Design Museum
London, UK
The Grade II listed former Commonwealth Institute building has been transformed into a new home for the Design Museum, opening to the public in late 2016. The world-class museum of design includes galleries for permanent and temporary exhibitions, education spaces and a design reference library.
The building is a unique, hyperbolic parabola in form, with interwoven curves, glazing, rises and falls in all directions across the expanse of the listed copper roof. Whilst this complex existing structure proved challenging to convert to an accurate 3D software model, we were able to create a TAS dynamic simulation which accurately reflected this complex structure. We used this model to simulate energy consumption, CO2 emissions and an enhanced version for detailed daylight analysis, all of which were very challenging due to the unique structural nature of the building and roof.
New glazed entrances will lead in towards the galleries located on the ground floor, basement and second floor. ChapmanBDSP undertook extensive daylight studies with the goal of reducing natural daylight as far as possible in order to achieve a controlled internal environment for features and displays.
| Location | |
| Type | |
| Size/Area | 100,000 m2 |
| Our Role | MEP Consultant/ Environmental Consultant/ Lighting Consultant |
| 1. | Grade II listed building |
| 2. | Temperature control for exhibits |
| 3. | Daylight analysis and optimisation |
| 4. | Services design to support flexible exhibition space |
| Client | Design Museum |
| Architect | John Pawson |
| Project Manager | Gardiner & Theobald |
| Cost Consultant | Turner & Townsend |
| Main Contractor | Willmot Dixon Interior |
2017 AJ Retrofit Awards - Best Cultural Building 2017 Leading Culture Destination Awards - Best New Museum & Leading Culture Destination Overall Winner |
John Biscoe, Board Director“We are really proud to have been part of the development of this iconic building, which is the new home for the Design Museum. The building services engineering solutions have met with the client brief, and architects vision, which provide resilient, robust and flexible systems, ensuring efficient thermal comfort and fitting environmental conditions for staff, visitors and exhibits. The building is a testament to the client and architect vision which showcases, educates and inspires”.