Iconic Sets and Environments: Scott Fleary’s most memorable projects

Over the years the team at Scott Fleary has been lucky enough to be involved in some of the most high profile and memorable projects in the creative construction industry. This has included theatre, live events, TV, news and sports as well as art installations. While every project is memorable for Scott Fleary there are some that really stand out in terms of showing just what the team is really capable of.

• Theatre. The two founders of the business previously worked extensively in theatre before forming Scott Fleary, so this has been a natural fit for the company. Creative and innovative set design is what the artisans of Scott Fleary are known for.and the team has an extensive range of experience in this area. One of the highly memorable projects that Scott Fleary has worked on is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time at the Apollo Theatre. The client was the National Theatre and the stage design was required for the production’s move to the Apollo. Tight budgeting and a wide range of challenging elements required plenty of creative problem solving. This included engineering a back wall structure for the set that weighed 4.5 tonnes and was required to track all the way upstage to all the way downstage. At the same time a cantilevered staircase had to emerge from the wall with an actor climbing up the wall and down the staircase. The solution proved to be a track installed under the stage at either side with a metal plate connecting the carriages in this track to the wall.
• Television. The team at Scott Fleary has delivered a wide range of projects in the TV world, from The Voice to X-Factor and Game of Games. Each of these projects required innovative designs – such as an inflatable pool with giant washing machines at one end and a giant soap box containing several inflatable swiss balls for Game of Games – and have required the integration of technology into set design. One project that really stood out in TV terms was the Big Brother Live Stage Staircase. This was obviously the focal point for the Big Brother live events and so a crucial part of the show. The client Endemol invited Scott Fleary to build a cantilevered spiral staircase, which can rotate in use. There were various stages involved in the creation of this iconic staircase, including adjusting the connection between the staircase and the revolving base and testing the staircase with the weight of 16 humans. It was a challenge to create a cantilevered rotating staircase but the team at Scott Fleary had the vision and the expertise to pull it off.
• Art installation. A different type of setting entirely, Scott Fleary artisans have also worked on a wide range of art installations including some large scale designs. The team has been instrumental in helping to bring the vision of artists to life and has been a vital part of many high profile projects in London, including the Southbank Peace Pavilion. Another very innovative project involved the work of artist Alex Chinneck – called Take My Lightning But Don’t Steal My Thunder. The artist wanted to bring his floating house illusion to Covent Garden and chose the team at Scott Fleary to help make this happen. This required an exact replica of the 184 year old market building built from a steel and polystyrene frame and designed to look as if it had broken away from the rest of the building. The building needed to look weightless and as if it was floating in the air with no ties or support. Plus, there were a wealth of restrictions related to the market itself, including that the cobbles of Covent Garden could not be overstressed and it was not possible to drill into the piazza. Nevertheless, Scott Fleary was able to help Alex Chinneck deliver this incredible floating building that stopped many passersby in their tracks.
• Live events. Stepping into the arena of live events, the artisans of Scott Fleary have made contributions across numerous industries and have been key in construction for some major events. This included producing the podiums for the 2012 London Olympics. Other live events where the team has made its mark include set design for New Order Manchester Festival and creating the stage performance area for the Bjork Cornucopia Tour. The set design for the Cornucopia Tour was particularly memorable for the Scott Fleary team, as it had to appear as if it was floating with only a minimal part of the structure visible to the human eye. The stage was designed and built in London, where rehearsals were taking place for the tour, and then had to be packed up and freighted to New York.
• Retail. Scott Fleary’s work in retail has seen the team support some of the biggest names in the industry, including Westfield. Another key project was the work that the team did for the Marketing Store Adidas Oxford Street. The design here centred on the launch of the new Alphaledge 4D shoe, which has a digitally printed lattice structure that is made from liquid resin. As a result the display that was created was designed to show the shoes emerging from a vat of liquid resin. This kind of illusion required a lot of attention to detail as well as a mechanism that was compact and could be easily disguised to make the story believable.

Over the years the team at Scott Fleary has been involved in a range of iconic sets and environments that have been incredibly memorable. Whether high profile TV shows or some of the best loved theatre productions, the team has always brought the same expertise and passion to every project. From a company built on the foundations of theatre experience, today Scott Fleary is a wide-ranging creative construction company with the skills and experience to bring a vision to life in any environment and with few limits on what can be achieved.