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heritage & historic buildings special report
BUILDING PROJECTS
Project: Welsh Natural History Museum Client: National Museums & Galleries of Wales Architect (Gweithdy): Fielden Bradley Clegg Architect (Main building): Purcell Miller Tritton Project manager: Focus Cost consultant: Focus Structural engineer: Arup Landscape architect: TEP Main contractor: Kier Consulting engineer: Austin Partnership Steel frame: Hayes engineering Concrete frame: Stephenson Mechanical & electrical contractor: CMB Windows: Hanson Facades
with such a massive demolition and strip-out package that brought into question the validity of listing the building at all. For the design and construction team, this has provided a
major challenge as attempts to provide virtually a new museum on a concrete frame erected in the 1960s from a Percy Thomas design that will be barely seen on completion of the £21 million make-over. The plan was not just to completely revamp the building
designed by Thomas himself, twice a former RIBA president who died in 1969, but to retain the existing concrete frame and silica brick, but also to build a new visitors centre, known as the Gweithdy, elsewhere on the site of the museum. The refurbishment is a single project but two separate
architects have been used for the two distinct elements. Fielden Bradley Clegg were signed up to design the
Gweithdy, while the architect on the main building is Purcell Miller Tritton. The existing building provided three main galleries: an
agricultural gallery, a costume and textile gallery and another exhibition space known as Gallery One. The building also included a shop, cafe and restaurant and the main entrance that all needed a major makeover. “It will create an exciting new visitor experience integrating
national collections of archaeology and social history together in an open-air museum for the first time anywhere,” says Mike Lee, associate at Focus. A line-up of major contractors were shortlisted to price
the project with Kier beating Balfour Beatty, Bouygues and Galliford Try to the contract – but only after value engineering by the company reduced the cost by £1 million.
www.architectsdatafile.co.uk
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