Children’s Gallery, Natural History Museum, London

I developed a vision for a new Children’s Gallery at the Natural History Museum, working with under 8s and families specialist, Vicky Cave. Extensive evaluation data showed that the Natural History Museum was extremely popular amongst families with children age over 8, but offered less for younger children. In response this this, the Museum planned a new gallery to form the centre of a visitor offer and journey focussed on younger children, encouraging more repeat visits and also more visits from underserved audiences from adjacent boroughs.

The Museum asked for extensive collaborative development, which Vicky and I were naturally happy to embrace, running a series of workshops to garner staff input from across the museum, followed by workshops with key stakeholders and museum management to develop and test ideas. Vicky and I also explored best practice worldwide in under 8s learning experiences to augment our knowledge and experience from previous projects.

A key requirement was to incorporate museum collections into the the gallery in a meaningful way. In addition we explored ways to integrate the exhibition into the fabric of the grade I listed building, in practical terms, but also using the listed structures and decoration as part of the visitor journey.

The vision we developed encouraged active learning, embodying constructivist learning and learning through play approaches as well as biophilic design principles. We provided multiple entry points and different types of spaces and experiences for each visitor to find their own journey, and to encourage intergenerational learning. We outlined the gallery concept, including theming options and next steps in an illustrated sixteen page document, marking the start of a development process taking place over several years.