Buro Happold provided structural, civil and building services engineering for this prestigious project to rebuild Shakespeare’s historic Globe Theatre in Southwark. The rebuilding includes a Shakespearean museum in the basement, a pub, restaurant, museum entrance and a theatre foyer forming a piazza. The site also houses backstage areas, offices, shops and flats.

This remarkable building combines modern engineering methods with traditional craft skills. Construction processes were kept as authentic as possible in order to faithfully recreate the medieval structure. The large thatched roof is the first allowed in London since the Great Fire of 1666 – a water drenching system is connected to the fire system to provide an automatic total soaking of the thatch in the event of a fire.

With no surviving plans of the original Globe Theatre, design of the building involved significant research and investigation, including full computer analysis of the timber frame structure to ensure it would perform correctly. The deep basement was serviced to provide visitor comfort, although the unique 1,500-capacity theatre itself has no heating and minimal lighting in order to recreate an authentic Elizabethan atmosphere.

Date: Completed in 1997