Movable walls case study

London/ExCeL Exhibition Centre

Situated in a stunning waterfront location, ExCeL is located in the heart of London’s Royal Docks, and is the UK’s largest exhibition centre. A perfect location for, what is understood to be, the largest ever folding wall installation in Europe, offering some breathtaking statistics:

A total of 7 Km (4.4 miles) of head track
852 no 10,000 mm panels
Installed in 2 Phases: Phase I in 2000 and Phase II in 2010
Phase II linking 3 Km (1.8) miles and 284 no 10,000 mm panels to give the above totals
Phase II also featuring 10 additional sets of folding acoustic walls in the new conference centre, consisting of 139 no panels and 170 metres of track

“It takes intense planning, specifying, capability and preparation to manage a project of this size,” said Julian Sargent, Style’s Group Managing Director, “and we were immensely proud to achieve such a vast installation.” Working in close partnership with architects Grimshaws and main contractors Sir Robert McAlpine.

Style not only had to overcome the sheer height and size of this installation, there was also the need to develop a configuration that would allow as much flexibility as possible in room layout. One challenge being that ExCeL needed the ability to reconfigure the sizes of the male and female toilets based upon the type of event taking place; certain events attracting more women and others more men.

The installed solution offering a system of 21 no sets of specially designed, single secret panels that easily slide back within the wall giving ExCeL the freedom to configure different sized toilet areas into 25%, 50% or 75% of the total. “Everyone associated with this project was absolutely thrilled with the final outcome”, said Julian Sargent, “particularly as it was a project of such monumental proportions that was completed on time, within budget and to ExCeL’s immense satisfaction.”