Future Cities Forum interview with Price and Myers on the re-design of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Image: courtesy of Jamie Fobert Architects

Future Cities Forum has been speaking to engineering firm Price & Myers about its important work in supporting the restoration and redevelopment of the Royal Observatory, part of National Museums Greenwich.

Planning permission has been given by the Royal Borough of Greenwich and over £50 million funding has been secured to enable better access and wayfinding for the site. The same team that worked on the redevelopment of the National Portrait Gallery, London, has also been employed on the Royal Observatory project, with lead architect being Jamie Fobert Architects, landscape designer FFLO, heritage architect, Purcell, MEP engineer Max Fordham and lighting designer SMLA.

In June 1675, King Charles II issued a Royal Warrant authorising the construction of the Royal Observatory. Over the centuries, new buildings have been added to accommodate the developing technologies of astronomy. Now, 350 years later, Jamie Fobert Architects and the design team have been tasked with considering how to add to the site to create a better welcome for visitors, give clarity to the visitor journey and create galleries where the full story of time and space can be revealed.

Jamie Fobert writes

'Taking a sustainable and creative approach to dealing with the Royal Observatory Greenwich's unique and important historic fabric, the new project will add a beautiful entry pavilion and garden walk, new accessible routes to the Great Equatorial Telescope and Planetarium, refreshed galleries and new event, retail and café spaces...Fascinated by the sextants, telescopes and other objects in the Collection and how their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century makers blended functionality with aesthetics, we have conceived of the new building elements as 'instruments of navigation' that guide the visitor around the site. Unique to the Royal Observatory Greenwich, we are creating a memorable set of pavilions and stairs in bronze, which test the boundaries of what an astronomical language of architecture can be.'

Price & Myers was first involved with the Royal Observatory thirty years ago when it worked on restoring the Octagon Room in Flamsteed House. One of the founding partners of the firm, Robert Myers, helped with rectifying damage caused to the wooden trusses in the roof. The firm describes the intervention:

'The building forms the earliest part of the observatory, dating from 1675, and contains the Octagon Room which houses the telescopes and a unique domestic interior by Wren. In 1941 massive steel beams were placed above the roof with hangers through the lead work, to support timber trusses with rotten ends. The hangers were causing the roof to leak, damaging Wren's ceiling below.

'We designed a scheme for replacing the rotten timber beam ends with steel channels and re-introducing the original forces into the trusses so that they could support the ceiling once again. Steel plates were placed at the ends of the collar beams and tie rods were inserted and anchored to the bottom ties. Nuts on the tie rods were tightened until the cracks in the timbers had closed and the trusses and the ceiling had lifted by 10 millimetres. Proof that the roof trusses were working once again came when the 1941 hangers became slack. The wartime steel work was then removed.'

Luke Spence, Partner at Price & Myers and part of the team delivering the new work with Jamie Fobert Architects, told Future Cities Forum about the complex design challenges and opportunities of the Royal Observatory project. He explained that while the site dates back centuries, it has only functioned as a museum open to the public since 1958:

'The project is really made up of half a dozen smaller, interrelated pieces. There is careful work being carried out to existing buildings, but also new interventions, designed to make the site more accessible for all visitors. A new lift and external staircase will be introduced beside the Great Equatorial Building (GEB), making its famous telescope accessible to everyone for the first time.

'Across the site, new landscaping resolves the challenging changes in level, improving circulation and tying together the visitor journey, which begins at the new entrance pavilion. By removing the existing ticket office, the new design opens up views and physically connects the northern and southern parts of the site in a way that hasn't been possible before. The narrow two-metre walkway that currently links the north and south buildings is being widened, and an elevated walkway - integrated into the entrance pavilion - will guide people through the site and highlight the museum's many stories.'

All of the new structures across the site required extensive consultation including multiple pre-application meetings and close engagement with Historic England and the Royal Borough of Greenwich Planning Department. The elevated walkway has added an additional layer of complexity and consultation, as it extends beyond the Observatory's formal boundary into Royal Parks land.

Luke stated:

'We knew from the start that the project had to demonstrate meaningful public benefit to justify any new interventions on such a sensitive, heritage-rich site. In order to ensure that any potential harm to the existing fabric is outweighed by the gains, the new buildings have to offer exceptional architectural quality. By bringing Historic England in early and listening carefully to their feedback, we were able to reach consensus. The fact that the design is contemporary - not a pastiche - but thoughtful and sensitive to its context, made a real difference to the planning process.

'Sustainability has been at the core of everything we have done. The team has focused on longevity, robustness, and minimising embodied carbon, not just through material choices but also through form. We want these buildings to last more than a hundred years - that means they must be really well detailed. We've been carrying out embodied carbon studies to inform our decisions at all, even the earliest, design stages. For example, we're exploring the use of calcined clay in our concrete mixes - a newer material with 30-40% less embodied carbon than traditional concrete mixes.

'Given the Observatory's prominence, the hope is that this project can help accelerate the use of these low-carbon alternatives much more widely in the UK - increasing the potential for local sourcing. We're also using structural geometry to drive efficiency. At the Astronomers' Court, we've designed a roof made up of double-vaulted arches - making it possible to use a lot less material in forming these clear open spaces.'

Luke sees this as a project where science, design, and education meet - and where the engineering is intended to quietly inspire.

'It would be lovely to think that as future young astronomers explore these new spaces, they might look up and wonder not just about the stars, but about how the buildings around them were made. It's all science, after all.'

The project is set to complete in 2028.