IN Brief:
- Haworth Tompkins has secured a £1.84m commission covering four heavily visited Natural History Museum galleries.
- The work sits within NHM150, which will renew four existing galleries and open two additional public gallery spaces by 2031.
- The Grade I-listed Waterhouse building creates demanding heritage, services, visitor, logistics, and exhibition-design interfaces.
Haworth Tompkins has secured a £1.84m commission connected with the refurbishment of four Natural History Museum galleries, adding another design package to the long-term renewal of the museum’s Grade I-listed South Kensington estate.
The appointment sits within the wider NHM150 programme being undertaken ahead of the museum’s 150th anniversary in 2031. The Natural History Museum intends to renew four existing galleries and open two additional public gallery spaces as collections, research functions, and visitor accommodation are reorganised across the estate.
The Dinosaur gallery is among the spaces identified within the wider programme. The museum has also been bringing previously inaccessible historic areas back into public use, with the combined programme intended to increase visitor capacity and make better use of accommodation released as other functions move elsewhere.
Haworth Tompkins will be working inside Alfred Waterhouse’s main museum building, constructed between 1873 and 1881 and listed at Grade I. Its terracotta façades, internal decorative work, structure, and historic plan carry statutory heritage significance, so interventions that might be routine in a modern gallery require a different level of assessment and control.
Walls, floors, doors, service routes, environmental systems, lighting, access works, fire safety measures, and exhibition installations all have to be coordinated with retained fabric. Modern visitor and conservation requirements cannot simply overwrite the historic building, while protecting heritage features cannot leave galleries without the technical systems needed to function.
Natural history displays add their own engineering demands. Large skeletons, geological material, cabinets, suspended objects, specialist lighting, audiovisual systems, security, and environmental controls can impose substantial structural, electrical, mechanical, access, and maintenance requirements within spaces whose underlying fabric was designed almost 150 years ago.
The museum’s visitor numbers complicate the construction sequence further. Refurbishment cannot be planned as though the whole estate were a vacant building, because neighbouring galleries, circulation routes, shops, visitor facilities, and operational areas may remain open while works proceed.
Hoardings, escape routes, dust, noise, contractor deliveries, temporary wayfinding, object movements, staff circulation, and out-of-hours working therefore become design issues as well as site-management matters. A construction package that cannot be safely separated from the public route may have to be resequenced regardless of whether the physical work itself is ready.
The museum’s NHM150 programme has already produced new permanent gallery space. Fixing Our Broken Planet opened in April 2025, demonstrating one approach to adapting historic accommodation for contemporary interpretation while retaining the character of the South Kensington estate.
The wider estate strategy also involves transferring collections and research functions into improved accommodation elsewhere. As those moves release areas within the Waterhouse building, gallery renewal becomes connected to back-of-house logistics, conservation, building services, specimen handling, and the timing of separate capital projects.
Haworth Tompkins brings experience of cultural venues and listed buildings where public operation and retained fabric dictate the construction sequence. Its portfolio includes theatres, museums, and performance venues, with current work elsewhere including London Museum Docklands and the Royal Festival Hall.
The £1.84m figure relates to the professional commission rather than the eventual value of the physical gallery works. Total construction expenditure will depend on the detailed scope, exhibition systems, conservation interventions, building services, specialist installations, and phasing developed during design.
Museum projects can carry a high proportion of specialist expenditure compared with their floor area. Display cases, conservation-grade environmental systems, bespoke fabrication, specimen handling, lighting, interpretation technology, security, and commissioning sit alongside conventional building trades, while interfaces between them can be more demanding than the individual packages.
Existing historic buildings also reveal information progressively. Opening ceilings, floors, risers, and wall zones can expose earlier alterations, redundant services, undocumented structural conditions, or fabric that surveys could not fully inspect. The design has to be sufficiently resolved for procurement while retaining contingency for discoveries made once access improves.
That uncertainty makes early investigation and services coordination particularly valuable. A late route change for ductwork or cabling is inconvenient in any building; in a Grade I-listed museum it can trigger heritage redesign, conservation input, additional approvals, and changes to exhibition layouts already coordinated around the original route.
The commission moves another part of NHM150 into active design. By 2031 the public will see renewed galleries, but the immediate workload is less visible: conservation, services, visitor logistics, object requirements, approvals, and construction sequencing inside a building that has to function as both a museum and a protected historic asset throughout the programme.
