Our Project with the Tate Modern
Here at European Springs Ireland we pride ourselves in providing high quality products for all of our customers, which is why we ensure that the designs of our springs allow them to be created from many different materials. One example is the project we recently completed with Liberty in London, which allowed us to take on a more creative task – our success with unique projects such as these didn’t stop here, however.
Our location in Beckenham was contacted by James and Taylor Ltd in London (experts in terracotta cladding and façade engineering) to produce a spring mechanism for the new Tate Modern, a gorgeous, world-renowned art gallery – and we couldn’t have been more excited about this!
The Project Itself
The Tate Modern opened its doors on the 17th June 2016, complete with an anti-climb zone to which we contributed our reliable springs. More specifically, the project entailed the manufacturing of retaining clips for holding face plates onto corbels on the building. This anti-climb area covers approximately the first 15 metres up around the base of the Tate Modern, and James and Taylor were in charge of completing this project.
Where Did We Come In?
We were previously approached by James and Taylor in 2013, when we designed, developed and sampled a design for the fixing clips. Due to the fact that the scaffolding in the building was set to come down sooner than expected, the client came back to us this year saying that we only had ten days to finish the spring mechanism.
As Stuart McSheehy, Managing Director of European Springs, said, ‘this really was a race against the clock as the scaffolding on the Tate Modern was being removed and James and Taylor’s anti-climb installation had to be implemented within days.’ And this is exactly what we did.
It wasn’t a straightforward task, though. We had to modify the design slightly from the original sample and, once that was done, we got the news that our material suppliers didn’t have the necessary resources ready to deal with a project like this – but they worked overtime and managed to provide everything we needed! Then, we laser-cut the blanks for the spring clips and tested them, and the final product was a two-part mechanism with a top and bottom spring.
Because this was so urgent, John Champion, Design Director at James and Taylor, came personally on Saturday morning to collect the 650 springs for the project. He was really happy with our work which, in turn, made us happy as well!
In his own words, ‘Stuart and his team could not have been more dedicated to delivering our brief. We appreciated it was a really tight turnaround but they were fearless and achieved the near impossible – securing high numbers of an exceptional quality of products and in a matter of days too.’
New #TateModern is NOW OPEN! Join us for three days of celebration starting today: https://t.co/qw6RVezLlL pic.twitter.com/Mf4sFDqorl
— Tate (@Tate) June 17, 2016
We love it when our clients are satisfied with our work, as we take great pride in manufacturing the best possible springs and wire forms out there. Assignments like this only add to our knowledge and experience, and allow us to learn more each day, so we relish the opportunity to be involved in these one-of-a-kind projects!