Broadgate Framework: time-lapse across a 32-acre London campus
Our time-lapse film of 1 Broadgate, another Broadgate Framework project for Sir Robert McAlpine.
The project
Broadgate is a 32-acre neighbourhood in the City of London, beside Liverpool Street station and bordering Shoreditch, Spitalfields and Old Street. Joint owners British Land and GIC are turning it into a mixed-use destination for work, shopping and dining.
Sir Robert McAlpine is principal contractor on the 10-year Broadgate Framework. Its flagship scheme, 100 Liverpool Street, was designed by Hopkins Architects and provides 520,000 sq ft of offices and retail. Around half of the original building was retained. The project reached practical completion on 12 January 2021.
The brief
With several projects running on one busy campus, the team needed three kinds of footage: long-term records of each build, close coverage of one-off engineering moments, and evidence for leasing teams of how people use the spaces.
What we installed
- Long-term, long-range time-lapse: two cameras filmed 100 Liverpool Street from two vantage points, showing the whole transformation.
- Short-term event cameras: temporary cameras filmed major operations, including lowering Richard Serra’s Fulcrum sculpture.
- Footfall cameras: cameras at 100 Liverpool Street, 1 Finsbury Avenue and 135 Bishopsgate recorded how people move through the estate.
All footage went into Site Eye’s secure online portal for the project teams to view and download.
Filming the Fulcrum lowering
Fulcrum is a 200-tonne Cor-Ten steel sculpture by Richard Serra that has stood at Broadgate since 1987. To create a continuous retail route, it was lowered in place by about 1.4 metres on hydraulic jacks while the shopping centre stayed open. Site Eye’s short-term cameras recorded the operation. The footage was used for internal reference, social media and PR, and in a longer online film with The B1M.
How the footage was used
- Site monitoring: the long-term cameras gave site teams a daily view of progress.
- Marketing and PR: clips supported social media, press and The B1M film.
- Leasing: British Land’s asset teams used the footfall footage in talks with potential tenants for the new buildings.
- Project record: a permanent visual record of each stage of the Framework.
Related services
See London time-lapse, construction time-lapse cameras and the online portal. Get a free site survey for a commercial or mixed-use scheme.
Sources
Project facts: Sir Robert McAlpine: Practical completion, 100 Liverpool Street, The B1M: Transforming London’s Broadgate and Wikipedia: Fulcrum (sculpture).
At a glance
- Client: Sir Robert McAlpine, principal contractor, for joint owners British Land and GIC
- Projects filmed: 100 Liverpool Street, 1 Finsbury Avenue, 135 Bishopsgate
- Location: Broadgate, City of London, next to Liverpool Street station
- Sector: Commercial offices and mixed use
- Cameras: 2 long-term, long-range cameras at 100 Liverpool Street, plus short-term event cameras and footfall cameras
- Services: Long-term time-lapse, event filming, footfall filming, online portal, marketing and PR films
“A pleasure to work with, extremely accommodating & helpful, provided thorough information, jumped on ‘urgent’ requests and made recommendations as to get top results.”
Liz Waters, Sir Robert McAlpine
