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Natural History Museum – ‘Fixing Our Broken Planet’

London, UK

º£½ÇÊÓƵ supported the Natural History Museum in London to realise its vision for a new gallery that showcases the ways we can create a more sustainable world.

The former Hall of Human Biology at the Natural History Museum has been fully restored to become the first new permanent exhibition gallery at the venue in just under a decade. It was completed in summer 2024 with the new gallery, ‘Fixing Our Broken Planet’ opening in April 2025.

We were engaged by lead designer Faithful+Gould (now AtkinsRealis) to help to shape the fit-out, advising on the exhibition layout and development, with input from a range of º£½ÇÊÓƵ disciplines including building services engineering (MEP), lighting, security and acoustics.

Challenge

The museum had a vision for reinvigorating a long-underutilised space in the Grade I-listed building to create an exciting new gallery to showcase contemporary science from its world-leading researchers, and to help visitors to explore practical, nature-based solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing the planet today.

Used as the Hall of Human Biology since the 1970s, the exhibition had become tired-looking and it had been constructed almost half a century ago with little consideration of the architecture. An unwieldy space frame had been installed back in the Seventies, with ventilation ducts on show also hanging from the ceiling. All of this would need to be stripped away to restore the original Victorian splendour of the room.

The Museum had received funding to reinstate the grandeur of the original roof glazing. The nature of the roof renovations meant it was necessary to strip out a lot of the existing building services, providing an opportunity to replace them with modern efficient systems. This also led to the chance to improve aspects such as lighting, the use of technology and the acoustics of the gallery.

The key challenges revolved around the unseen nature of what sits behind historic facades in a building that is almost 150 years old. Designs had to have flexibility and adaptability factored into them, to mitigate any unknown complications that were uncovered as the works progressed on site.

Another key challenge was the confined nature of the void under the original timber flooring, which made running power and data cables in the space difficult. We had to develop a variety of strategies to install new cable-runs while minimising the need to disturb the historic floor.

Detailed heritage approval, as well as standard planning approval, had to be achieved for each stage of the works, given the building’s Grade I-listing. This required considered design input from the earliest stages.

All the work would need to be carried out over a two-year period while the surrounding museum spaces remained open to the public.

Solution

Our experts led the mechanical and electrical (M&E) design from feasibility through construction to completion and beyond, ensuring the required environmental conditions are achieved.

All the gallery M&E systems were stripped-out and replaced, exposing and restoring the original ventilation ducts within the floor, and introducing new flexible electrical distribution and LED track lighting. The existing voids beneath the floors were carefully mapped out with the wider design team, to ensure this constrained space could be fully optimised for cable runs. New magnetised hatches were developed in the floor for easy access to the cables for maintenance.

Where it was not possible to run power and data cables beneath the floor, we worked with the wider design team to ensure sympathetic placing of runways on ledges. The colour palettes used meant any required surface cables could be sympathetically blended with the walls.

A new ventilation system was installed, with temperature and humidity controls to provide protection to the collections, while ensuring a comfortable experience for visitors.

Throughout, our team was cautious to deliver solutions that worked within the constraints of the Museum’s budget, while designing-in adaptability to allow further enhancements to be easily incorporated at a future date, when funding allowed.

The ageing roof was sympathetically replaced from the outside, with new insulation added to improve the thermal performance of the space. This had to be achieved while retaining the protected ceiling within.

Our lighting design experts played a key role in ensuring the new gallery successfully showcases the original features of the historic building. As well as the functional lighting, emergency lighting and adaptable exhibition lighting, we advised on architectural lighting to highlight some of the key features of the historic space.

We also had to consider the permitted exposure to both direct sunlight and diffused daylight of artefacts in the gallery, with our experts working closely with curators to understand the requirements for individual items and collections. We advised on the use of diffused glazing to mitigate against glare and undue solar gain.

Balanced natural daylighting within the space plays a vital role in ensuring a comfortable visitor experience. The intelligent use of daylight provides visitors with enhanced visual conditions to appreciate the exhibits, as well as improved connections to the outside world. These factors can lead to a better psychological state in which visitors can absorb and interpret the exhibits in a more immersive way.

The existing rooflight glass, which previously caused overheating and leaking, was replaced with new diffused glazing that reduces daylight levels and has a UV interlayer that blocks harmful rays. The selection of the new glass went through Historic England approvals, with º£½ÇÊÓƵ’s daylighting experts leading the presentation for Historic England with mock-ups to demonstrate the properties of the new glass.

A series of stained-glass windows at either end of the gallery were showcased without unduly adding to the solar gain on the space by artificially lighting the stained-glass from behind, within the new external shutters – creating a striking focal point and a decorative feature that enhances the visual identity of the gallery.

Value

This fascinating and challenging project involved significant improvements to the original Victorian gallery as part of the ‘fabric first’ approach, introducing new thermal insulation, and high-performance, reactive glazing for solar and daylight control.

The new gallery impactfully achieves the aims of the Natural History Museum’s original vision. Curators have brought together a special selection of more than 200 specimens, from a Sumatran rhino to an ancient cow skull. Together they tell the story of our impact on the natural world and explore the opportunities we have to save it through the lens of NHM Science.

The º£½ÇÊÓƵ team worked carefully within the Museum’s funding constraints to achieve technical solutions that realise the ambition to return the space to its original grandeur, while incorporating a range of modern technologies.