Buro Happold, leading engineers, consultants and advisors for the culture and heritage sector, is currently contributing its services and expertise to several new museums and cultural projects around the world.
Buro Happold operates in 31 locations worldwide, with over 70 partners and 2000 employees. Highlights of its global cultural project portfolio for the coming year include the eagerly awaited Grand Egyptian Museum, as well as the Museum of the Future in Dubai.
10 notable global cultural projects from Buro Happold
These 10 cultural projects, which have either been recently completed or are due to open in the near future, showcase Buro Happold’s world-class engineering design and consultancy expertise.
Museum of the Future – Dubai, UAE
The Museum of the Future (pictured, top), which is housed in a distinctive stainless steel building in Dubai, will set out to explore the challenges and technologies shaping the future.
For this project, Buro Happold’s specialist engineers developed in-house optimisation routines, in order to model and analyse options for the structure, resulting in the Museum of the Future’s iconic torus shape.
Shanghai Library East – Shanghai, China
Shanghai Library East will be home to 4.8 million books, as well as offering a 1,200 seat performance venue, exhibition and events space and a children’s library. The building itself, designed by Architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen, looks as if it is floating above the trees.
As building services engineers for this project, Buro Happold worked to develop systems that would provide a comfortable guest comfortable environment as well as ensure the safe preservation of the books.
Grand Egyptian Museum – Giza, Egypt
When it opens later this year, the Grand Egyptian Museum will be the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilisation. It will house a collection of over 100,000 artefacts covering 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, including the Tutankhamun collection. Set over three floors, the venue includes conference facilities, educational spaces, a 250-seat 3D cinema, a children’s museum, shops and restaurants.
Buro Happold worked alongside the architect Heneghan Peng from the competition stages, delivering integrated building services as well as building environmental design, IT, fire, security and acoustic strategies.
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures – Los Angeles, California, USA
In September 2021, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened to the public in LA. This is the largest museum in the US devoted to the arts, sciences, and artists of moviemaking. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the campus contains the restored Saban Building and a new spherical addition housing a 1,000 seat theatre.
Buro Happold was the project’s structural engineer, MEP engineer, lighting designer, as well as its environmental design, energy modelling, and IT consultant.
Eden Project North – Morecambe, UK
Eden Project North aims to enhance health and wellbeing and connect visitors with the natural environment of Morecambe Bay. The project will re-imagine Morecambe as a seaside resort for the 21st Century and will be aligned with the Eden Project’s core focus on education, ecology and community.
Buro Happold advised on the engineering behind the first Eden Project site in Cornwall and has now provided consultancy across a series of disciplines for the planning stage of Eden Project North, including building services engineering (MEP), civils and infrastructure, fire safety engineering, security, waste management and specialist lighting.
Manchester Jewish Museum – Manchester, UK
Another project that opened in 2021, this was a major redevelopment of an existing building. Manchester Jewish Museum now features a new gallery, studio, kitchen, shop and café, doubling its original space. Housed in a Grade II listed synagogue, the museum has a collection of more than 31,000 objects and personal histories, telling the story of Jewish Manchester as well as wider stories of migration, community and identity.
Buro Happold provided interdisciplinary expertise to modernise the building, working with architects Citizen Design Bureau to create an extension that complements the historic synagogue. This included preserving the oak roof structure, rectifying water leaks and upgrading the heating system within the architecturally significant building.
BBC Music Studios at East Bank – London, UK
The BCC’s live music teams, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, are moving to a new location, BBC East Bank in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, in 2025. The recording and rehearsal studios at the new location will be home to live and recorded music for Radio 1, 6 Music, Radio 2 and Radio 3, as well as regularly hosting the BBC Concert Orchestra, the BBC Proms team and the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists.
Buro Happold, along with architects Allies and Morrison, has been chosen to create this new home for the BBC’s live music, working to a brief that requires getting maximum use from a relatively small site.
Polish Army Museum – Warsaw, Poland
This new museum is on the site of the Warsaw Citadel, bringing together new design with existing heritage buildings to create more than 12,000 square metres of new exhibition space
Buro Happold created the structural and building services engineering (MEP) design for the new South Building, working with the architect WXCA to come up with a competition-winning design for one of two new museum buildings, as well as a two-storey car park beneath. A key challenge was integrating new architectural elements harmoniously within the historic site.
Museum of the 20th Century – Berlin, Germany
Construction of this Herzog & de Meuron designed museum in Berlin’s Kulturforum is expected to be completed in 2028. The Museum of the 20th Century will be a new home for 20th-century art in the city, holding and showcasing Berlin’s important collection. It will also connect with the Neue Nationalgalerie next door, via an underground tunnel.
Buro Happold supported the architects in the design of the new museum in 2016. Following this, the company was commissioned to provide expert advice on the building services equipment and aspects of the lighting design.
The New Gasteig – Munich, Germany
Work to modernise the New Gasteig began in 2020 and is expected to finish in 2026. The largest cultural centre in Europe, it hosts around 1,800 events this year and caters to over 1.8 million visitors. It has five content and event halls and is home to the Munich Philharmonic, Munich Community College, the Munich City Library, and the University of Music and Performing Arts.
Here, Buro Happold has been engaged to work on the structural design as part of a joint venture.
Tackling complex challenges
“Our heritage of tackling complex engineering challenges in the built environment puts us in the perfect position to advise and design exceptional solutions for our clients, anywhere in the world,” says James Bruce, CEO at Buro Happold.
Having been in the business for over four decades, Buro Happold has built a global reputation for delivering creative, value-led solutions. This interconnected community of built environment experts is driven by the principles of respect, collaboration, sustainability and equity, and aims to create a positive impact and lasting legacy in the world.
There are many exciting museum projects opening around the world in 2022. Click here to read our highlights.
