Met Office Operations Centre

The Met Office Operations Centre is the headquarters in Devon of the Met Office.

Met Office Operations Centre
Entrance in June 2005
Location within Devon
Former namesMet Office Exeter
General information
TypeOffice
AddressExeter, Devon, EX1 3PB
Coordinates50.726°N 3.475°W / 50.726; -3.475
Elevation50 m (164 ft)
Current tenants1200 staff
Construction startedNovember 2001
CompletedNovember 2003
Inaugurated18 December 2003
Cost£79m (2003)
ClientMet Office
OwnerMet Office
Dimensions
Other dimensions3.14 hectares
Technical details
Floor count3
Design and construction
ArchitectBroadway Malyan
Structural engineerArup (geotechnical)
Main contractorCostain

History

The former Met Office site in South East England opened in 1962.

The project began in 1999. Norwich was also considered, but Exeter was chosen in November 2000.

Design

Broadway Malyan provided the design.

Construction

On Thursday 11 October 2001, the contract was given to the Stratus consortium, led by Costain.

Construction began on Thursday 1 November 2001, with the main contractor being Costain. Construction would take two years.

The steel support structure is Deltabeam from BRC Special Products in Warrington, with Thermodeck cooling system; there is around 2000 tonnes of steelwork. Flooring was laid by the Italian company Mapei.

A nearby sculpture is called The Daycaster.

The building contract was around £79m; the services are provided by Global Solutions over fifteen years.

Heating and electricity is provided by a CHP energy unit. Construction included a training college and sports facilities.

The site was opened on Thursday 18 December 2003.

Operation

Forecasts were made from Monday 15 September 2003; most staff moved in from August to November in 2003. 82% of staff were persuaded to move.

By March 2004, the site had a supercomputer of 30 NEC SX-6 nodes.[1]

Structure

The site has a conference and visitor centre.

gollark: C++ is not very expressive.
gollark: That's not hard.
gollark: So what?
gollark: Easy != bad.
gollark: They can be Turing-complete and whatever. My calculator may have been.

See also

References
  1. Times Saturday 27 March 2004, page 51
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