Designers to fuel museum revamp

The Science Museum in London this week embarks on the second phase of its £50m, ten-year masterplan, which will see the creation of an expanded shop by Lumsden Design Partnership and a café designed by H Studios.

Alongside these retail projects, £500 000 is being spent on major access improvements to the main entrance in Exhibition Road and the display of the ‘heroic’ Industrial Revolution engines in the main atrium will be reinterpreted as the Energy Hall.

The masterplan aims to create the ‘Museum of the Future’ and is being overseen by an internal team, headed by Tim Molloy, creative director for the National Museum for Science and Industry, and Lyn Modaberi, head of design at the museum. Andy Feast acts as a 3D consultant to the design studio on a retained basis.

Molloy says, ‘Overall, we want to give the impression that the Science Museum is about the future of science, not just the past and present, so we’re trying to introduce contemporary environments.’

LDP’s plans for the store are currently in the concept stage, but the shop is scheduled for completion by the end of May, according to LDP managing director Callum Lumsden. ‘Our brief is to make this a destination shop that people will go to as they would a high street shop,’ he says.

The store’s floorspace will double to around 500 square metres and Lumsden hopes to improve its navigability, introducing some seating areas. The budget for the project is just under £500 000.

The H Studios-designed café will take on an energy theme, building on the Energy Gallery which opened last summer under phase one of the masterplan (DW 3 June 2004).