Níall McLaughlin
Architects

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PROGRESS

MARCH 2017

Below are some from the Natural History Museum site showing the scaffold ‘tunnel’ going up at the Museum. This is the framework required to lift, manipulate, and move the blue whale skull into position in a few weeks.

Though the main hall has had a sperm whale in it before, this was only around 15m long. In contrast, the blue whale, the largest known animal to have ever existed, is about 30m long once assembled.

Unfortunately, due to the various extensions and alterations to the Museum over time, the skull can only come in via the front doors. And – much like a very large, very heavy, very valuable sofa – it’s a case of squeezing it in at strange angles.

OLYMPIC HOUSING WINS CREATIVITY IN CONCRETE AWARD

NOVEMBER 2012

The practice has been awarded the BPCF 2012 Creativity in Concrete Award for their treatment of the facade for the Athletes’ Housing Block N15 within the Olympic Village. The precast cladding panels sample fragments of the Elgin Marbles, which were scanned digitally from the British Museum in London. The scans were used to make fibreboard positives using a 5-axis router, which then became the formwork for the latex moulds from which the panels were cast.