{"id":527086,"date":"2025-08-26T12:03:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T11:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/?p=527086"},"modified":"2025-09-25T10:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T09:03:14","slug":"museum-tour-sir-robert-mcalpine-returns-to-smithfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.constructionnews.co.uk\/project-reports\/museum-tour-sir-robert-mcalpine-returns-to-smithfield-26-08-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Museum tour: Sir Robert McAlpine returns to Smithfield"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Project name:<\/strong> London Museum
\nClient:<\/strong> London Museum
\nConstruction manager:<\/strong> Sir Robert McAlpine
\nContract type:<\/strong> JCT Construction Management
\nTotal London Museum project cost:<\/strong> \u00a3437m
\nArchitect:<\/strong> Stanton Williams Associates, Asif Khan Studios and Julian Harrap Architects
\nStructural engineer:<\/strong> AKT II
\nBuilding services engineer:<\/strong> Arup
\nProject cost management:<\/strong> Gardiner & Theobald LLP
\nStart on site (Poultry Market):<\/strong> September 2023
\nCompletion (Poultry Market):<\/strong> End of 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After a fire destroyed London\u2019s Smithfield Poultry Market in 1958, Sir Robert McAlpine was employed to build a new one, which it did between 1961 and 1963. Designed by architect TP Bennett & Son and structural engineer Ove Arup & Partners, the building boasted the largest spanning concrete dome in Europe at the time, which would later earn it a Grade II listing.<\/p>\n

Sir Robert McAlpine is now back at the Poultry Market on a mission to reinvent it. Together with the neighbouring 19th century General Market building, the Poultry Market will be the new home for London Museum, formerly called the Museum of London.<\/p>\n

Smithfield Market, which covers the area between Charterhouse Street and West Smithfield in Farringdon, has one foot in the past and one in the future. While Sir Robert McAlpine is busy transforming the eastern half of the market into a premier tourist destination, traders are still operating in the western end, selling meat and poultry between midnight and 7am on weekdays. \u201cIt\u2019s a 24\/7 environment. When the market shuts, we start,\u201d says London Museum construction director Joe Martin. \u201cThat\u2019s not without its challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the activities needed to transform the two buildings into a museum have taken place behind closed doors, with little or no space to operate outside the buildings\u2019 footprints.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing everything inside the buildings has been challenging,\u201d says Sir Robert McAlpine project director Richard Hill. \u201cWe have had to hollow out the buildings, bring materials in and take materials away, which has really required a huge amount of upfront thinking and planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the General Market due to reopen to the public next year, the museum doesn\u2019t want to reveal too much about its current state. But it wouldn\u2019t betray any confidences to say that the transformation of an almost derelict building to a series of breathtaking spaces is impressive.<\/p>\n

The Poultry Market, which is not due to reopen until 2028, was a working market until August 2023. Construction work began the following month.<\/p>\n

Structure within a structure<\/h3>\n

While the General Market building will house the lion\u2019s share of the museum\u2019s exhibitions, the Poultry Market will combine back office space and public areas. One of the most impressive elements of the Poultry Market\u2019s transformation is the insertion of a huge steel frame, rising from basement to level one, threaded through the existing structure.<\/p>\n

While functioning as a market, the building consisted of a central trading area, covered by a 70 by 40 metre concrete dome, with individual units around its perimeter. The units ran from basement up to level one, each with a small staircase and lift shaft and a concrete monitor roof (see box, right).<\/p>\n

The Poultry Market\u2019s next incarnation will see a balcony running around the inside of the building at first floor level, allowing visitors to peep into some of the top-floor rooms of the former traders\u2019 units, which will be home to laboratories, research areas and offices. The ground floor will house two galleries for temporary exhibitions alongside a learning centre and associated areas dedicated to visits from schools. And the building\u2019s basement, formerly a cold store for poultry, will become a store for exhibits, some on view to visitors.<\/p>\n

As well as containing the ground floor galleries, the new steel frame, erected by Severfield, has created an additional mezzanine space at first floor level that extends out from the balcony along two of the building\u2019s sides and will house displays and installations. Erecting the frame required demolition of parts of the ground floor slab and the threading of steelwork through the existing fabric of the building, tying it in to points at ground floor and first floor level.<\/p>\n

The temporary works, designed by Keltbray and Wentworth House, are complex, says Hill. \u201cWhen we procured the demolition and concrete packages, which were competitively tendered, Keltbray tendered for both as part of its offering,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat has given us an advantage where there are overlaps. In some cases, the temporary works are installed as part of the demolition and can only be removed once the permanent works are in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

London Museum opted for a construction management contract, because it seemed the only possible option given the risks, says Martin. \u201cBecause of the challenges that a historic restoration programme throws up, we felt that construction management would put us, as a client, in a better position in terms of understanding the cost, managing the cost and managing the programme,\u201d he says. \u201cDesign-and-build would have been a real challenge on a building of this nature. I don\u2019t think that asking a contractor to take that level of risk at that point in time would have been feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the specialist contractors that are working on the Poultry Market, such as Keltbray, were already on site in the General Market building before Sir Robert McAlpine was engaged in May 2023. London Museum employed Paye Stonework & Restoration in 2020 for a \u00a312.5m reroofing contract and Keltbray in 2021 for a \u00a317.5m demolition and structural package directly on the General Market. These contracts converted to trade contracts under the construction management system once Sir Robert McAlpine was on board. Some firms, Keltbray, Phoenix ME, Imperial Ductwork Services and the facade contractors, worked across both buildings, while others worked on just one.<\/p>\n

Taking shape<\/h3>\n

Although there will be nine entrances to the new museum complex, the main route in will be via either end of West Poultry Avenue, which runs between the General Market and the Poultry Market. The Avenue is now covered with a new roof with portals in place at either end. The avenue\u2019s concrete floor will be an exhibit itself, with shards of pottery cast into it.<\/p>\n

When CN<\/em> visits the site, the last of the structural steel and concreting works have just been completed and the application of 2,500 square metres of acoustic render was about to start on the underside of the concrete dome.<\/p>\n

At ground-floor level, work is underway on the existing loading bays on the north and south elevations of the building, which have helped feed the materials around the build. \u201cWe are clearing these and doing structural enhancements to the slabs,\u201d says Hill. \u201cWe have taken off quite a thick layer of concrete to create new road levels and we\u2019re having to install new concrete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Down in the basement, plant rooms are at various stages of progress. One room, which will house a district heating system for the complex, has already been handed over to district heating supplier Citygen, which is now installing equipment. Other basement rooms will house attenuation tanks to hold rainwater so it doesn\u2019t overwhelm the sewers.<\/p>\n

The manufacture of replacement steel windows and the large lunette windows that sit under the dome was about to start offsite. \u201cThey form part of the building\u2019s listing so there are quite stringent requirements to replicate the old, while upgrading them for thermal and acoustic performance to meet modern-day building regulations,\u201d says Hill.<\/p>\n

Surprises galore<\/h3>\n

Although the Poultry Market was constructed some 80 years after the General Market, the younger building still had a few surprises in store for the team.<\/p>\n

Take the concrete floor slab. Structural engineer AKT had the reinforcement drawings from the 1960s so it could plan how the new steel structure would be tied into the existing building. But the drawings did not tell the story of the reinforcing bar\u2019s composition. \u201cThe rebar had very high carbon content, so high that we could not weld to it,\u201d says Hill. \u201cSo we had to find alternative ways to connect into it such as by using couplers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other places the rebar was denser than recorded, or there were more layers of reinforcement or unexpected holes through walls. In the basement six large cold stores had been divided by concrete walls, some of which required beefing up with concrete jackets.<\/p>\n

Different mindset<\/h3>\n

Although Hill is treading in the footsteps of his predecessors who constructed the Poultry Market building, refurbishment and repurposing on this scale requires a very different approach. \u201cIt is not the same as building things from scratch; you have to be in a different headspace,\u201d says Hill. \u201cYou have to consider that things may not be as you think they are, which takes a change in mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

With work underway on so many fronts, it can be difficult to see progress towards the final goal. But walking around the project, Hill reflects on just how much has been achieved. \u201cWe\u2019re starting to tick things off and it\u2019s easier to see how things will look in the future,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s a refurb nuance, when the small pieces finally start to come together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Timber on the roof<\/h3>\n

A major issue was the state of the monitor roofs, which had been constructed from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). \u201cWe always knew that they were RAAC, but we did not know the condition until we could get into the units, when we did a full visual inspection and intrusive surveys,\u201d explains Sir Robert McAlpine project director Richard Hill. \u201cWe knew there would be damage. As soon as RAAC concrete absorbs water, it can lose some of its structural properties.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the damage assessed, the decision was taken to replace every one of the 38 concrete roof planks with cross-laminated timber (CLT) ones. \u201cWe wanted something that we could get in to replace the RAAC quickly and easily,\u201d says Hill. \u201cThere were several benefits with CLT, but the programme constraints were tight for getting a new design done and the panels manufactured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lifting the new CLT roofs into place required detailed liaison with the City of London, with weekend road closures on Charterhouse Street. With several tunnels criss-crossing the area, calculations to check the loading of mobile cranes as they moved around were vital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese discoveries can put the budget under pressure,\u201d says London Museum construction director Joe Martin. \u201cThe monitor roofs were a significant discovery, and we have had to dig deep within the contingencies. But the key thing about this team is that we look for solutions that don\u2019t impact the programme and the budget.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Project name: London Museum Client: London Museum Construction manager: Sir Robert McAlpine Contract type: JCT Construction Management Total London Museum project cost: \u00a3437m Architect: Stanton Williams Associates, Asif Khan Studios and Julian Harrap Architects Structural engineer: AKT II Building services engineer: Arup Project cost management: Gardiner & Theobald LLP Start on site (Poultry Market): September …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":527120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[559,557],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-long-reads","category-project-reports"],"yoast_head":"\nMuseum tour: Sir Robert McAlpine returns to Smithfield | Construction News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Project name: London Museum 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