ONE of Scotland’s most experienced project managers will next week start the key stage of his highest-profile and complex jobs to date, when preliminary site works start on the £48 million refurbishment of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

Andrew Lumsden, the London-based technical director of the project and cost-management consultancy Equals compared the task of co-ordinating a team of architects, project managers, engineers and cost consultants to “conducting an orchestra”, adding that he would be “up to my oxters” in every detail of the work to transform the reception areas and studio theatre of the venerable London landmark.

The transformation of the 150-year-old building, which follows an earlier redevelopment in the 1990s, will see changes to the piazza entrance to improve visibility, a new “public forum” on the ground floor including catering facilities and an improved retail offer, as well as the refurbishment of the basement Linbury [studio] Theatre and foyer. Project managed on the ROH side by Sarah Younger, the project is due for completion by December 2017.

St Andrews-born Lumsden, 59, a graduate of Dundee’s Abertay University and Caledonian University Glasgow, who has a parallel career as a commercial captain of super-yachts, described the project as a highlight of a career that has included multi-million-pound projects such as a £1 billion branch-building programme for RBS.

“The Royal Opera House is an exciting project because it’s absolutely unique, both the client and the building,” he says. “There’s also the sheer diversity of the type of work being asked for, everything from the internal re-engineering of heavy foundations and structural steel work to communication systems and on the high-quality fittings that you would expect in a building of this age and standard.

“I have to say it’s one of the most collaborative projects I’ve been on.”

Dating from the mid-1850s, the Royal Opera House is the home of the Royal Ballet as well as being the national opera house. The building was extended in a major refurbishment in the late 1990s, modernising the stage and auditorium, and improving the backstage areas, front of house and office space.

The current project is designed to improve public “accessibility”. According to the ROH’s prospectus: “Fifteen years on from the redevelopment which redefined our relationship with our audiences, the society we serve has evolved again. We must lead in responding to these changes.

“Our and other audiences expect to engage with art in their own individual way, immersing themselves within it, commenting on it, contributing to it. And we would welcome them to share more and participate in the experiences we offer, rather than passively observing a spectacle.”

The ROH’s main 2,300-seat auditorium will remain open with a full programme throughout the process.

Robert Davis, who chaired Westminster City Council’s planning committee for the scheme, said: “The ROH is addressing the concern that some have that it is seen as an elitist organisation, but it is the opposite.