National Collections Centre Granton
Collaborating with Hoskins Architects, this new 6,000m² storage facility increased the space available to National Museums of Scotland for storage of their collections.
The building was designed to house natural sciences and archaeology collections with additional staff laboratory spaces.
Our strategy for controlling environmental conditions was based on a passive design approach, including high performance building fabric and air tightness, augmented by precisely controlled mechanical systems for maintaining stable temperature and humidity conditions.
The facility included 350m² of storage dedicated to marine biology specimens stored in ethanol. This required the use of ATEX rated lighting and electrical equipment in conjunction with specialist ventilation and vapour detection systems to minimise and monitor the presence of flammable vapour. The building incorporated a specialist automatic ethanol delivery system to laboratory workspaces to facilitate safe replenishment of specimen containers.