Team effort from OFR on the £1.3bn cultural regeneration of London’s Olympia

Our stellar London-team, with support from OFR colleagues across the country, has been working on the £1.3bn regeneration of the London Olympia Exhibition Centre.

OFR has been working as part of the Future Olympia design team since 2017 and provided fire engineering support including specialisms such as structural fire engineering.

OFR will now be novated to be part of the construction team alongside Laing O’Rourke, whose £600m construction programme has now commenced.

The developers anticipate a total of 80,000m³ of bulk excavation at the site — the equivalent of 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Due to the size of the site and the number of buildings included in the works, construction will utilise a total of 13 tower cranes and 10 hoists. This includes the tower crane currently installed to construct the Olympia West Hall which, at a reach of 75-metres, is the biggest on a non-infrastructure project in the UK.

The result will be seven new buildings — including the previously announced citizenM and Hyatt Regency hotels, the 4,400-capacity live music venue that will be run by AEG Presents — and will be completed in 2024 and the 1,575 seater Olympia Theatre that has just Confirmed as the new home of Trafalgar Entertainment.

The works will also see the Olympia Central Hall demolished while the iconic structures of Olympia National and Olympia Grand, both Grade II listed, are being preserved and incorporated into the site’s overall redevelopment and will continue to host events while works are taking place.

Investors and developers of the project are Yoo Capital and Deutsche Finance International (DFI), the former’s managing partner Lloyd Lee, said: “This is an important and historic moment in the redevelopment of Olympia. Olympia Central first opened in 1930 and now we bid farewell as we usher in an exciting new era for the site and London as a whole. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, works are well on schedule. In fact, from a construction perspective, we have been really fortunate and have taken maximum advantage of the exhibition areas being vacant so everyone on site has been able to spread out and maintain social distancing.”

Added our OFR design director Stewart Dabin: “We are thrilled to be a part of this project team. This is a momentous development for London, and we are proud to be helping breathe life back into an important cultural location.”