How the Urban Nature Project is transforming the Natural History Museum

More than 140 years after it opened in 1881, the Natural History Museum, London, has been transforming its gardens into a fully accessible green space. Work on the Urban Nature Project will be completed in the summer.

Natalie Tacq, senior project and programme manager at the museum, is leading the project.

Museums Journal: How is the Natural History Museum making the space welcoming and accessible?

Natalie Tacq: Accessibility and inclusivity are at the core of the Urban Nature Project’s design. Visitors will be able to experience the Evolution Garden as they enter the museum grounds using the foot tunnel that connects with South Kensington tube station or at street level via an entrance on the corner of Exhibition Road. Like the museum, the gardens will be free to enter, providing a step-free urban green space.

The pathways will be wide enough for at least two wheelchair users to pass, and outdoor learning spaces mean they can join learning activities, including pond dipping.

The new outdoor galleries within the gardens have been designed to be touched, smelled and heard, as well as seen. Interpretation will include tactile maps and audio-descriptive guides for blind and partially blind audiences.

What are the challenges of creating a biologically diverse green space in a city?

Key considerations include protecting and increasing the existing wildlife and biodiversity; respecting the heritage of the museum building, designed by Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse; improving accessibility across the gardens year-round; creating a leading, sustainable design; and providing opportunities to learn about and explore nature.

The project has an ambitious approach to sustainable design. We have worked with our scientists and soil consultants to design gardens that work with our existing soil. An irrigation strategy, with topography designed into the landscape, will divert surface water to the thirstiest areas. We’re rewilding as many areas as possible.

How do you see visitors using the new green spaces?

Visitors can gather, relax, reconnect with nature and learn more about the incredible diversity of life on Earth and how our planet is changing.
And museum scientists can use the spaces to develop and showcase best practices to protect urban nature.

The planting in the gardens will create an immersive, educational experience for visitors telling the story of Deep Time, from the Cambrian period 540 million years ago to the present day and into the future.

How will the garden link to the museum's collections?

Our scientists are using our collections as part of their work to find solutions to the planetary emergency, and the intention is for the gardens to become a “living laboratory” to further support this work.

The interpretation throughout the gardens is directly drawn from our collections both on display and in storage, including fossil trees, ammonites, fossil specimens, fossil records of plants, and fossilised footprints.

Integrated within the gardens will be replicas, real geological and fossil specimens, plus accurate plant species based on the museum’s fossil records and our herbarium collections.

This project allows us to tell stories through specimens in a new way, a more immersive and realistic landscape, with the hope that this will amplify our visitors understanding of the collections on display indoors.

Furthermore, a key aim of the Timeline Wall is to show how the evolution of life and large-scale geological and environmental change are linked – a concept closely aligned with contents of the museum's collections.