Our London team have been appointed to work alongside Avison Young (Project Managers) and Ellis Williams architects on the refurbishment of the London Science Museum’s IMAX cinema.  The South Kensington based Science Museum welcomes over 3 million visitors a year and the IMAX cinema already has one of the biggest screens in the UK, bringing science to life for its guests to such an extent that they feel like they are taking part in the action. 

Adapting the existing structure provides a whole series of interesting challenges. Built in the 1990’s the IMAX theatre is supported in amongst a whole series of truss hung “trays”.  The refurbishment includes retaining the original projector and adding two new laser projectors creating a further tonne of load to the existing hung projector room structure.  Careful forensic analysis of the existing structure has been carried out to assess this and other carefully planned interventions in the upgrade of the museum. 

Perhaps the tallest challenge will be getting the new IMAX screen into the building!  It will be a gigantic 20 metres long screen and the brief is to get it into the building whole.  Ed Robinson, Senior Engineer on the project is currently working out exactly how this will be achieved.  The likelihood is that the screen will be craned up to its new location and angled into the building.  This promises to be an exciting event and is likely to draw as big a crowd as any premiere production.

Completion is due by early July 2020, just in time for the huge influx of summers visitors and school holidays…we’ll be booking our seats in advance to watch this visual display of engineering skills.