The London Museum, Smithfield

This highly complex scheme transforms parts of Smithfield’s historic market into an exciting new home for the Museum of London and will play a key role in the CoL's Culture Mile vision.

Bringing new vibrancy to a historic, yet deteriorating part of the City, the new Museum of London at West Smithfield reimagines a group of historic market buildings into a 24-hour world class cultural destination and a democratic arena for public life and debate. One of the largest cultural schemes happening in Europe, the project is a showcase of adaptive reuse of heritage buildings and close collaboration between client and design team to attain exemplar sustainable targets and circular economy principles.

The new Museum of London will play a key role in the City of London Corporation’s Culture Mile vision, a transformational initiative to create a new cultural area in the north-west corner of the City, which will significantly contribute to the wider revitalisation of Smithfield.
Embracing the principles of circular economy, the project will reuse and restore the existing historic fabric with contemporary interventions, to create exciting and flexible spaces that draw more people throughout the day. State-of-the art exhibition spaces will maximise flexibility and reduce maintenance, while the overall architecture will promote health and wellbeing measures to enhance a delightful visitor experience and staff comfort.
An innovative water and material conservation strategy, based on the principles of reduce, reuse, recycle, will help the new museum to meet and exceed local environmental targets. The project will divert more than 95% of its construction waste from landfill. Operational energy costs and carbon emissions will be reduced by improving operational efficiency, ensuring the building can comfortably and efficiently service large visitor numbers without compromising comfort. A biodiverse roof on the General Market and a new garden by the entrance are proposed to enhance the ecological value.
Leading the way in ‘smart enabling’, building services systems data will be available to be accessed and utilised to monitor and incrementally improve operational energy performance.

Zero Carbon London

→ Targeting a minimum of BREEAM Excellent with an aspiration for Outstanding

→ 58% reduction of carbon emission on site
→ Net zero operational carbon

→ Retaining 70% of existing structure

→ 40% reduction in embodied carbon when compared with benchmark value

Bringing new vibrancy to a historic, yet deteriorating part of the City, the new Museum of London at West Smithfield reimagines a group of historic market buildings into a 24- hour world class cultural destination and a democratic arena for public life and debate. One of the largest cultural schemes happening in Europe, the project is a showcase of adaptive reuse of heritage buildings and close collaboration between client and design team to attain exemplar sustainable targets and circular economy principles.

The new Museum of London will play a key role in the City of London Corporation’s Culture Mile vision, a transformational initiative to create a new cultural area in the north-west corner of the City, which will significantly contribute to the wider revitalisation of Smithfield.

Embracing the principles of circular economy, the project will reuse and restore the existing historic fabric with contemporary interventions, to create exciting and flexible spaces that draw more people throughout the day. State- of-the art exhibition spaces will maximise flexibility and reduce maintenance, while the overall architecture will promote health and wellbeing measures to enhance a delightful visitor experience and staff comfort.

An innovative water and material conservation strategy, based on the principles of reduce, reuse, recycle, will help the new museum to meet and exceed local environmental targets. The project will divert more than 95 per cent of its construction waste from landfill.

Operational energy costs and carbon emissions will be reduced by improving operational efficiency, ensuring the building can comfortably and efficiently service

large visitor numbers without compromising comfort. A biodiverse roof on the General Market and a new garden by the entrance are proposed to enhance the ecological value.

Leading the way in ‘smart enabling’, building services systems data will be available to be accessed and utilised to monitor and incrementally improve operational

energy performance.

To reduce the energy demands, associated with working within the constraints of heritage buildings, the project has adopted a series of measures. These include: rationalisation of space distribution to maximise daylight and views out; optimised enhancement to thermal properties of the existing building envelope; passive natural ventilation in large public spaces; exposing the structure of the building with high ceiling to benefit from the thermal mass; connection to district energy network; 236 sqm photovoltaic panels on the roof; low energy lighting; active heating and cooling underfloor system and energy efficient building services system.

Project information

Status

Planning Granted

Borough

City of London

Completion

2026

Location

222 London Central Markets, London EC1A 9LH, UK

Team Credits

Client

Museum of London