London’s Natural History Museum Set for a Major Renovation

Soon visitors to the Natural History Museum in London will be greeted by a completely new look. That's because the U.K.’s third-most-frequented museum has just won planning permission for a major upgrade. Devised by the London-based firm Niall McLaughlin Architects and landscape designer Kim Wilkie, the plan lays out a series of new features, including a subterranean cloister, a wildlife garden, and a public plaza.

Back in 2014, Niall McLaughlin Architects won a competition with its renovation design, which called for three new zones. The first, dubbed the Square, will reimagine the area where most visitors arrive at the museum. This redesign will go a long way toward creating a generous new gathering space, as well as an improved experience for disabled visitors. The next step of the plan is to revamp the eastern grounds of the complex, which will involve landscaping a geological timeline of life on Earth. The third and final phase of the renovation will create a new wildlife garden. Three times larger than the current garden, it will be dedicated to plants and animals that thrive in cities around the world. “Together, the three zones will form a living connection between the natural world and the collections and research inside the museum,” said the architects in a statement. The goal is for all three to be completed by 2020.

The newly landscaped eastern grounds will feature the bronze cast of a Diplodocus dinosaur that has stood inside the museum’s entrance hall for the past 30 years.