Urban Nature Project, Natural History Museum
The Urban Nature Project has transformed the Natural History Museum’s five-acre garden site into a fully accessible, biologically diverse and immersive environment, showcasing a history of deep time and an exploration of urban nature.
A series of outdoor galleries and enhanced public spaces were developed to provide a geological timeline in the Evolution Garden to the east of the museum, and an outdoor living laboratory to monitor and research urban wildlife in the Nature Discovery Garden supported by The Cadogan Charity in the west.
Two new timber and stone buildings have been sensitively incorporated within this new learning landscape: the Nature Activity Centre supported by Amazon Web Services provides a new classroom for school groups, alongside facilities for scientific work, garden maintenance staff and volunteers working in the Nature Discovery Garden; and the Garden Kitchen, which adds a new public café and function space to the Evolution Garden.
We provided civil and structural engineering services within a multi-disciplinary design team led by architect Feilden Fowles, working closely with landscape architect J&L Gibbons and 3D designer Gitta Gschwendtner. New structures and below ground drainage works were carefully coordinated in a sensitive setting, interfacing the existing museum buildings, the South Kensington foot tunnel and root protection areas of protected mature trees across the site.
Sustainability underpinned the team’s approach to design on this project. In addition to developing efficient structural solutions in low-embodied carbon materials, sustainable drainage systems including swales and the introduction of permeable paving and raingarden infiltration features within existing areas of hard paving, appear as landscape features. These new features improve biodiversity while significantly reducing the volumes of surface rainwater runoff from the site.
The scheme was delivered as a net zero carbon and zero waste project by Contractor Walter Lilly. A timelapse video of the build can be viewed here.
Read more: Wallpaper, Museums Journal, Guardian
- Location
- London
- Architect(s)
- Feilden Fowles Architects, J&L Gibbons (Landscape Architect)
- Photographer(s)
- © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum (images 2,10) , Feilden Fowles Architects (render image 11), Jim Stephenson (images 3,4,5,8), Kendal Noctor (images 1,6,7,9)