ABBA Voyage Arena | Rainscreen — London

Overview

The ABBA Arena rainscreen is a demountable exterior timber screen that envelops the hexagonal-plan Arena building constructed for the Abba Voyage show in London. Covering an area of over 7000 sqm, the screen consists of 1400 finger-jointed larch fins with a total length of about 15km.  It also incorporates an insect mesh and is factory fire treated and stained with a pre-grey accelerated aging oil to homogenize the timber as it ages naturally towards silver grey

ATOL was responsible for the fire protection coating of the rainscreen.

Which were preassembled by Xylotek in Bristol into 204 independent panels, each optimized for road transport to the site and for future relocation of the theatre.

A pair of assembly jigs were developed that allowed the varying splay angles for each panel to be accurately created, at the production rate required by the tight project program.

The installation was carried out by Xylotek in the winter of 2021, requiring well-considered crane lift methods to raise the panels – especially those on the underslung parts of the screen.

The Arena, located in Stratford, London, hosts the virtual ABBA Voyage concerts and is designed to be demountable for future relocation.

Timescale

2 months

Services Used