HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Brighton i360 is a moving
observation tower An observation tower is a structure used to view events from a long distance and to create a full 360 degree range of vision to conduct long distance observations. Observation towers are usually at least tall and are made from stone, iron, an ...
on the seafront of Brighton, East Sussex, England at the landward end of the remains of the West Pier. The tower opened on 4 August 2016. From the fully enclosed viewing pod, visitors experience 360-degree views across Brighton, the South Downs and the English Channel. Brighton i360 was designed, engineered, manufactured and promoted by the team responsible for the
London Eye The London Eye, or the Millennium Wheel, is a cantilevered observation wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. It is Europe's tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the Unite ...
. The attraction cost £46 million, with £36 million being funded by a
Public Works Loan Board The Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) ( cy, Bwrdd Benthyciadau Gwaith Cyhoeddus) was a statutory body of the UK Government that provided loans to public bodies from the National Loans Fund. In 2020, the PWLB was abolished as a statutory organisation, a ...
(PWLB) loan through
Brighton and Hove city council Brighton and Hove City Council is the local authority of the city of Brighton and Hove. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It provides a full range of local government service ...
. Formerly known as the "British Airways i360", the project aimed to attract 739,000 paying customers every year. The owner of the site, the West Pier Trust, hoped in 2014 that a successful i360 would lead to the rebuilding of the historic West Pier.


Design

Brighton i360 was designed by the architectural company Marks Barfield, which also designed the
London Eye The London Eye, or the Millennium Wheel, is a cantilevered observation wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. It is Europe's tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the Unite ...
. The building was conceived as a "vertical pier". The tower is located at the shore end of the ruined West Pier, and the design recreated the original Italianate ticket booths of the West Pier, placed on either side of the entrance, serving as ticket office and tea room. The design also includes a beachfront building that allows access to the tower and houses a brasserie, café and gift shop. The tower is designed as a tall needle structure with an ascending and descending circular viewing platform with capacity for 200 people. The tower's initial design had included a
wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year ...
at the top and
rainwater harvesting Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is the collection and storage of rain, rather than allowing it to run off. Rainwater is collected from a roof-like surface and redirected to a tank, cistern, deep pit (well, shaft, or borehole), aquifer, or a reservoir w ...
facilities, to help mitigate the attraction's environmental impact. In October 2015 the developers dropped both these proposals, claiming that the turbine would have stopped the tower's damping system from working and be susceptible to wind damage, and that the water would be "too dirty to be useable".


Construction

Plans were submitted in June 2006 and were approved by Brighton and Hove City Council later that year with construction projected to start in 2007. Following delays of around 15 months, the off-site construction of the sections of the tower began in 2008 in the Netherlands, and work on reconstructing the arches beneath and to the east of the pier to allow the tower construction began in November 2012. Work on the tower itself began in May 2014, with the attraction being scheduled to open in 2016. The Dutch steelwork specialist Hollandia prefabricated the cylindrical steel sections of the tower, known by the team as cans. The column is in diameter, and with a height-to-width ratio of 41.15 to one, it is the world's thinnest tower. The glass passenger pod was designed and built by cable car specialists
Poma Poma, incorporated as Pomagalski S.A., and sometimes referred to as the Poma Group, is a French company which manufactures cable-driven lift systems, including fixed and detachable chairlifts, gondola lifts, funiculars, aerial tramways, peop ...
, which also built the
London Eye The London Eye, or the Millennium Wheel, is a cantilevered observation wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. It is Europe's tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the Unite ...
capsules. The passenger pod is in diameter and holds up to 200 people. The viewing pod travels from street level to a height of before returning to beach level. The pod provides a 360-degree view through curved glass and is heated and air-conditioned, with full wheelchair accessibility and bench seating. It also contains a bar and restaurant in the base building.
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...
felt that the 2006 plan would "provide an outstanding feature on the seafront, and a worthy companion to any successor to the West Pier". In a statement, the West Pier Trust hoped that the project would "regenerate a key blighted city site and send out a loud message that Brighton is open for business". The project was the winner of the Judges' Special Award at the British Construction Industry Awards 2017. It also won The Award for Tall or Slender Structures and The Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence at The
Institution of Structural Engineers The Institution of Structural Engineers is a professional body for structural engineering based in the United Kingdom. The Institution has over 30,000 members operating in over 100 countries. The Institution provides professional accreditation ...
'
Structural Awards The Institution of Structural Engineers' Structural Awards have been awarded for the structural design of buildings and infrastructure since 1968. The awards were re-organised in 2006 to include ten categories and the Supreme Award for structural ...
2017.


Finance

The project was initially intended to be entirely privately funded. The architect, Marks Barfield, sold its stake in the London Eye and found financial backers to build the tower. Following the
financial crisis of 2007–08 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of f ...
, Marks Barfield approached Brighton and Hove Council for a loan. The council initially agreed to support the build with a £14.8 million loan, but this was raised after an unnamed private equity investor told the architects it could no longer proceed and withdrew its planned £15 million contribution in 2012. In March 2014, the project was expected to cost £46 million, with Brighton and Hove Council lending £36.2 million from the
Public Works Loan Board The Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) ( cy, Bwrdd Benthyciadau Gwaith Cyhoeddus) was a statutory body of the UK Government that provided loans to public bodies from the National Loans Fund. In 2020, the PWLB was abolished as a statutory organisation, a ...
and architects Marks Barfield contributing £6 million. The deal included Marks Barfield paying £1m annual profit to the council. The £36.2 million loan was agreed at a Special Policy & Resources Committee in March 2014, the council agreeing to more than replace the lost investment capital and to again borrow from the Public Works Loan Board to effect the new bailout. The Coast to Capital LEP loan of £3 million was raised to £4 million. The West Pier Trust has suggested the project "will cost the taxpayer nothing", but some residents expressed concerns that any repayment risk would be borne by the residents of Brighton & Hove. The council has said that if the loan were not repaid, it would have the option to take over the attraction, find another operator or sell it. In June 2018, disappointing visitor numbers forced the owners to ask Brighton and Hove City Council and the LEP for better loan repayment terms. ''Brighton and Hove News'' reported that "in the first full year, from August 2016, the i360 had just over 500,000 visitors, significantly fewer than the 800,000 predicted." The shortfall in visitors was "blamed on poor weather and the unreliable train service to and from London." As of July 2022, the tower has been reported to owe more than £47 million.
Brighton and Hove City Council Brighton and Hove City Council is the local authority of the city of Brighton and Hove. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It provides a full range of local government service ...
is currently carrying out "cash sweeps", where they will take any spare cash from the tower. The first of these occurred in June 2022, where the council took £700,000 to go towards the debts. Repayments are set to increase and continue until 2046, with the next repayments being £900,000 in December 2022 and £600,000 in June 2023.


Opening and operation

Brighton i360 opened on 4 August 2016. A scheduled fireworks display was delayed for a week due to a storm off the coast. The operator's website states that "flights" depart every 30 minutes, with rides lasting approximately 25 minutes. The pod was vandalised within the first few weeks of operation, with a foot-long crack in the glass being repaired after it was noticed by customers. A spokeswoman described the damage as "aesthetic" that held no risk to customers' safety. The i360 experienced operational issues a month after opening. On two occasions in September 2016 the i360's pod became stuck. A "slight technical fault" resulted in passengers being stranded above ground for a time. Just days later 200 visitors were trapped at ground level for over an hour. The tower was closed for a day for checks. A broken cable in February 2017 caused passengers to become stuck part way through the ride for two hours, and the i360 was closed over the weekend for repairs. In March 2017, the tower was closed due to a temporary fault; the third time the attraction has been closed since it opened. In January 2022, it was announced that
British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ca ...
would end its sponsorship of the tower when naming rights expire on 3 November 2022. In October 2022, it was announced that the tower wouldn't have a sponsor and that from 1 November 2022 would instead just be called the "Brighton i360". The rebrand included new
livery A livery is an identifying design, such as a uniform, ornament, symbol or insignia that designates ownership or affiliation, often found on an individual or vehicle. Livery will often have elements of the heraldry relating to the individual or ...
, a new lighting scheme for the tower and pod, the logo changing to a pink and white design which features a graphic of the tower and new signage for the attraction.


Opposition

During the planning and construction of the tower, a number of local residents and groups campaigned against the building of the tower and the public loan, with a petition gaining 1,449 signatures, including those of architects Paul Zara, of Conran & Partners, and Paul Nicholson, of Chalk Architecture;
Simon Fanshawe Simon Hew Dalrymple Fanshawe OBE (born 26 December 1956, in Devizes, England) is a writer and broadcaster. He contributes frequently to British newspapers, television and radio. He is also now a consultant and non-executive director of public an ...
, the writer and broadcaster, and Malcolm Dawes, chairman of the Brighton Society. Zara has since become a supporter of the i360, declaring, "We should embrace it." Writing in ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' on the day following the launch, Janet Street-Porter criticised the i360, comparing it unfavourably with Brighton's "egalitarian" West Pier.


World's tallest moving observation tower claim

During promotions at the time of the tower's opening, its owners claimed that the i360 was "the world's tallest moving observation tower". The
Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
title was later revoked after Guinness discovered that the Top o'Texas Tower, which opened in 2013, had a moving platform which reached a greater height. The Advertising Standards Authority subsequently ordered British Airways to cease advertising the i360 in this way.


Other uses

In September 2021, car manufacturer
Caterham Cars Caterham Cars is a British manufacturer of specialist lightweight sports cars established in Caterham, England, with their headquarters in Dartford, England. Their current model, the Caterham 7 (or Seven), originally launched in 1973, is a d ...
used the i360 as a
car dealership A car dealership, or car dealer, is a business that sells new or used cars, at the retail level, based on a dealership contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary. Car dealerships also often sell spare parts and automotive maintena ...
showroom A plumbing fixture showroom, Canada, 1921 A showroom, also referred to as a gallery, is a large space used to display products, entertainment or visual arts. Marketing location A showroom is a large space used to display products for sale, suc ...
to mark the launch of the company's entry-level Seven 170, its lightest ever production car. The Seven 170 was displayed alongside other Caterham models in the i360's operation deck. At 137 metres (450 feet) in the air, this temporarily created the world's highest car showroom. In October 2022, Sam Ryder filmed the music video for his song Somebody whilst on top of the roof of the tower's pod. In November 2022, violinist Esther Abrami released a music video of Walking in the Air composed and arranged by
Howard Blake Howard David Blake (born 28 October 1938) is an English composer, conductor, and pianist whose career has spanned more than 50 years and produced more than 650 works. Blake's most successful work is his soundtrack for Channel 4’s 1982 film ' ...
for violin and piano, featuring a nighttime performance from the roof of the tower.


Gallery

I360 construction, sections (June 2015).jpg, Column sections lined up and waiting to be assembled, June 2015 Brighton i360 construction site.jpg, The site under construction in June 2016 I360 Brighton - construction.JPG, i360 under construction in August 2015 I360 at night, 4 August 2016.jpg, i360 on its first night of operation


References


External links

* * * * {{B&H Buildings Buildings and structures in Brighton and Hove Tourist attractions in Brighton and Hove Observation towers in the United Kingdom Towers completed in 2016 2016 establishments in England