It is fantastic to see the first of the 300,000 historic items from the Science Museum Group (SMG) Collection arriving in their new home, an innovative collection management facility at the National Collections Centre in Wiltshire.

The new facility in Wiltshire is 90m wide and 300m long, equivalent in size to 600 double-decker buses. It features conservation laboratories, research areas and photography studios alongside a vast storage hall with a staggering 30,000 metres of shelving ready to house the collection.

Designed by architects GWPA and constructed by Kier, sustainability is at the heart of the new facility. The highly insulated and extremely airtight design allows the stringent environmental conditions needed for the collection to be maintained with minimal energy use.

Equals acted as client side project managers on the design, construction and fit-out of the project. We also acted as moves project manager for the relocation of the collection from Blythe House to the new facility in Wroughton, and provided programme management to co-ordinate the various work streams.