Paste your essay in here…Introduction
The British Museum’s WCEC is a project de- signed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, situated at the northwest corner of the Blooms- bury’s Institution.
It is one of the biggest re-development pro- jects done to the British Museum in the last 260 years. The extension provided the muse- um with additional gallery space, conservation labs and multiple improved facilities.
Although the initial design was criticised as being ‘excessive, bulky, scale [and] massing’ it ended up being an elegant building but con- serving the architect’s identity.
It consists of a nine-floor structure with five pavilions, with one of them being underground. The architecture itself is inspired by the materials of the surrounding buildings, therefore showing a sensible design co-existing with the existing museum and the areas around the Bloomsbury’s Institution.
It opened in March 2014 with its first exhibition “Vikings: life and legend.” The building won Ri- ba’s East London award and was one of the six projects in the Riba Stirling Prize list 2017.
Objectives
The main objective of the British Museum World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre was to centralize and accommodate ancient artefacts and collections in Bloomsbury, while providing flexible spaces to support the wide range of activities undertaken by the museum. Previously, the museum had stored historic objects on three different storages across London. How- ever, under the necessity of conserving and studying its collection in a technically appropriate environment, the British Museum decided to construct a new building in order to improve and expand the original purpose of the muse- um. The new part of the building is the result of a complicated relationship between site restrictions, brief and client necessities. Furthermore, complicated by the specific arrangements of the spaces, the engineering and technical requirements. The finished building is composed of five vertically placed pavilions and six regular pavilions in plan.
To ensure that the existing building was not affected during the construction of the “extension”, the manufacturing was carried out off- site. In order to record and prevent any dam- age to the listed buildings which surround the site, anti-vibration systems were installed. Two of the primary site issues, from the beginning were about solving the “cracked” geometry of the street edge and the color pallet of the ex- terior materials, which needed to integrate with the context of the site.
The Design
The design had to respect the existing context of the building and preserve the facade of the King Edward VII Building and Smirke Building. It also had to account for the efficient use of the daylight penetrating into the existing spaces and to obtain a coherent response and interaction with the new spaces. The design had to be planned to create a connection with the existing museum, as the main principle was to allow maximum flexibility of space and circulation through the pavilions which generate a logic movement, thus enhancing the quality of the visitor’s experience.
The first requirements in the brief were to create twenty-first century facilities for conservation and study, a modern gallery for special exhibitions and significant amounts of controlled
and regulated storage spaces. The purpose was also to set a model for the future, a new way of arranging spaces and circulation for museums. A space that could accommodate an unknown future of ways to exhibit. At the commencement of the design pro- cess, the brief was not entirely completed and difficult for the design team to work with.
These complications where only enhanced by the demanding site restrictions that surround the British Museum. A major problem was in terms of how to deal with the actual buildings in context due to the listed and protected buildings.
Dealing with the Brief
The design teams form RSHP began by investigating all the spaces, corners and windows from the actual site and from the existing building, so they could understand how the new building would sit in its context all the different angles. They spent the initial months analysing and understanding the brief in order to simplify it into, diagrams to show the respective consult- ants and avoid having to go over the ten-page brief during each meeting. After careful consideration and failed planning applications, some slight modifications were made in relation to the circulation and movement of the trucks unloading artefacts on site. However, the new design caused discontent with the clients.
The Proposal
The design team had proposed a revolutionary way of exhibiting using natural light in the gallery space piercing through the space from the facades. This idea had been thought of for the future and envisioned to last the next 60 years, considering that the ways of exhibiting will eventually change. This gave the flexibility to accommodate this necessity, if natural light was negatively affecting the exhibitions partition walls could be placed to counteract the reflection and absorption of light in the gallery. this radical change is now seen by the clients as the only way the project could have worked and fully agree with the architects vision. Further changes in the scheme were about the materiality of the building. The client’s original intentions and vision was to continue using brick in order to create coherence with the old building. The design team however, directly communicated that if the client wanted brick they would have to hire someone else to carry out the project, as they did not specialize in brick work. After a careful analysis on the part of the client, hey concluded that RSHP would have full authority and power over the design. One of the main objectives regarded circulation through the entire museum because this was perhaps the most important factor in terms of user experience both in the public and private, money generating galleries. The decision to keep public and staff spaces separate originated from the necessity to move artefacts after they have been unloaded to different rooms. The less distance the artefacts cover when moving the smaller the risk of damaging them.
Rogers Stirk Harbour+Partners designed the building to focus on improving its operation within Bloomsbury and renovating ‘behind-the- scenes’ facilities, improving waste recycling, removing clutter and restoring listed buildings. The scheme consists of three main parts: a gallery for visitors, laboratories for research scientists and storage hubs with built-in technical equipment for the maintenance and repair of collection pieces. The inside has the explicit intention and function of answering to the requirements of creating a temperature and light stable facility to accommodate the spaces listed above, whilst the exterior aims to match the Bloomsbury’s calm and subtle aesthetic.
Subordinate Functions of the Main Spaces Plans of the Different Levels
Gallery Plant Room The plant is capable of controlling the amount of duct and riser space for ventilation. The design team had thoroughly considered the essential strategy to manage the building as efficiently as possible using plants. A gallery space requires sensitive control of temperature and humidity 24 hours a day.
The design team decided to install the main power source in the middle story of the building which is unusual. This was done because of the necessity to maximize occupancy and because basement was not a viable option because it is a storage facility for pieces that are too heavy to be stored on normal floors and the ceiling was not an option because placing the plant on the roof would have ruined the visitors eyeline when looking at the two buildings next to each other. This approach was considered experimental at first but turned out to be successful in terms of supplying electricity and ventilation.
Exhibitions gallery In order to encourage participation of multiple and diverse audiences, the British museum hosts temporary exhibitions. A wide and flexible gallery makes it possible to arrange major international exhibitions, reaching out to a wider array and quantity of people.
The new facilities also help relieve the congested area in the Museum by leading visitors to exit from the north west corner to the west stair through a new Museum shop.
Laboratories Conservation facilities The new facilities contain modern laboratories, studios and a library to maintain and regulate the quality and standard of analysis and maintenance of the objects. Studios were aligned un- der a wide roof so that the Museum’s conservation team could make the most of the northern light for conservation activities.
The flexible floor plan is helpful for the conservation staff in terms of moving the artefacts from the unloading area to the laboratory and eventually to the gallery.
Office spaces There are about 200 staff members who work and live across an entire floor in the Centre. Meeting and common rooms are integrated in the flexible design. By allocating offices in the upper area of the building, staff can use the daylight coming through the building’s glass fa- cade.
Green Roof Green roof was originally designed for staff and Phd students’ welfare and healthy environment for supporting their research. However, considering the vulnerability to insects of many of the sensitive objects displayed at the British museum, the roof garden is still on a trial period to determine whether or not it interferes with conservation functions.
Only one pavilion currently has a green roof which is proving to be successful and not inter- fering with the museum’s collection. They are planning to extend the green roof system to the rest of 4 pavilions.
Storage Collections’management hub A collections’ hub where the packing and unpacking of objects occurs frequently in which tem- perature and humidity must be kept constant because of the dedicated machinery and sensitiv- ity of the artefacts. A bespoke truck lift enables to transfer objects into the building and secure loading bays offer easy access to the gallery, conservation facilities and science studios.
The British Museum has always had issues with the relocation and arrival of objects to the building. They had to block the street from both directions and it caused severe traffic jams. In order to solve this problem, the design team located the transportation area in front of the build- ing so that the trucks could be lowered directly into the unloading area within. Thus, solving the traffic jams and resulting in safer ways for the technicians to unload the artefacts in controlled environments
Collection storage and study rooms On each level of the storage area, there are study rooms where scientists can inspect and ob- serve objects with proper equipment. These rooms allow for flexible circulation inside so that various different materials can be stored in the specific parts of the building.
Working methods and lessons learned The main architect and director, John McElgunn, managed 27 teams. Before commencing construction works, there were several meetings with subcontractors due to the complexity of the technical approaches that were needed to meet the needs of the client and function of the building. As the project developed, meetings were less frequent and only took place to discuss construction issues.
One of the main lessons learned was understanding how user expe- rience had the utmost relevance and was therefore the key driving factor used to design the project. These experiences were gained through interviewing scientists and mostly curators, which were a large part of the future users of the finished project. As far as we know, no personnel executed more dominance over others. This may not be the case within the subgroups but we know that the main architect/director of the project managed and employed orders while considering staff, contractors and clients opinions and concerns.
What worked? The motion of the building was to connect a diverse amount of fields for the north-west edge of the museum. The architects also wanted to use aspects taken from other buildings of the British Museum like the King Edward VII Building and Smirke Buildings in order to create har- mony and balance with the extension and main building.
The steel frame implementation and addition of the 1.600 hand-cast, kiln-formed glass planks were built off site and assembled in a very re- stricting amount of space. The plants create a veil of privacy between the street and the private functions of the Museum, while allowing day- light in and outward views. Lighting and layout can be adapted to suit as many different installations as possible.
What didn’t work? Unsuccessful ideas were not regarded as failures but rather as an intrinsic part of the overall design process. As Javier Ampuero, one of the designers of the laboratories said; “all ideas are part of a design process which help you to find the right ones”. Designs were instead, iterated in order to achieve a proposal which could obtain a structure free of vibration, which was needed in order to protect Japanese ce- ramics that were exhibited on the northwest part of the existing muse- um during construction.
As in a contemporary cinema amphitheater, the architecture dissolves to give superlative importance to the display. Most of the new exhibit space feels abbreviate, its lobbies crowded and its area ambiguous. There are also cultural ramifications, they turn on the contrast between a museum and a department store. Both affect the presentation of items to the audience gaze, and with it some bait, there is still a con- siderable difference between the admiration, reflection and civilization that an exhibit is to arouse, and the simple fulfillment offered by a work.
What could have worked better? Like other large cultural institutions, the museum finds itself dealing with similar pressures of those of leisure and entertainment such as ever-growing numbers of visitors and the desire for more works. John McElcgunn has also displayed discontent with the truck lift which caus- es vibrations that could damage the artefacts.
What surprised you? There are many aspects about RSHP’s construction that can be appraised, which comprise conservation rooms, laboratories and storage, as well as the exhibition area. Externally its delicate parallel slots of milky cast glass and pale stone nicely adjust the verticals of the colossal ionic half-columns of its neighbouring museum built in 1907-14.
The fears of regional biologists, who opposed the construction plan as “gross” and “inappropriate” when it was first planned, have not bore out. A stair column, a calm relative of vertical currency that Rogers used on the Pompidou Centre and the Lloyd’s architecture, does its job admirably.
What was unexpected? The initial brief had its oddities. The most unexpected thing that you can find when considering the interior of the building is the huge life that is inside, as the architect John McElgunn said during our meeting. Another very surprising aspect is that there are actually two buildings: one that you can see from the exterior (where you can find the exhibitions, the logistics, the students’ rooms) and the sec- ond one is located in the ground (it is used for storage and it is good because it is dark and the soil can’t gain). Digging out the soil from the ground was a significant logistical effort that took almost one year. Approximately one hundred trucks came per day to collect the soil.
The ground part of the building contains the science atrium which has three levels and a room for big exponents like sarcophaguses which measures six meters from floor to ceiling. This unexpected lo- cation for a room of this scale and importance was very unexpected but logical when considering the protection, the objects must be in from vibrations and electromagnetic fields. It is also important noting that 50% of the building is located beneath ground level.
Further unexpected features include the truck lift that lowers the art- work directly into the building which is an uncommon and yet again very logical solution to avoiding traffic and circulation blockage.
What procurement routes where used? From the commencement, different engineers, architects and design teams expressed their interest for the project. Once the competition was won by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners , they began to divide the tasks with other teams that gained their contracts in other do- mains like landscape architects, electricians, plumbing teams…
There were a lot of problems in regards to communication for Roger Stirk Harbour + Partners, who tried to maintain it between the firms, letting them to do their work and to help them remain within budget, trying to help them with the consultation, to express their ideas and work-management. RSHP was also an already well established practice so they had experience working with certain contractors and continued with those with the exception of a few more specific outsourced companies such as the one that worked on the truck lift.
The Goals
The British Museum World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre was put in place to give the museum more galleries, more labs, their own conservation studios, expanded storage and more general facilities for the benefit of the Mu- seum. This was all planned out to help them reach their desired goals and aspirations with the building of the extension project. One of the main goals of the new build was to allow the British Museum to exhibit much larger displays and pieces than they were able to prior to its construction. Therefore, the museum would be overall better equipped to educate and allow its own brand to grow from a corporate perspective.
The conservation of these pieces from around the globe was important to the British Muse- um, therefore instead of using their main fa- cilities, they built this new space. The exhib- iting of these larger objects was also to give members of the public and experts alike fur- ther knowledge about things they did not know before. An operational goal of the build- ing was to have rational on-site day to day operations to be efficient and run smoothly, whilst having modern “behind the scenes” facilities. To make visiting and work more ef- ficient in terms of circulation and enjoyability.
The Original Intentions
The British Museum wanted to bring all their facilities and workings together in harmony, so their work and exhibitions could enhance the Museums role in society locally and nationally as an educator and to be able to provide “incredi- ble worldwide training”. Another goal of the build was to add accommodation for on site curators.
Whilst having admirable use of light, pest control and excellent thermal conditions for a building of its size. The British Museum also aimed for a clean and enjoyable journey and circulation throughout the building. With their use of glass lifts and natural light. This opens the space and adds to the interest of what is on exhibition as well as celebrating the architecture itself.
The Overall Approach of the Team and Their Response
The Result
The overall design is mainly driven by the nature of the site and the five linked pavil- ions arranged to respect the existing fa- cades. Moreover, the courtyard is designed with references to the structural grid through paving patterns and the adjacent building.
The structural grid and cornice line of the Edwardian wing served as a guideline to de- sign the elevations which are visible from the street. In terms of materiality, inspired by the existing buildings, Portland stone and kiln-formed glass are used on the facade. The elements are hanged like taut sheets of lined paper to create the scaled-up extrac- tion vents effect.(Architect Magazine, 2018)
Energy efficiency is also one of the essential considerations in this project as fritted glazed horizontal panels are used to allow sunlight to enter the room and protect display in exhibi- tion and workshop (Architecture.com, 2018)
Our Team
Our team is composed by a culturally diverse group of members belonging to different parts of the world. The majority of the members knew each other with the exception of a couple. Nev- ertheless, from day one (our first meet) the team worked in unison and developed a lean strate- gy to systematically approach research, report writing and presentation preparations. We be- gan by creating a schedule for the following weeks so that we could meet on Wednesdays and Fridays to go over research and updates.
Schedule & Work Division
The timetable we came up with was solely based on schedule availability in order to find common days between the eight members. We immediately agreed to creating a register to go with the schedule to take attendance so that we could devise a system for the grad- ing. In order to increase productivity and en- sure that each member would come to the meetings with work we also decided to incor- porate a log of each member’s contributions to the project on the given meeting days. As we sat in a circle, everyone was able to voice their concerns and issues and we all agreed, as all the decisions were unanimous which prompted a great beginning to the project. As the meetings went on fewer people attended. Nevertheless, the majority of the absentees consistently contributed work for the project.
The research and analysis of the relevant char- acteristics of the project was conducted with a system. After each meeting every member would state their intentions regarding the work to be done. The team would then meet up the follow- ing week and go over every member’s analysis and discuss the relevance of each contribution to the project. After this the information would be collected and revised to create a coherent and updated report by one of the members.
Reward vs Punishment
The team also agreed on a reward/punish- ment system to encourage people to attend meetings. Starting from the assumption that the team is valued at 100% and there are eight members and each one contributes the same amount of time and work to the pres- entation and report we devised a percentage
system in which we all begin at 12.5%. An ab- sence deducts 1% and the lack of contribu- tion deducts a further 0.6%. This system was adopted to regulate and make the assessment of the work as fair as possible. However, we had not yet established a system for the break- down of the grades for the presentation. This would give the opportunity to members who had not contributed as much as others to the report to redeem themselves and compensate with the presentation. If someone wanted to increase their percentage even after they had not attended meetings, they could still do so by working more than others for the creation of the video. Ideally everyone would have worked the same amount towards our com- mon goal. However, this was rarely the case.
RSHP
Just like Rogers Stirk Harbours + Partners Practice that “provide good working condi- tions for staff and ensuring a family-friendly environment” Our meeting consisted on get- ting to know each other’s backgrounds, per- sonalities and strengths. By analyzing every- one’s strengths and weaknesses we were able to start identifying who suited each task better. This idea of identifying roles is similar to what Meredith Belbin stated, “The bene- fit of utilizing and understanding Team Roles is that not only do we learn more about our- selves, but also a lot about our work col- leagues and how to get the best out of them”.
Richard Stirk Harbour & Partners follow the ‘Think Tank’ philosophy to enable everyone to collaborate with their individual expertise. This is a great way of making everyone add their personal taste and experience to the project. We have acknowledged it in a similar way as we decided to set tasks depending on strength, personality, ambition and knowledge. These were then carried on in our report, for exam- ple one of our members edited the video while another one designed the layout of the report.
Workflow
Each of us have skills on different are- as that can be used wisely to improve our project. We created a collaborative Goog- le Docs that everyone could access and edit at any time providing the opportunity for people to work whenever they wanted.
Final Meatings
We had a meeting on the 28th of November to discuss the last details of the report and our next step towards the presentation. We first discussed how all the information gathered would be organized and how one of our mem- bers would be in charge of editing, restructur- ing, filling out missing parts and adjusting the members research in a clear way in the report.
Each sub-group had meetings to wrap up the missing bits and make sure information was not repeated. Our team agreed to send all the files to the person in charge by Fri- day 10 am. We organized two more meet- ings before the hand in to check the report once everything was structured together. We also decided that the funnel would oversee the upload and physical hand in of the report.
Grade System
Furthermore, we discussed the grade system and gave each individual an average percent- age depending on attendance and work load. We examined the tasks needed to produce the presentation. The members that had low- er averages were assigned the most important and time-consuming tasks such as; filming, editing, script writing and sketches to compen- sate with the work they did not do for the re- port. The rest of the group would be in charge of taking pictures and editing them. We ar- ranged to visit and shoot the film on Friday 7th.
John McElgunn
We also had the opportunity to meet with the main Architect and team manager John McEl- gunn to interview him. He was surprisingly ac- commodating and dedicated two hours of his time to give us an entire presentation, assisted by a PowerPoint presentation about the en- tire project from the competition stages to the very end. We were all invited to attend the in- terview, however due to various reasons only four of us were able to attend. Being able to see first-hand the offices was an exceptional experience. By seeing the architects at work, one could immediately understand the breadth of the projects they do and how well they co ordinate and work as a team. As the architects were drawing at their desks you could see
plans, sections and computer renderings be- ing sent to the workshop and turning into mod- els thanks to other people. They functioned like a well oiled machine. Each cog doing its job without any interference or disruption.
John McElgunn coordinated 27 different teams. Many techniques were used in order to mini- mize money and time wasting. They began by summarizing the ten pages of text brief into di- agrams and charts so that the design teams would immediately know the essentials of the brief. Furthermore, the design of the extension was solely based on function and site restrictions so there was a constant teamwork between the architects, the client and the Camden Council.
Due to the site location and multiple restrictions the architects at the practice had to continuously revise their designs to comply with the planning restrictions. Furthermore, because of the nature of the project there was also an on- going relationship between the architects and the engineers in order to establish a function- al design. With these and 27 other teams the coordination and management of said people was very demanding but essential to keep within the time and cost margins. He reportedly said that the only complications were caused by an Italian engineering team dedicated to the construction of the truck lift. They continuously provided the incorrect drawings and often they contained mistakes and dangerous approximations. John McElgunn said that this was due to the fact that the constructors did not work well with drawings he said “why do a four-hour drawing when we can build the actual lift in two” when he heard this they flew out to Italy and the constructors showed them the working lift and everything from there went smoothly.
Lessons Learned
The lesson we learned from this is that people do things their own way and that it is essential to let them do so in order to achieve the best results. Trying to change the way other teams or people work will ultimately result in wastes of time and money which does not help any- one. This was applied to some extent within our team. People were encouraged to work on aspects that they already knew to ensure no time would be wasted trying to learn how to do other things and maybe do them wrong.
Conclusion
The overall outcome of the project in our opinion was a success. RSHP was able to create a harmonious co-existence between the main and extension building. It was also a success in setting a model for furture exhibitions and breaking the status-quo of what galleries should look and feel like.
Our team also worked in a formal and effective manner with the exception of certain memebers and instances. However, these individuals made amense and compensated with the presentation.
The ownage and responsibility of mistakes and pride of each members work was also a very important aspect of our team.
We modelled our organization after RSHP, every team member was valuead and there was only one person working as a representative during meetings ensuring work was done and kept on schedule allowing everyone to discuss issues and raise awareness regarding upcoming deadlines and necessary work to be done.