Neill were required to design a series of spaces which not only housed the exhibition but were located on the top of a multi-storey car park in Peckham. The centre piece of the exhibition was a surveillance balloon which could be winched from the roof providing a live feed to internet of the surrounding views. The key constraints of the brief were that all the structures had to be fully demountable, we couldn’t fix directly to the roof and all elements had to bought to site in a vehicle no bigger than a transit van. Working with the team we developed a concept for a group of silo structures which could be assembled from panels insitu and demounted at a later date. The main issue structurally was that we weren’t able to fix directly to the roof which presented us with the problem of how to hold down the silos and the balloon in such an exposed location. After considering a number of options we came up with a system of ballasting through sand bags which allowed us to not only safely hold the structures down but provide a simple robust and flexible solution which could be installed y the army of volunteers on hand to help.
On this project we worked with the exhibition designers to create a moving exhibit within a new exhibition space in Bologna, Italy. Working with the ramped existing structure we took our inspiration from the funicular railways of the past. Our concept was to create a set of modular structures which could be repositioned on a track to reshape the exhibition spaces linking rooms in different configurations to suit the exhibition needs. Not only did the structures need to be functional in their ability to be reconfigured but they needed to be an exhibit in themselves expressing their movement in an industrial way. Working with the Italian building designers we expressed our concepts to through sketching to ensure nothing was lost in translation and the principles of the design were clearly communicated.
A solar powered landmark synchronised with the tide, HIGH…..LOW serves as a tribute to the historical importance of Deptford’s all-butforgotten tidal creek. The artwork, an illuminated sign made up of the words HIGH…..LOW, spans 21m and is 1.5m high.
Tottenham’s new accommodation The Lodge is complete. The accommodation Lodge building for the players, is within a 2 storey cross laminated timber structure, while the sports facility, a gym, treatment area, dining room, tactics and office for the 1st team players and staff, will be within a 2 storey steel frame structure on a reinforced concrete basement. The complex project required close collaboration with the design teams as the scheme utilises all traditional structural materials: concrete, timber, steel and masonry, in conjunction with modern building materials such as cross laminated timber and glulam beams. Lyons O’Neill have been involved since the concept stage of this project, and played a key role with the architects obtaining planning permission, particularly in our role designing an amenable SUDS scheme for the 0.6Ha site and providing remedial schemes for the existing buildings of historic interest.
Lyons O’Neill’s role on this project has been to develop the system and facilitate the fabrication of a series of doubly curved ceiling panels, covering >2,500m2 of leisure space. The overall surface of the ceiling geometry is made up of six bays of 182 timber panels, each with a unique geometry. We have made the complex forms buildable by introducing a grillage of bespokely formed ribs behind each surface panel. The panels are each individually supported using simple bracketry onto the curved primary steel frame of the roof. The geometry for the facing panels, the ribs and their half lapped connections have been created using Grasshopper parametric software for Rhino. These parts have then been exported in a way that they can be CNC’d on a flat bed router. Once cut out, the design allows the panels to each be intuitively assembled in a relatively low-tech workshop environment. We tested the assembly of these items by printing them out on our 3D printer to make sure we were all happy before being cut in the workshop. Computational design enabled us to freely adapt the design as the coordination with other disciplines developed, by intelligently updating each of our output drawings, without having to change each drawing individually.
Lyons O’Neill are involved in the conversion of Derrys department store into student accommodation and a hotel in Plymouth. The existing building is to be developed into residential accommodation, with a hotel occupying part of the site. Commercial space will be retained at ground floor level. The development involves the addition of a new lightweight storey to the top of the existing Derry’s building, the formation of 3 new internal courtyards and the addition of 4 storeys to the top of the existing Co-op building. The scheme also involves spanning both a double storey virendeel truss and 3 single storey virendeel trusses over a major retail unit and over a live substation. These support 4 storey’s of residential accommodation. We have been working alongside the architect and contractor to develop a structural scheme which retains as much of the existing structure as possible, integrating new structure where required. By reviewing the archive drawings of the building in conjunction with the change in building usage from retail to residential, we have been able to justify existing columns and foundation structures for the additional load, minimising the requirement for new foundations and new support structure.
Lyons O’Neill are involved in the conversion of Derrys department store into student accommodation and a hotel in Plymouth. The existing building is to be developed into residential accommodation, with a hotel occupying part of the site. Commercial space will be retained at ground floor level. The development involves the addition of a new lightweight storey to the top of the existing Derry’s building, the formation of 3 new internal courtyards and the addition of 4 storeys to the top of the existing Co-op building. The scheme also involves spanning both a double storey virendeel truss and 3 single storey virendeel trusses over a major retail unit and over a live substation. These support 4 storey’s of residential accommodation. We have been working alongside the architect and contractor to develop a structural scheme which retains as much of the existing structure as possible, integrating new structure where required. By reviewing the archive drawings of the building in conjunction with the change in building usage from retail to residential, we have been able to justify existing columns and foundation structures for the additional load, minimising the requirement for new foundations and new support structure.
A new building and the refurbishment of two existing buildings to provide facilities for military musicians. The new building houses a band practice hall and various rooms for individual and small group music practice. The existing buildings house sheet music and instrument storage, plant and changing facilities. The new building connects to one of the existing buildings. A hybrid steel frame and CLT panel structural solution is adopted for the new building superstructure. This comprises a two storey link element in load bearing CLT, and a single storey long span double height space in which a steel frame supports CLT roof and wall panels. A suspended reinforced concrete ground floor slab is utilised due to the cohesive ground in the presence of trees. Pad and strip foundations support the loads from the superstructure and ground floor. The existing buildings are of traditional load bearing brick construction with timber first floor and roof. Cast iron columns provide internal support to the first floor and high level wall to one of the buildings. The works involved addressing multiple defects to the existing buildings including the provision of remedial ties between floor joists and walls, repair of masonry arched lintels and repairing timber degraded by water ingress. Image credits: Peter Langdown
