LDA Design on Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood and the approaches to the British Museum

Image: CGI of re-designed Great Russell Street in front of the British Museum - courtesy of LDA Design

LDA Design has been commissioned by Camden Council to lead the design for Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood, a major streets and public realm project aiming to reduce traffic dominance and create more attractive, healthier and more inclusive spaces.

It says:

'Holborn has an architectural and cultural richness that few central London areas can match but it is also widely perceived as a ‘place between’, somewhere to pass through rather than linger. Many roads are heavily trafficked and create severance. 

Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood will rethink how eighteen streets and spaces work to transform how pedestrians, cyclists, workers, residents and visitors experience them, and to provide a more supportive environment for nature and biodiversity.

'Changes include the pedestrianisation of Great Russell Street, in front of the British Museum, and a reimagining of New Oxford Street. Great Ormond Street, Great Queen Street and Theobalds Road will all be made more accessible, safer and greener. The scheme is designed to improve air quality and promote health and wellbeing and strengthen climate resilience.

The project is in partnership with Transport for London, and LDA Design is joined by a team including Studio Weave, Place Bureau, Tom Massey Studio, Polytechnic, Light Follows Behaviour and Authentic Futures.

'LDA Design developed the Public Realm Strategy for Holborn, and the next phase of design development progresses the public realm and highway designs and those for planting, public art, lighting, signage and wayfinding. It will involve engagement with stakeholders, collectively sharing stories and developing narratives around the places that mean something to them. A full public consultation on the proposals is expected late summer.'

Meanwhile, as the Museums Association has reported, a project to revamp the British Museum’s forecourt to create a civic space and reduce visitor queues has been granted planning permission by Camden Council – despite objections that design proposals will negatively impact on the architectural merit of the 19^th-century building and Robert Smirke's Greek Revival classical facade..

Posting on Instagram, the director of the museum Nicholas Cullinan said the members of the council’s planning committee voted unanimously in support of plans to erect two visitor welcome pavilions and landscaping in the museum’s northern and southern forecourts. Additional plans to install queuing and wayfinding infrastructure such as railings and seating have also been approved, enabling the museum to create “a civic space for everyone”, according to Cullinan.

“We will remove the temporary white tents and replace them with architecturally designed pavilions and new landscaping drawing inspiration from our collection and a history of horticulture,” he wrote in the post.

“It should provide a far more positive experience for visitors that doesn’t focus on crowd control. Instead, there will be new curatorial spaces within the gardens, and I’m hoping they will become a vital piece of public green space in Camden – to be enjoyed by our visitors, school groups and the local community.”

As previously reported in Museum Journal, conservation charity The Georgian Group had objected to the design proposals, which it claimed would “cause an unacceptable level of harm to the significance of this internationally important site”.

The Victorian Society, meanwhile, called for the southern pavilion to be moved closer to the museum's boundary railings to limit “the harm the present location has on the importance of Smirke's grand triumphal facade”, while Historic Buildings & Places, a charity that works to protect the built historic environment, said it was concerned about the “level of harm the proposed landscaping would have on this Grade I listed heritage asset”.

The British Museum’s visitor welcome project should complete next spring. It is considered a temporary solution, valid for 10 years only.