Overview
The British Museum is undertaking an ambitious programme of renewal to decarbonise its historic estate and enhance the experience for millions of visitors who pass through its doors each year.
Since 2018, Wright & Wright has supported the Museum across strategic planning, conservation and infrastructure projects, balancing the demands of a globally important cultural institution with the complexities of maintaining public access and operational continuity.
Together, these projects form part of a long-term vision to strengthen the Museum’s environmental performance and accessibility across its Bloomsbury estate.
Masterplan
As a collection of listed buildings developed over more than 250 years, the Museum exists in a continual state of evolution. The Museum’s masterplan recognises this history of adaptation, providing a strategic and targeted approach to future change.
At its core is a commitment to reduce energy demand, eliminate reliance on fossil fuels and improve the performance of ageing infrastructure, while supporting the care, display and interpretation of the collection.
The Collection
The British Museum tells the story of two million years of human life, from prehistory to the present, and holds over 8 million objects in its permanent collection. Established in 1753, the British Museum was founded as the first truly public institution of its kind in the world. Today, it remains a Museum for the global public with arguably the world’s greatest assemblage of human art and artefacts, welcoming around 6 million visitors annually, making it most visited cultural attraction in the UK.
Limestone Statue of Amenhotep III, The British Museum
A Cultural Institution in Transition
The Museum's holistic vision is set against the backdrop of a global climate crisis, and humanity’s collective ambition to realise a Net Zero Carbon future. The call for action confirmed by the London Borough of Camden’s own declaration in 2019 reminds us that we are facing a climate and ecological emergency. As a public institution serving a global audience, the British Museum is meeting the call to action and leading by example. As part of its new masterplan, it has committed to undertaking an ambitious programme to end its reliance on gas heating, decrease energy consumption, and enable a more sustainable future for the organisation and the environment in which it operates.
The Energy Centre Programme
The Energy Centre programme forms the cornerstone of the Museum’s decarbonisation strategy, achieving estate-wide carbon reductions of over 40% while building on just 1.8% of the site footprint. The programme will introduce three new buildings, transitioning from gas-based systems to efficient, low-carbon alternatives.
One of the key pieces of new infrastructure is a five-storey Energy Centre, housing an all-electric system powered by air and water source heat pumps on the top floors, as with new office and welfare facilities for the museum’s estates team on the remaining floors. This transition to on-site energy generation is expected to deliver annual savings of approximately 1,700 tonnes of carbon emissions.
Alongside reducing emissions, the programme improves the performance and reliability of essential systems across the site, from energy distribution to life-safety infrastructure, creating a more resilient and adaptable foundation for the Museum’s future.
Visitor Welcome Pavilions
Visitor pavilion proposals at the British Museum, render produced by Studio Weave
In response to a brief developed by Wright & Wright; the emerging proposals for the Visitor Welcome Pavilions have been developed by a multi-disciplinary team led by Studio Weave and supported by our studio. The proposals reimagine the Museum’s arrival experience through the historic forecourt. New pavilions and landscape interventions will create clearer, more welcoming thresholds for visitors, improving orientation, accessibility and first impressions of the Museum. As an early phase of the wider strategic vision, the project establishes a more inclusive arrival and welcome experience.
Round Reading Room
As part of the Museum’s wider programme of renewal, the adaption of the Round Reading Room enables public access for the first time in over a decade. Sitting at the heart of the Museum’s Great Court, it served as the primary reading room of the British Library until 1997, when the library relocated to its new home in St Pancras.
Since then, the space had been closed to the public. The archive and library collections remains in situ, with carefully designed lightweight timber modular screens and bookcases to accommodate new forms of public use.
