Photography by Michael Leckie
“The building form rarely changes but keeping it functioning is a very hard task,” says Guy Middleton MRICS, founder of SW1 Surveyors, reflecting on a decades-long career working in the theatre sector.
“There’s always a deadline: you’ve already booked in the press night, there’s no moving the programme, you’ve got to control the design and construction and get back open again.”
Projects under his stewardship include the Royal Festival Hall Estate on London’s South Bank, the Comedy Theatre (now known as the Harold Pinter Theatre) and the Royal Court Theatre on Sloane Square – the latter being where our interview takes place.
Having started as a building services engineering apprentice aged 16, initially in office refurbishments, Middleton moved to Chesterfield Properties PLC in 1986 where he spent a decade. Becoming chartered in 1993, he eventually found his way to the West End, working on a plethora of theatres, cinemas and venues.
One of his first major projects was tripling the screens of the Curzon Soho cinema from its initial single screen and incorporating THX technology (a high-fidelity audio-visual certification, synonymous with the films of George Lucas). From there, Middleton went on to work on a sister Curzon cinema in Mayfair, as well as a sizable proportion of London’s ‘Theatreland’ district.
Theatres throw up some distinct challenges. From the noise of air conditioning units potentially distracting both performers and audiences, to the huge amount of heat produced by old-school stage lights. And as Middleton points out, “most of them just want to stay live, so you’re working around their opening hours. Even when we were extending the stage at the Phoenix Theatre, we kept every show of Blood Brothers going.”
There have been some dramatic moments along the way, from a thespian reacting badly to the smell of fresh paint to an impromptu appearance of a boilersuit-clad engineer during a performance. Nonetheless the show must go on, even when that means coming to the rescue when a water main burst. “Theatres certainly do have their moments,” Middleton muses.
“Theatres certainly do have their moments” Guy Middleton MRICS, SW1 Surveyors
Treading the boards
Many theatres are older buildings and often listed, which adds another layer of complexity. Whether you’re installing air conditioning or putting fire protection in, “even things like an alteration in signage should get planning [permission],” Middleton explains. The Royal Court brought its own unique set of challenges for a surveyor. A Grade II listed landmark, it needed a mechanical and electrical upgrade to achieve sustainability goals, with meticulous planning required to preserve the building’s historic fabric.
The project also included a refresh of the bar and café area to maximise revenue throughout the day as well as in the evening. Middleton was appointed as the strategic advisor and client representative, guiding the board of trustees through the project. “When you're doing the initial transition, it's high-risk stuff. You've got to have some pretty brave trustees to say ‘push the button’.” The architects Haworth Tompkins describe it as “Europe’s most important centre for new writing, housed in an exquisite Victorian theatre” listing the design process as “partly invasive, uncovering, demolishing, extending and reconfiguring to maximise space and yet still generate an atmosphere of rich, deep theatricality.”
On Haworth Tompkins, Middleton says: “They’re specialists in working on heritage projects. We worked with them on the Bush Theatre, where they wanted to carry out the same idea of being able to see bits of the old building. It wasn’t designed to look perfect.” As well as a strong aesthetic narrative, the resulting numbers are pretty positive too: the Royal Court’s Theatre carbon footprint was reduced by 30% and bar and café revenue was up by a quarter.
Staying in west London for the moment, Middleton also worked on the refurbishment of Chelsea Football Club’s West Stand, acting as an independent project advisor. “There’s a narrow window when the football season shuts,” he explains. The project saw an overhaul of the catering facilities to meet the needs of today’s football fans during huge surges, such as half-time during a match. The project involved stripping out extensive building services infrastructure, getting those intense operational requirements just right, as well as navigating planning and fire safety regulations alongside contractor delivery pressures.
Moving towards the centre of London, Middleton acted as a strategic development advisor at the Royal Festival Hall Estate, creating a new extension to the building, introducing retail to the railway arches and refurbishing the main auditorium. This was also a Grade I listed site so certain heritage constraints were present.
Among the additional challenges was the funding requirement and lettable strategy. “In those days (2002), that was an unattractive part of London and nobody wanted to invest. But we managed to introduce turnover rents and good marketing; the client got the investment in and now I think the rents are probably about the same as in Covent Garden.”
“When we were extending the stage at the Phoenix Theatre, we kept every show of Blood Brothers going” Guy Middleton MRICS, SW1 Surveyors
Building-changing technology
Some of the pressures of working in the entertainment sector have been relieved by technology. LEDs have largely replaced those older stage lights. Heavy-duty air handling units and extensive fire alarm cabling have given way to wireless solutions and building management systems. “Seating was always the big driver – could we get sight lines we wanted,” says Middleton. “We used to get a sketch of the dimensions of the stage and then roughly work out the viewing angles from each seat to see what we could and couldn't see. Now of course, that's all done digitally.”
Middleton for his part has harnessed these advancements in technology during his career. He set up H4 Group in 1996 which specialises in property CGIs, VR tours, flythroughs and verified views. “I was having a tricky time with planning and I advertised for an artist. It just so happened that the artist who responded was Chinese, we got on and started a studio in Nanjing, just like that.”
“In those days, CGIs were a luxury and computer power was in its infancy, now it’s come on leaps and bounds. So that gave me two strands to my work: the surveying firm and the CGI business.” He continues, “BIM (building information modelling) is the next interesting phase, as it tends to be more about how you want to de-risk the construction process. CGIs de-risk the aesthetics where the client is interested.”
Digital advancements would certainly have come in handy when he was completing a correspondence course in estate management at the University of Reading. “I used to submit my essays by post every week,” he says. Despite this, he enjoyed the mix of academic and on-the-job learning he experienced. “You were looking at a textbook then seeing the same thing on site: that was brilliant to me. The same goes for planning as well as contract law in terms of getting that balance right. That’s why I think apprenticeships are a massive opportunity for the construction industry: that combination of training in the office, on site and some college study.”
Reflecting on the potential for cross-industry learning and noting that construction might draw inspiration from the dynamic, iteration-focused approaches used in spacecraft manufacturing, Middleton says: “The snagging is where you learn from the design mistakes. Maybe a tech billionaire will go in and do something. The industry’s crying out for it.”
