The walk-through project, wholly funded by Ballymore Properties, was conceived and led by PR agency Fleishman-Hillard on behalf of Ballymore. Serious was asked onboard by production company Vibe, which is working with RPMC on staging the event. It remains at the high profile Trafalgar Square location for two weeks before moving on to Canary Wharf for a further two weeks. Serious's project manager is Steven Corfield.
The 15m wide, 22m long and 8m high custom-designed building provides 300sq.m of exhibition space and is based on one of Serious's standard one-bay 'Orbit' roofs. It incorporates several bespoke features, including an extension housing a 'Pepper's Ghost' hologram effect of GB's quad Olympic gold medallist, Sir Matthew Pinsent.The structure weighs 23,750kg, including 1,800kg of toughened glass around the perimeter of the base, which allows people to look through into the experience. Constructing the Orbit's bottom panels from glass was one of the most challenging aspects of the project, explains Corfield: "Working with glass was a new direction for us. We received fantastic support from Paul Moores of Glazing Services in dealing with the safety issues using such large sheets of glass in close proximity to the public."
Inside, Serious installed a false floor to allow plasma display screens to be inset around a map of London, to illustrate how the different areas will be transformed if the bid is successful. An internal dividing wall carries further inset plasmas.
Serious supplied a crew of 20, working in continuous shifts, to erect the building in just two days. Trafalgar Square's World Heritage status requires all surfaces to be protected from direct contact with any of the building's superstructure, so everything is mounted on plywood bases and spreader boards. Manual handling vehicles were also subject to restricted use, and could not make direct contact with the ground, all of which contributed to it becoming very much a 'hand-built' project.
All structural calculations and health and safety issues for the building and statue were undertaken by Dragan Kuzmanov, who worked closely with the GLA and several other regulatory bodies. Serious's site production manager was Ellie Hutt.
The 9m high statue of an athlete was commissioned by Serious Stages, who themselves fabricated the steel skeleton and produced all the wind-resistance and base calculations. The statue weighs around 1000kg and is primarily ballasted by 200kg of weight in its base. Atlantic Enterprises then clad and textured the statue in fibreglass, before painting it.
Corfield sums up: "It's been hugely satisfying to see all the differing aspects of the project - statue, glass, images, set - come together in an action-packed two-day build. Everyone has worked as one team to achieve a truly superb result."
