The British Museum

This is an important commission to re-envisage and transform key parts of the main, iconic site in Bloomsbury. This will be the Museum’s biggest building project since the 1820s, when work commenced on the original quadrangle.

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The ambition is significant: to restore the Western Range and, in so doing, reimagine a third of the existing gallery area, deliver improved collections storage and create new amenities to enhance the visitor experience, making the collection as accessible as possible to all the Museum’s audiences.

This website is for information only: the formal request for Expressions of Interest and all supporting documentation, including the brief outlined on this website, can be found on the Delta Portal

All updates to the brief and responses to queries will be shared via the Portal.

As a public institution (Arm’s-Length Body), the British Museum must operate within a framework of public accountability founded on openness and equal opportunity for all.

Therefore, this competition is being run in accordance with public sector procurement regulations. The structure is that of a Restricted Procedure under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

This is a two-stage international competition.

STAGE 1

An open call for expressions of interest from teams that believe they meet the criteria specified in the competition brief.

STAGE 2

Five teams will be shortlisted and will be asked to expand on how they might approach this specific project.

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This is not a competition to judge a finished design for the Western Range. It is a competition to find a visionary team with which the Museum can work, to conceive and deliver an exceptional design solution that is full of creative endeavour, while also being functional, realisable and operational. The Museum is needing to balance awe-inspiring architectural vision and design clarity with pragmatic respect for the existing historical and contextual fabric – hence this competition’s focus on both ‘Vision’ and ‘Team’.

The Vision

The Vision that each competitor brings to this challenge will be tested in a number of different ways.

At Stage 1 competitors will be asked to explain their vision of the future, in terms of the physical environment that a museum, fit for the 21st century, will require for its collection and audiences.

At Stage 2, shortlisted teams will be asked to develop their vision and approach to the British Museum, at three different levels:

1. A strategic and philosophical vision, developing their Stage 1 philosophy in the context of the British Museum.
2. A vision for the Western Range, with a diagrammatic explanation of their approach to creating an exceptional visitor experience; the integration of architecture and collection displays; the balance between redevelopment and refurbishment; and their approach to sustainability.
3. A designed vision, applying ideas to a pre-selected fragment of the Western Range, to give an indication of how their design approach could be realised.

The Team

The Team that each competitor brings to this challenge will be tested in a number of ways.

At Stage 1, competitors will be asked to explain the skills, experience and structure of their assembled teams.

At Stage 2, shortlisted teams will be asked to deliver a written statement, backed up with a resource schedule and fee, explaining their working methods, management abilities and collaborative instincts. In addition, the team’s ability to work with the Museum and its key stakeholders will be explored through a full day of workshopped charrettes. The team leader will be asked to share the team’s passion for the project in a short video, and there will be a final interview with the Jury Panel to review ideas and respond to questions.

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On receipt of a compliant bid, shortlisted teams will receive an honorarium of £50,000 + VAT for this work.

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STAGE 1
08.05.24 Competition launch
07.06.24 Deadline for any queries about this competition
21.06.24 Deadline for receipt of Stage 1 submissions
Mid-August Announcement of the shortlisted teams

STAGE 2
Stage 2 will start in September 2024, it is expected that the competition winner will be announced in February 2025.

Please note that these dates are given in good faith, however, the client reserves the right to make changes if circumstances dictate.

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The British Museum brings together the history of humankind, all cultures of the world spanning millennia. It connects us to our past and to each other. It is a place where everyone is welcome, where many voices meet to understand, and to question what brings us together and what separates us. It is a place of exploration and a place of inspiration. The collection that the Museum holds in trust for the world is of unparalleled breadth, depth, beauty and significance. A truly global resource, free and available to everyone. The Museum’s role is to enhance and make accessible the collection through research, through interpretation, through display, through lending, and to share what it learns, as well as the process of learning, with others.

With this matchless position comes a responsibility to ensure that this work can continue, ensuring the collection is cared for and accessible for generations to come, and that the Museum remains a centre of excellence and is continually relevant into the 21st century.

The winner of this competition will be answerable to the Trustees of the British Museum, working through the in-house Project Team led by the Estates and Capital Projects department.

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The aim of this project is to create an extraordinary physical environment at the Museum’s main Bloomsbury site that facilitates the vision set out above, enabling inventive ways for visitors, researchers and staff to engage with, and access, the collections, while ameliorating the original Smirke buildings and improving the visitor experience.

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The physical manifestation of the British Museum in Bloomsbury is iconic.

It comprises almost an entire city block in one of the most intricate and established parts of central London. It is a treasured national icon within a conservation area that is, in itself, emblematic of the Capital.

The Museum has an internal floor area of over 100,000m², within a footprint that is packed with a diversity of buildings; the estate is Grade I listed, with perimeter properties that are listed Grade II. Each part of the Museum contains, iconic, often sizeable and irreplaceable items from the collection, and each is visited by many thousands of people, every day.

Space on the site is both limited and precious, especially in terms of gallery spaces. The original quadrangle was designed for 100,000 visitors per annum, a figure that was already far exceeded in the 1850s. As it stands, annual visitor numbers to the Museum now regularly exceed six million. Today, there are heightened security requirements and a fundamental need to ensure inclusivity and access, as well as enabling intuitive wayfinding, addressing dilapidations, and creating an environment where people can connect with the collection, and by doing so, with each other.

Against this backdrop, the British Museum has embarked on a masterplan which, over time, will see a complete reimagination of its physical as well as conceptual landscape. The first enabling phase for the Bloomsbury site – namely the Energy Centre Programme, addressing electrical and thermal infrastructure and supporting the Museum’s ambitions to reduce carbon emissions – is currently being implemented. Abridged versions of the Museum’s vision and masterplan for the Western Range (up to RIBA Stage 1) will be made available to teams that are shortlisted to Stage 2 of this competition.

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The project is focused on the Western Range, a substantial part of the estate that is in urgent need of both repair and re-imagining. This offers the Museum an opportunity to make a statement of its future intent, through reimagined galleries, new state-of-the-art storage facilities and engaging contemporary architecture, in juxtaposition to the highly significant and already celebrated listed buildings on the site.

Despite appearing as a single entity, the Western Range comprises a miscellany of separate buildings which have been added to Robert Smirke’s original Grade I listed Museum; as a result, the exact extent of the red-line boundary and phasing for this project is dependent on a number of interlocking considerations. The proposed project outline can be seen in the attached documentation. In the region of 15,000m², it accounts for almost 15% of the floor space within the Bloomsbury site, in a warren of inflexible and static rooms. Further, recent surveys indicate that the existing building fabric and infrastructure are in a state that is below modern expectations. It comprises around 7,500m² of gallery space and currently houses the Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece (including the Parthenon Sculptures), Rome, and Ancient Assyria and Middle East collections, along with 4,500m² of back-of-house collection storage.

Working with the Museum, the winning team will design an architecturally significant, long-lasting, robust intervention, founded on an effective approach to sustainability. This will address the shortcomings of the existing buildings, while delivering the first phase of the reimagined display of collections in new, permanent gallery spaces, alongside modern-day visitor experiences and back-of-house facilities, all within a built environment that is simple and effective in its design and management. Addressing the challenges posed by the condition of the existing buildings and infrastructure will require sensitivity, careful intervention and complex, intricate design solutions.

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Given the strategic importance of the Bloomsbury estate and the critical public-facing activities it facilitates (which are centred on collection display, access and research), the Museum is clear it wants to remain open throughout the renovation works. While different areas and galleries will need to be closed for certain periods, the Museum must continue to welcome visitors and researchers – and this welcome must not disappoint.

When considering the complex interdependencies of the current displays and the possibility of any new gallery spaces, it becomes apparent that this project may require several phases, developed over a number of years. Each will be influenced by a range of factors: not just physical constraints and construction logistics, but also stakeholder engagement and visitor wellbeing.

As such, any new designs must be strong enough to deliver the Museum’s current needs and expectations, while also being open enough to ensure that latter phases can flex. They must accommodate future strategic and curatorial change, as the Museum responds to shifting paradigms and priorities, evolving requirements for storage and the needs of staff, researchers and visitors. This project will need to balance adaptability and flexibility with practicalities and longevity, in both the real and the virtual worlds.

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The British Museum was founded as a public institution, and it has a deep commitment to inclusivity. Engagement with its many different public audiences and stakeholder groups will be an essential part of the process of its re-imagining, taking those who will be touched by changes to the estate on a shared journey – one that allows different voices to be articulated and heard, as decisions are made. The Museum’s own community; its stakeholders; supporters and funders; local residents and societies; Camden Council; national and international audiences; global partners and communities; as well as other interested parties will need to be given a sense of ownership in the project. This inclusion will be embedded in the project, from the outset.

The successful design team will need to demonstrate their capabilities to inspire key stakeholders to support the scheme.

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The primary aim of this project is to enhance the visitor experience and offer the Museum a series of renewed gallery and collection storage spaces that allow the extraordinary permanent collections to be cared for, researched and displayed for modern audiences. Importantly the Museum is also looking to resolve the current problems it is facing of an over-complex and constricted site with a dilapidating building stock that is poorly suited to its requirements. The complexity of the site and the scope of work requires the appointed design team to include many different skills, possibly from different organisations. There are three key strands to the work.

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The new Western Range will include gallery spaces, visitor welfare and circulation facilities, collection stores and research spaces. Each element will need to be sensitively designed within an architecture that respects the existing, while introducing powerful new interventions. The winning team will need to satisfy a range of stakeholders and secure listed building consents, expressed functionality, required adjacencies, ambitious sustainability criteria, and day-to-day requirements for maintenance and maintainability.

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The interior layout and design of the visitor experience and amenities will play an important role in the success of this project, including arrival, circulation and way-finding routes. The winning team will understand how to create inviting vistas across the site, making best use of natural light, the juxtaposition of internal volumes and passive ventilation to enhance visitors’ enjoyment of the new museum experience. Accessibility and comfort for all is a given and consideration of seating and rest areas will need to be incorporated at the earliest stage of the design.

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Given the long-term phasing of this project, the Museum is proposing three gallery exhibition packages for the permanent galleries in the new Western Range: only the first of these is being procured through this tender. The gallery displays that will be included within this first package are dependent on the overall approach to phasing of the project and will therefore be determined, with the successful team, following the completion of RIBA Stage 2 design. Please note that the new galleries may well house different collections, as the Museum’s site-wide redisplay strategy is developed.

This means that the winning team will need to include gallery exhibition designers with evidenced understanding of museology who can work alongside the Museum’s own curatorial and content teams to deliver gallery spaces that astound the world, within the first phase of work.

As well as delivering the designs for the first phase of galleries, the winning team must be able to create a building design that allows future design teams to insert new galleries into latter phases of the project, allowing for varied creative voices to be involved in the long-term design of the project, ensuring an end-design that is vibrant, integrated and bespoke for each gallery.

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It is expected that the design team will be led by an architect. It is the Museum’s intention to commission the winning team to deliver RIBA Stages 2 to 7 of the defined scope. To align with governance and funding requirements, break-clauses will be put in place at the end of each RIBA work-stage, or part thereof, depending on delivery programme breakdown.

The Museum has specified the following skills which must be demonstrated in the bidding teams:

• Architecture and interior design skills that respond to the master planning, functional and aesthetic requirements of the Museum’s national and international status.
• Conceptual gallery exhibition design with an understanding of museology, permanent collection display requirements and visitor engagement.
• Design Team coordination and management (this may be delivered by an executive architect).
• Listed building and building conservation expertise.
• Structural, civil, fire and services engineering.
• Environmental sustainability, in particular within a Grade I Listed environment.
• Lighting design, including for exhibitions.
• Graphic design, for way-finding.
• Ability to deliver the project in BIM and work in collaboration with a client that is developing its BIM maturity.
• Economic sustainability, in the design and implementation of complex, built interventions, including an ability to design effectively to budget, maintain financial discipline and engage with the constraints and opportunities posed by the complexity of the project.
• Design logistics and delivery for a project of this scale and complexity, in a live operational environment, including an ability to safeguard design legacy alongside maintenance requirements.
• Social sustainability, in the context of a significant cultural venue, incorporating collaboration and engagement skills with an ability to convey the vision for the project in an inspiring way to different audience groups, including funders.

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The members of the selected design team may not be established stars in their own rights, or have undertaken similar projects before, but together they will present as an inclusive team and demonstrate aligned skills, expertise and the experience required to deliver effective and inspiring designs for the Bloomsbury site. This competition is open to international organisations, provided they can demonstrate an ability to create and deliver designs for a project of this complexity and significance in London.

In assembling a team, there are four characteristics that should be considered

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The British Museum is a highly influential and world-famous organisation. Therefore, any work that is undertaken on the Bloomsbury site must be glorious, confident and full of creative endeavour, reflecting and underpinning the Museum’s reputation with designs that are also functional, realisable and operational. This means that creative ability, design vision, ingenuity, an ability to surprise and enchant, as well as an affinity with the site will all need to be demonstrated by the winning team. It goes without saying that the winning team will recognise that the Museum’s collection is at the heart of its remit: understanding the collection, how it might best be displayed, accessed and preserved will be paramount. The team will need to instil confidence in its ability to both design and implement a reputation enhancing intervention that helps the Museum achieve, if not exceed its aspirations for now, and through its vision, for the future.

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The team’s approach to design will need to consider emerging climate and weather changes as well as lifecycle costs and practicality in the specification of materials and systems, to ensure sustainability is embedded within the design process. The Museum will be looking to promote a reduced resource footprint during construction, and in doing so making best use of the existing building stock. It will also favour passive, low-tech solutions for the operational lifespan and associated running and maintenance operations. For example, where possible natural light and passive ventilation solutions should be harnessed and, while temperature and humidity within display cases will need to be controlled, the same conditions may not need to be applied to entire gallery spaces, or the back-of-house areas.

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The design team must be able to answer questions like: “what is realistically achievable?”. It must consider a myriad of existing logistical, physical and statutory constraints and lived-in realities. It will need to push boundaries with innovative construction practices and design solutions, to deliver effective physical change on a complex and constrained site, which the Museum has committed will remain open and operational. The project will need to creatively respond to the constraints imposed by the listed nature of the buildings, bearing in mind also the competing challenges from other capital works and ongoing public programme commitments on the busy estate at Bloomsbury.

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The Museum will lead on all stakeholder and community engagement. However, the winning team must demonstrate an ability to support that engagement, collaborate effectively and express design ideas to different audiences, showing that it is both willing and able to develop design ideas with the involvement of the Museum staff and other stakeholders: the aim being to ensure buy-in from all parties, as change is explored, agreed and then implemented.

This is a multifaceted project, layering many different strategic, historic, curatorial and emotional issues into a physical built project. The project will be designed and delivered over an extended timeframe and a strong, collaborative, long-term relationship with the design team will be key to its success. The end result must display creativity and ingenuity, while allowing flexibility of use as museum pedagogy and displays evolve over time.

This project will involve the expectations of many different people with differing agendas, and it will uncover unexpected constraints and opportunities, some of which can be unlocked through the physical manipulation of space; others will need to be taken away and resolved through collaboration, curatorial and interpretive means.

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THE DEADLINE FOR RECEIVING SUBMISSIONS IS 21.06.24

All competitors are asked to register their interest in this competition through the Delta Portal.   
Stage 1 expressions of interest must be uploaded to the portal; emailed or hard copy submissions will not be accepted.  Instructions for formatting submissions can be found on the Portal.

At Stage 1 of this competition, in addition to the standard SQ document, the design team leader is asked to submit the following:

• The team’s design philosophy
• Details of those involved in the team

Please note that while an organisation can be involved in any number of competing teams, each organisation may only submit one competition entry as the lead consultant. Also, competitors wishing to be involved in more than one team must be able to demonstrate, on request, that measures to prevent information sharing between teams have been put in place.

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As a first step, any team wishing to be considered for this project, will need to submit a Standard Questionnaire (SQ) which is structured in three separate parts:

Part 1, which needs to be completed by every member of the team, covers basic information, such as names, contact details, trade memberships, details of parent companies, group bidding and so on.

Part 2, which needs to be completed by every member of the team, covers a self-declaration regarding whether or not any listed exclusion grounds apply.

Part 3, which needs to be completed only once, by the design team leader, covers a self-declaration regarding economic and financial standing, and the level of insurance carried; as well as information about the team’s technical and professional capacity and a question regarding the team’s BIM capability and capacity.

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A think piece

A single A1 sheet with images, drawings, references, diagrams and up to 500 words that explain the team’s:

 understanding of the physical environment that a 21^st century museum will require for its collection and audiences, as it looks to the future.

The purpose of this think-piece is not to present design ideas for the British Museum; rather it is for competitors to demonstrate an understanding of the challenges and opportunities the museum sector is facing as it looks to the future, while demonstrating an ability to think outside the box, articulate a vision and communicate ideas clearly.

Please note that the Museum may put the Think Pieces on public display, therefore team names and branding must not appear on the piece.

Design approach

No more than five A4 sides of concise and pertinent text and images, one side addressing each of the following:

1. This team’s commitment to design quality, visitor experience, gallery exhibition design, creativity and ingenuity.
2. This team’s approach to and/or experience of working within an historic urban environment, respecting and enhancing the heritage and uses of the surrounding context.
3. This team’s understanding of the technical and logistical challenges associated with adapting Grade I listed, historic buildings for modern use (including for collection display and storage) and to modern environmental targets, appropriate to a complex, multi-faceted and long-term cultural project of this nature.
4. This team’s knowledge of, and commitment to sustainable development, looking at both minimising the short-term construction footprint and delivering long-term social, environmental, and economic sustainability.
5. This team’s approach to balancing innovation and long-term value with budget and time constraints.

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Skills in the team

No more than six A4 sides of concise and pertinent text and images, addressing the following:

1. The individual skills and expertise offered by this team. Include information about the key individuals who would lead the project, the roles they would take and why they have been selected for this project (up to four sides of A4).
2. A description of the team that demonstrates its structure, explaining the interfaces between the different skills. This description should include an explanation of how the team would expect to design and implement a project in London, and an organogram of the team, to show the roles taken by each organisation / key player (one side of A4).
3. An explanation of this team’s ability to work collaboratively with clients and external and internal stakeholders, as well as other consultants on complex and evolving projects (one side of A4).

Experience of the team

Details about the three case study projects the team has included in the SQ document, to demonstrate that the team includes the required creative, communication, management and technical skills to undertake a project of this significance and complexity (one side of A4 per project, including images). 

Please include:

• Name of the client and project
• Project start and finish dates; estimated contract value and /or approximate size in m² size; location and use.
• The members of the team who were involved in the project (organisations and individuals) and the roles that they took on the project.
• A BRIEF description of the project, no more than 120 words that explains why it is relevant to the British Museum.
• Images of the project

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Details of the Stage 1 assessment criteria can be found on the Delta Portal.

The Stage 1 submissions will be assessed by a Shortlisting Panel comprising experts from across the client's organisation. This panel will select five teams that will be shortlisted to take part in Stage 2 of the competition.

Please refer to the SQ document for PASS/FAIL questions that a team will need to pass if it is to be formally assessed by the Shortlisting Panel.  All compliant teams will be assessed against two criteria:

Design philosophy

60% of the marks will be allocated to The Team’s Design Philosophy:

25%: Think Piece
35%: Design Approach

Skills and experience

40% of the marks will be allocated to The Team’s Skills and Experience:

20%: Skills in the team
20%: Experience of the team

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Details of the Stage 2 submissions and evaluation criteria can be found on the Delta Portal.

This is not a design competition. However, the Jury Panel will want to understand how each shortlisted team will approach the challenges and the opportunities inherent in this project.

Stage 2 submissions

Four deliverables will be requested at Stage 2:

1. Attendance at a Charrette in London.
2. Drawings, words, models and a short video describing the team’s Vision and Design Approach to this project.
3. A Design Delivery Report, including resources and fees.
4. Attendance at a final Interview.

Stage 2 evaluation

7% of the marks will be allocated to the Charrette.

45% of the marks will be allocated to The Team’s Vision and Design Approach to this Project, of which:
   35%: Boards, Model, Video
   10%: Sustainability in Design / Social Value

45% of the marks will be allocated to The Team’s Design Delivery for this Project, of which: 
  20%: Working Methods and Resources
  25%: Fees

3% of the marks will be allocated to the Interview.

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Stage 2 of the competition will be judged by a Jury Panel of representatives from the Museum, as well as industry experts who have made huge contributions to their respective fields of architecture, museums, community engagement, urban planning, and other artistic genres.

The Jury Panel will be assisted by Supporting Panels that are expected to include British Museum team members as well as external consultants, as required to assess the submissions.

Short biographies of Jury Panel members can be found on the Portal.

The Jury Panel will be chaired by George Osborne, Chair of the British Museum’s Board of Trustees

Other panellists are:
Nicholas Cullinan, Director, British Museum
Tracey Emin, Trustee, British Museum
Yvonne Farrell, Director, Grafton Architects
Mark Jones, Interim Director, British Museum
Meneesha Kellay,  Senior Curator, Contemporary at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Charlie Mayfield, Trustee, British Museum
Alejandro Santo Domingo, Trustee, British Museum
Mahrukh Tarapor, Museum Professional
Sarah Younger, Project Director of NG 200, National Gallery London

There will be publicity associated with this competition as it progresses. By entering the competition, all competitors (whether or not they are shortlisted to take part in Stage 2 of the competition), acknowledge this fact, and freely consent to their submissions being used for this purpose.

The Museum will be looking at different ways to engage the public and key stakeholders in Stage 2 of the competition. It is expected that the visual elements of the Stage 2 submissions and the Stage 2 videos, as well as coverage of the Charrette Workshop may be posted on-line and/or displayed in a public exhibition in London before the interviews with the Jury Panel.

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This website is for information only: the formal request for Expressions of Interest and all supporting documentation, including the brief outlined on this website, can be found on the Delta Portal.

While the information on this website is believed to be correct at the time of issue, neither the British Museum nor its advisors make any warranty or representation (express or implied) with respect to such information; nor will they accept any liability for its accuracy, adequacy or completeness.

Colander Associates has taken all reasonable efforts to ensure that the information included is accurate, however, it cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies or inconsistencies.