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New Ways - BOAC Maintenance HQ Heathrow photo courtesy Modernism in Metroland
BOAC MAINTENANCE HEADQUARTERS, 1950–55
Owen Williams’ most prolific activity as architect engineer was during the inter-war period, starting with his work at the British Empire Exhibition (1921–24). In recognition of this he was knighted, at the relatively young age of 34. After WWII, his work was dominated by the development of the forthcoming motorway building programme, principally the M1 motorway; but as this was proceeding, Williams was also working on two of his most significant architectural designs: the Daily Mirror building (1955–61) his last project; and the BOAC maintenance headquarters, though not well known or critically acclaimed, considered to be his greatest architectural achievement.
BOAC, the airline which in 1972 introduced scheduled Concorde services, was to make use of the building. However, it was the post-WWII Ministry of Civil Aviation acting as client that briefed Williams for the design.
The quality and scope of Williams’ work on the BOAC building bears the hallmark of a lifetime’s experience and knowhow in one material– concrete. Up until then, most aircraft hangars in the UK had been built out of steel to standardised designs. Unlike the Boots ‘Wets’ factory (1930–32) in which repeated elements in a rationalised construction process were used to create a large-scale building, the BOAC maintenance HQ was built of a number of large-scale (larger than life) elements, each of which required a fresh engineering approach. The scale and complexity of each element made for an inimitable demonstration of singular architectural design.
It was set out as four separate hangars, each measuring 102.5metres by 42.7metres in an efficiently organised plan form, and there were two symmetrically positioned doorways at the front and again at the back of the rectangular block. Separating yet connecting the four hangars there were cross-axes, one long, one shorter, of engineering and service areas along the two internal sides of each hangar.
In order to make a door opening wide enough to allow the largest aeroplanes of the day to enter the hangars, Williams devised an in-situ concrete arched doorway opening comprising a counterbalanced bracketed arch springing from each jamb position with a centrally positioned V-sectioned beam bridging between them. The twin arched brackets were aligned either side of the centre line to allow unobstructed movement for the sliding folding doors. To extend the reach of the cantilevered arms, huge elevated concrete counterweight chambers were constructed. These were filled progressively to maintain equivalence as the weight of the load from the roof construction onto the door arches increased. When complete, each chamber contained ballast medium of approximately 1,000 tonnes. This technique required the sophisticated use of reinforced concrete, impossible from mass concrete alone. The use of deadweight in a superstructure had first been adopted by Williams at the Empire Pool construction at Wembley (1934). Here he had used the weight of vertical concrete fins to balance the weight of the long- span portals.
The engineering hall, built as a 264.3-metre spine between the front and back pairs of hangars, can be considered as a structure within a structure. With a 27.4-metre span (measured from the column bases) and with raked cylindrical columns at bay centres of 5.5metres supporting overhead arched beams, there is a clear span of 23.2metres due to the inward-angled columns. The overhead beams run parallel to the roof structure in the storey height below the roof. The raked columns support a series of galleries jettied out progressively from one floor to the next, overlooking the engineering hall. Gantry cranes serve the engineering workshops, supported by crane rails running longitudinally and bracketed to the columns. The shorter arms of the cross-form space provide storage areas and multi-storey offices above. These are short spans and were conventionally built of column and beam construction.
The roof itself is constructed from 3-metre-deep V-shaped trussed beams on the 5.5-metre grid supported at the arched doorway structures and spanning 42.7 metres. Similar spans from the front and back of the building leave a slightly lesser span over the engineering hall, making a total depth of 128metres in three roughly equal spans. The roof is glazed in the style of many of Williams’ buildings, to provide good levels of daylight: glazed pitches were generated by the lattice of the concrete trusses, with integrated gutters on the lines of the lower members. Comparison can be made with the ‘ridge and furrow’ pattern of glazing developed by Sir Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition building of 1851, exactly a century earlier.
In the flank walls of the building, which also contained column and beam construction for multi-storey offices, Owen Williams rejected any formal symmetrical composition in favour of continuous horizontal bands of simply framed windows. These were spaced by similar bands of brickwork between them. These elevations are in contrast to the highly engineered (and therefore acceptable) symmetrical composition provided by the arched door openings and counterbalances of the front and back elevations. Although appearing monotonously uniform, the flanks showed that Williams no longer sought an applied architectural style, but was happy that engineering alone displayed sufficient architectural quality. Source New Ways: The founding of Modernism
New Ways - BOAC Maintenance HQ Heathrow photo courtesy Modernism in Metroland
BOAC MAINTENANCE HEADQUARTERS, 1950–55
Owen Williams’ most prolific activity as architect engineer was during the inter-war period, starting with his work at the British Empire Exhibition (1921–24). In recognition of this he was knighted, at the relatively young age of 34. After WWII, his work was dominated by the development of the forthcoming motorway building programme, principally the M1 motorway; but as this was proceeding, Williams was also working on two of his most significant architectural designs: the Daily Mirror building (1955–61) his last project; and the BOAC maintenance headquarters, though not well known or critically acclaimed, considered to be his greatest architectural achievement.
BOAC, the airline which in 1972 introduced scheduled Concorde services, was to make use of the building. However, it was the post-WWII Ministry of Civil Aviation acting as client that briefed Williams for the design.
The quality and scope of Williams’ work on the BOAC building bears the hallmark of a lifetime’s experience and knowhow in one material– concrete. Up until then, most aircraft hangars in the UK had been built out of steel to standardised designs. Unlike the Boots ‘Wets’ factory (1930–32) in which repeated elements in a rationalised construction process were used to create a large-scale building, the BOAC maintenance HQ was built of a number of large-scale (larger than life) elements, each of which required a fresh engineering approach. The scale and complexity of each element made for an inimitable demonstration of singular architectural design.
It was set out as four separate hangars, each measuring 102.5metres by 42.7metres in an efficiently organised plan form, and there were two symmetrically positioned doorways at the front and again at the back of the rectangular block. Separating yet connecting the four hangars there were cross-axes, one long, one shorter, of engineering and service areas along the two internal sides of each hangar.
In order to make a door opening wide enough to allow the largest aeroplanes of the day to enter the hangars, Williams devised an in-situ concrete arched doorway opening comprising a counterbalanced bracketed arch springing from each jamb position with a centrally positioned V-sectioned beam bridging between them. The twin arched brackets were aligned either side of the centre line to allow unobstructed movement for the sliding folding doors. To extend the reach of the cantilevered arms, huge elevated concrete counterweight chambers were constructed. These were filled progressively to maintain equivalence as the weight of the load from the roof construction onto the door arches increased. When complete, each chamber contained ballast medium of approximately 1,000 tonnes. This technique required the sophisticated use of reinforced concrete, impossible from mass concrete alone. The use of deadweight in a superstructure had first been adopted by Williams at the Empire Pool construction at Wembley (1934). Here he had used the weight of vertical concrete fins to balance the weight of the long- span portals.
The engineering hall, built as a 264.3-metre spine between the front and back pairs of hangars, can be considered as a structure within a structure. With a 27.4-metre span (measured from the column bases) and with raked cylindrical columns at bay centres of 5.5metres supporting overhead arched beams, there is a clear span of 23.2metres due to the inward-angled columns. The overhead beams run parallel to the roof structure in the storey height below the roof. The raked columns support a series of galleries jettied out progressively from one floor to the next, overlooking the engineering hall. Gantry cranes serve the engineering workshops, supported by crane rails running longitudinally and bracketed to the columns. The shorter arms of the cross-form space provide storage areas and multi-storey offices above. These are short spans and were conventionally built of column and beam construction.
The roof itself is constructed from 3-metre-deep V-shaped trussed beams on the 5.5-metre grid supported at the arched doorway structures and spanning 42.7 metres. Similar spans from the front and back of the building leave a slightly lesser span over the engineering hall, making a total depth of 128metres in three roughly equal spans. The roof is glazed in the style of many of Williams’ buildings, to provide good levels of daylight: glazed pitches were generated by the lattice of the concrete trusses, with integrated gutters on the lines of the lower members. Comparison can be made with the ‘ridge and furrow’ pattern of glazing developed by Sir Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition building of 1851, exactly a century earlier.
In the flank walls of the building, which also contained column and beam construction for multi-storey offices, Owen Williams rejected any formal symmetrical composition in favour of continuous horizontal bands of simply framed windows. These were spaced by similar bands of brickwork between them. These elevations are in contrast to the highly engineered (and therefore acceptable) symmetrical composition provided by the arched door openings and counterbalances of the front and back elevations. Although appearing monotonously uniform, the flanks showed that Williams no longer sought an applied architectural style, but was happy that engineering alone displayed sufficient architectural quality. Source New Ways: The founding of Modernism