2. What was the ‘project environment’ for this project? The British Airways (BA) London Eye is the world’s largest observation wheel with a diameter of 135 m, carrying 32 capsules of up to 25 people on a half-hour continuous ride above London.

Its unique engineering design comprises a hub, rim and spokes construction similar to a giant bicycle wheel, supported on an arm cantilevered out over the Thames, just downstream of the Houses of Parliament. The air-conditioned capsules, featuring curved laminated glass, were to be fixed outside the rim, each requiring a motorized levelling system. The whole structure had to be designed to withstand high winds and to damp any natural-frequency resonance in the elegant and slender wheel structure. The extremely challenging technical complexity of the project can be appreciated when one considers the scale of the parts: the wheel rim weighs 800 tonnes, the hub and spindle are 330 tonnes, the cables (spokes) total 100 tonnes and the legs are 400 tonnes. It was decided to manufacture the wheel in sections and assemble it horizontally on platforms in the river. The subsequent elevation of the whole wheel and leg assembly would attract worldwide press coverage, raising public awareness of London’s latest tourist attraction, which was to be completed for 31 December 1999, deriving the unofficial name ‘The Millennium Wheel’.