Winning VideosMixamate: bringing the art to London
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Mixamate recently carried out jobs at the Chelsea Flower Show and the Royal Academy of Arts, as well as a last minute ‘splash and dash’ at the new Tottenham Stadium the evening before its official opening. Such projects exemplify the growing versatility of mobile batching plants, along with the importance of the mix on site sector to a fully functioning London-town.
Concrete pours are not often associated with the arts & entertainment industries, but behind the scenes (or more accurately beneath them) it’s fair to say that they can play an important role. Around 20% of Mixamate’s day-to-day work now involves jobs relating to London’s booming tourism trade, placing this segment behind only commercial, residential, and transportation sector pours.
It’s not only the size of the entertainment sector that commands such a high volume of mix on site work, but also the often ephemeral nature of the landscapes required. In the case of the Chelsea Flower Show for example, Mixamate made its fifth annual visit to the grounds last month, providing concrete for a number of temporary displays. More recently, our all-in-one machine was called into supply concrete for plinths for statues that will shortly be on display at the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy in Mayfair.
Concrete is naturally associated with timeless structures, but it can also provide a flexible solution to short-term building challenges.
“The plinths we recently had installed at the Royal Academy are temporary,” says Brian Brown, Freelance Site Manager for Sykes & Sons, a 260yr old integrated refurbishment and maintenance company that works with iconic clients and sites across London and the South East. “They were made for the upcoming summer exhibition and we didn’t know exactly how much concrete we would need, which is why we got Mixamate in. Everything went smoothly with minimal spillage, and we’ve had very good feedback from the Academy.”
Indeed, timing is just as important to the mix on site sector itself as it is to the customers it serves. Around the clock flexibility and an ability to access sites easily, even in tight built-up areas around central London, provide two key advantages over static batching plants. Many jobs take place outside of business hours, so as to minimise disruption to the general public. At the new Tottenham Stadium, which we worked on in April, the wheelchair ramps that now adorn the central lobby had been overlooked, and we had to get in there quickly the night before to ensure that the new stadium would come equipped with access. The show must go on, and it must be open to all.
From Buckingham Palace, to the V&A, and just about every other iconic London landmark you can think of in-between, Mixamate has worked on an increasing number of these sites in recent years. Additionally, with the invention of our all-in-one pumping vehicle, which is capable of the delivery, mixing and pumping of concrete from a single vehicle, the company is determined to evolve the traditional mix on site process even further. Delivering concrete to site no longer need be an Odyssey, but is becoming just another part of the day-to-day building maintenance mix.
