FCBStudios to design new Herbarium for Kew Gardens

17 June 2024

FCBStudios have been appointed to lead a design team to create a new Herbarium building for Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew at the Thames Valley Science Park.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) has a collection of around seven million dried plant specimens collected over the past 170 years.

The new facility is intended to maintain and protect Kew’s preserved plant collection for future generations. It will provide space for future growth of these collections, as well as a more efficient and sustainable building.

This marks the start of an exciting new chapter for RBG Kew; supporting their critical conservation work, tackling the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change.

As a world-class herbarium, the facility will ensure the usability of the collections for biodiversity research and provide the flexibility to respond to future needs. It will also offer the unique opportunity to create a world-leading collections research hub at TVSP with the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the University of Reading, which will have new facilities adjacent at the site.

Sara Grohmann, Partner at FCBStudios said “We are delighted to have been given the opportunity to contribute to such an exciting and unique project, and we look forward working together with RBG Kew to deliver this new outstanding facility.”

Edward Clarke, Associate Director at Arup said “We are delighted to be engineering the new Herbarium for RBG Kew. It is a privilege to be entrusted with their world class collection. The project demands technical excellence across a range of disciplines to deliver a truly sustainable outcome.”

The project has been conceived in line with Kew’s critical work to address the biodiversity and climate crises. Modernising the collection spaces, laboratories and workspaces will provide for the long-term care and growth of the collections. It will be completed in line with RBG Kew’s sustainability strategy, Climate Positive by 2030: urgently tackling the climate and biodiversity crisis

Mark Rushworth, Project Director at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew commented,. “The project is critical to support our mission to understand and protect plants and fungi for the well-being of people and the future of all life on earth.  We are very much looking forward to joining the British Museum and the National History Museum who are also located at the site.”