The Natural History Museum’s reimagined gardens open to public
Natural History Museum, Urban Nature Project
The Urban Nature Project has seen the transformation of the Natural History Museum’s five-acre gardens into a welcoming, accessible and biologically diverse green space in the heart of London.
Key information
Architect
Feilden Fowles
Client
Natural History Museum
Value
Confidential
Year of Completion
2024
Location
LondonSector
Services
Challenge
The Natural History Museum’s Urban Nature Movement responds to the urgent need to monitor and record changes to UK urban nature and support its recovery.
As part of this project, the green spaces wrapping around the Museum’s much-loved building have been transformed into two outdoor living galleries: the Nature Discovery Garden (supported by the Cadogan Charity) and the Evolution Garden. A stunning new bronze cast of the Museum’s much-loved Diplodocus stands proud within the gardens - the new dino resident’s name is Fern (supported by The Kusuma Trust).
The gardens act as a living laboratory and will be one of the most intensively studied urban nature sites of its kind in the world.
Scientists have been observing in the Museum’s Wildlife Garden since 1995. This work will continue in the new gardens where they will also collect eDNA samples. A network of 25 scientific sensors will gather environmental and acoustic data – from underwater recordings in the pond and the buzz of insect wings to bird calls to traffic noise – to help them understand how urban nature is changing and what can be done to support its recovery. Once fully installed, the network of sensors in the gardens will collect up to 20 terabytes of audio data in the first year.
Collaborating closely with Feilden Fowles (who led the transformation), the Museum’s experts, landscape architects J&L Gibbons, Gitta Gschwendtner and engineers HRW, we provided MEP, architectural lighting and acoustics services for the project.
Our project team
Total of 8 people
Sustainable by nature
Creating a sustainable design that works with the landscape and taking an ambitious approach to sustainable construction has been at the heart of this project. Key sustainability features include:
- a diesel-free site with no non-hazardous waste sent to landfill, and excess site material reused and recycled.
- passive design principles employed for buildings: natural ventilation with excellent thermal and airtightness performance.
- electric-based air source heat pumps provide the space heating and the majority of hot water demands in the Nature Activity Centre (supported by AWS), and the Garden Kitchen. This all-electric approach provides a route towards decarbonisation.
60%
increase in pond area
100%
increase in native habitats
140 years
The first complete transformation of the gardens in the Museum’s 140-year history
Lighting the dinosaurs
Our approach to external lighting was driven by a need to carefully balance the risk of light pollution with delivering an interesting, exciting and inclusive environment for visitors after dark and on winter afternoons. We created a comprehensive photometric model of the whole site we could use to precisely test out our proposals, giving us the opportunity to have some fun lighting the content whilst making sure there was no avoidable light spill from any of the fittings.
Lighting the dinosaurs was a particular pleasure for our team, as the carefully positioned spotlights make the bronze skeletons sparkle in the undergrowth. For Fern, the Diplodocus, the lighting creates dramatic dinosaur shadows that play across the Museum walls.
Image Carousel
Total of 3 images
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum
Intelligent acoustic design
The acoustic design mirrors the design philosophy of the two buildings, controlling reverberation in the Nature Activity Centre (supported by AWS), and the Garden Kitchen with wood wool boards fitted between the exposed timber structure. This helps ensure that noise levels in the spaces stay comfortable when the spaces are busy and aids the intelligibility of speech when they are being used for education.
Gallery
Total of 5 images
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
Quote
"We know that for people and planet to thrive, we must act to support urban nature recovery. As well as a new way for visitors to engage with the Museum, our reimagined gardens will play a vital role in understanding how nature in our towns and cities is responding to a changing planet, and how we can better safeguard it.”
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