The £78M Darwin Centre is the second phase of recent developments at the Natural History Museum for which Andy Nicholson was the only consultant retained. The state of the art scientific facility will be used by 200 scientists and will allow public access to the research they undertake into the natural world.

This building fire strategy, for the departments of Entomology and Botany, had to consider the protection to the collection of 28 million insects, some collected by Darwin himself. They were stored in a 65m long 8 storey high cocoon developed by C.F. Møller architects.

Fire Engineer: Andy Nicholson at Buro Happold

Client: Natural History Museum

Architect: C.F. Møller Architects

Image: Nicolas de Camaret, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons