48


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A mezzanine level was added to provide office space and improve disabled access


barrier, which effectively created a flexible flat roof. The team then erected further scaffolds on top, from which they could complete the roof ’s demolition and reconstruction. Meanwhile, a temporary internal rainwater pipe system collected any rain water and channelled it outside via a small window in the façade. This single tiny 1.4 m-high by 1.2 m-wide window at the west-


ern-most end of the façade played a pivotal role in the project. Apart from providing an exit for rainwater pipes, it was the single main access point for materials for the second floor. “The site was very congested, access via the existing stairs was restricted and there was no space on site for a tower crane,” explains Thornton. “The window was too small to get a man through and we had to be very careful to cut timber to short enough lengths to ensure that operatives could carry them along the scaffold and then turn them into the opening,” he says. In the original building, movement around galleries was very


restricted so Page \ Park decided to transform circulation routes and improve access. Previously, visitors would often walk straight into the ground floor café, and then not bother to visit


the exhibitions on the upper floors because the only way to reach them was via the steep staircases or the small lift. The architect’s solution was to design a bespoke, 48-person


capacity hydraulically powered glass lift, to run through the core of the building. This would deliver people to the top floor, allowing them to trickle down through all the galleries toward the ground floor. With its three sides and the roof made entirely of glass, the lift provides a great platform from which to view the building, and it also doubles as a goods lift able to transport even the gallery’s largest paintings. The lift car stands on a solid hydraulic ram that extends into a


15 m-deep, 90 cm wide borehole in the ground. Digging the bore- hole through solid rock proved difficult, especially as the 15-tonne piling rig used to do it could only gain access to the building by removing stonework to create an opening in the façade. Meanwhile, horizontal circulation between each wing of the


building has been vastly improved by knocking through two 3.5 m-wide doorways in the existing walls on either side of the central Main Hall area on the ground and second floors. A new


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