Garden transformation for London's Natural History Museum

Feilden Fowles and J & L Gibbons’ plans for London’s Natural History Museum will transform its five acres of gardens into an, “exemplar of urban wildlife research, conservation and awareness.”

Due for completion in 2023, the design will turn the gardens into a biodiversity hub, including an onsite education centre, as well as a scientific ‘living lab’ that will deliver research to be shared globally.

The gardens at London’s Natural History Museum are set to become a biodiversity hub.

The plans are part of the Urban Nature Project, a national drive to engage the public with the natural world and urban wildlife. The key aims for the gardens are to increase biodiversity, accessibility, usability and opportunities for education, all at the most visited natural history museum in Europe.

The museum’s South Kensington Gardens will become a fully accessible green space, intended to protect and increase current levels of biodiversity. In just one of its five acres, woodland, scrub, heath, grassland, fen, aquatic, seedbed, hedgerow and urban United Kingdom habitats can all be found.

The gardens are set for completion in 2023.

3,400 species have been recorded in the existing Wildlife Garden since it opened in 1995, and each autumn it is home to three Greyface Dartmoor sheep who assist in sustainably managing the garden.

Offering an opportunity for visitors to connect with nature, the new Eastern Gardens will feature plants and fossils representing each geological era, offering an educational experience that tells the story of Deep Time (the concept of geological time), from the Cambrian Period through to the present day. Early time periods are characterised by low level planting, such as mosses and liverworts, among rocks.

Feilden Fowles and J & L Gibbons worked closely with museum experts on the project.

Moving west, larger plants such as horsetails and tree ferns begin to appear, and grow further to evoke the Jurassic period, with Wollemi pines and cycads, as well as a reproduction of Dippy, the museum’s iconic diplodocus skeleton.

As visitors approach the main entrance to the Waterhouse building, there are an abundance of flowering plants, fruits and grasses to create seasonal variety and encourage pollinating insects and bees.

The gardens include onsite education centre.

The West Garden is designed as a model urban landscape, giving insight into the biodiversity found in United Kingdom cities by showcasing different habitats. It will also feature an outdoor learning centre, and living lab where scientists, volunteers and the public can study changes in urban nature.

The West Garden will end at the museum’s existing Darwin Centre courtyards, which have been redesigned to address the future of biodiversity on earth, showcasing emergent and pioneer species (the types of organisms first to colonise barren environments), and offering possible approaches to climate adaptation.

The gardens will become a scientific ‘living lab’ delivering research to be shared globally.

Feilden Fowles and J & L Gibbons worked closely with museum experts on the project, and a bronze sign at the end of the ramp leading to the museum’s entrance features the David Attenborough quote, “the future of the natural world, on which we all depend, is in your hands.”

According to Feilden Fowles, “the Urban Nature Project is a transformational project that will not only galvanise people to reengage with the nature on their doorsteps, but also build on the museum’s scientific and public work and trigger a movement that will ultimately help to safeguard nature’s future.”