Most dry risers go in while a building is still a shell. This one went into the Troubadour Theatre, Canary Wharf when the venue was all but finished — staff preparing for upcoming performances around the works. Gemini AMPM designed, installed and certified the riser at short notice, with zero remedials required after inspection.
Gemini AMPM were engaged at short notice, in the late stages of the theatre’s construction, to design and install a new dry riser main through multiple levels of the building — and to do it before the venue’s operational launch. The catch: the building was already largely complete. The routes a riser would normally take were gone, buried behind finished fabric.
Structural and aesthetic constraints meant routing stayed fluid throughout, adapted onsite as design changes landed. Access was tight — backstage corridors and service areas that demanded careful sequencing. And the theatre was live, with staff actively preparing for upcoming performances around the works. Every intervention in the existing fabric had to be minimal, practical and acceptable to look at.
A new dry riser main installed through multiple levels of the theatre, threaded into a nearly completed structure with minimal disruption to the existing fabric — accommodated practically, in a way the venue could live with, and compliant with BS 9990 through every route change.
Optimal riser routes and termination points determined with the client’s design team, then continually re-surveyed and agreed onsite as structural and aesthetic constraints forced changes. Rapid decision-making kept every adjustment compliant and kept the programme moving through tight backstage and service areas.
Full testing and certification on completion: the system commissioned successfully, with no remedial actions required following inspection. The theatre met its operational deadlines and its fire safety obligations — zero defects, zero remedials, and a programme maintained despite the fluid routes and the late start.
The team answered with agility: alternate riser routes surveyed and agreed in real time with the client’s design team, every adjustment checked against BS 9990 and building control requirements before it went in. Noisy and intrusive works were scheduled with theatre management to fall outside rehearsal hours, keeping the production on track while the riser went up.
The riser was installed, tested and commissioned with no remedial actions required post-inspection — and the theatre met both its operational deadlines and its fire safety obligations. A last-minute, live-environment installation, delivered on programme despite fluid routes, with exemplary cooperation between our engineers and theatre personnel throughout.
PQQ-ready evidence and client references behind this project are available on request. A named engineer, not a call centre, comes back within 24 hours.