What is your role at the Natural History Museum? 

I’m a senior Project and Programme Manager working in the NHM’s Central Project Office. We work on a huge variety of projects from capital projects, gallery and building refurbishments, temporary exhibitions, public offer events and larger masterplan initiatives like Darwin Centre, Hintze Hall and the Grounds programmes. Currently I’m the programme manager for Hintze Hall which is the first masterplan initiative since the Darwin Centre in 2009. The programme entails fairly extensive building conservation and refurbishment works plus lots of amazing new displays spread over the three floors of our iconic Hintze Hall. It’s due to complete and reopen to the public in summer 2017.  

How long have you worked at the Natural History Museum?

I started in 2008 so nine years. It’s flown by. I was supplier side before, building museum exhibitions and interactives. Essentially I became the client which puts me in control. 

Did the building influence your decision when accepting the job? 

Yes, I’d always wanted to work for a national museum so to get the chance to work in such an internationally iconic building as the NHM was a bonus. I’d seen some of Alfred Waterhouse’s buildings before in Manchester but being able to get inside the Natural History Museum on a daily basis is a treat. There are still rooms within the museum that I’ve never been in. It’s huge. The best time is when we’re doing a late night load in and everything is so quiet in the Hintze Hall. You feel like you have the place to yourself.   

Do you enjoy working in an iconic London building? 

Yes, I love it. It’s a privilege to come to work every day at the NHM.  People always like to hear about my job when they find out I work here. Managing projects can be very challenging due to its Grade 1 listed status. Combine that with the fact that we are open to the public 363 days of the year, Monday to Sunday, with an ever more packed evening commercial events programme, delivering successful projects can be pretty hard work. 

What do you like most about the Natural History Museum? 

So many things. Most people have an enduring memory of the place, usually from visiting as a child. It must be a special place to have reached so many people over such a long period. I think people feel connected to the museum and it spans the generations. I love the fact that that it is still free to enter for anyone to come and explore the galleries. It’s as it should be, a national collection accessible for everyone to experience. We also hold loads of visitor events too. Our Kids and now Adults Dino Snores evenings are very popular. You get to sleep in the Hintze Hall and have a midnight tour!  I like that fact that even though the museum and its collection has been around for hundreds of years the work we are doing today in our science and in our public offer is still so relevant to now and for the future. We reflect the modern world and we’re not afraid to change with it. 

I love the fact that our visitor demographic is so varied, and international visitors make a bee line to visit us as a must see London attraction. 

But most of all I get a real kick out of seeing visiting school groups in our galleries being amazed by the building and the things we have on display, inspiring future generations to understand, care for and play an active part in the future of the natural world. That’s why I wanted to work here in the first place. 

Do you like the architectural design of the building?  

Absolutely. It’s a masterpiece of Victorian gothic revival architecture and different views of it can take your breath away sometimes. Alfred Waterhouse was recognised as an extremely successful architect in his day. You only have to look through the gallery of his architectural work to see how influential he was then in the 1800’s and how he still is today. Its testament to his early work that Waterhouse received the commission to build the Natural History Museum in 1873 without competition. It’s certainly his best known work and I think is the finest example of terracotta used in an architectural setting. It’s playful too in its use of sculpture and for a building of its age it was incredibly functional. Waterhouse thought about ventilation, fire suppression, solar gain and visitor circulation, building it all neatly into his design so it didn’t detract from the overall aesthetic.   

Do you have a favourite lunch spot? 

I tend to eat lunch quickly these days due to project commitments so it’s either at my desk or in the staff restaurant which is a great place to catch up with colleagues. If I had more time I’d be relaxing in our quieter western grounds near our wildlife garden or the Darwin Centre courtyard which is a nice spot to really take in the newest bit of our estate. You get a real sense of the old meeting the new in this location. 

What time of year do you most enjoy the Natural History Museum?

It’s good year round really but it goes so quickly. From a project perspective January to March is usually the quietest time on site and is generally the best time to get things done in the galleries, sort out staff training and general office stuff. Spring is always nice when we start to establish our family butterfly exhibition on the front lawns ready for Easter. Summer is so busy these days with in excess of 20,000 visiting on some peak days, but it’s great that so many people flock to see what we have to offer. Our temporary exhibition programme kicks in then too and our wildlife garden is full of life and provides a real oasis of calm in busy central London. October is always a milestone as we announce the winner of our Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and launch the exhibition nationally and internationally. Ever year the standard of entries is so high and the photos are just amazing. Content that good makes exhibitions easier. And the Christmas period has been quite magical over the last few years too with our winter ice rink on the eastern grounds complete with twinkling lights in our huge trees. It always feels so festive and as we deliver the offer we always get to do the test skate before it opens to the public!

How does the building affect your job?

We are such a popular museum and we get in excess of 5 million visitors per year now so that takes its toll on the estate—so maintenance is continuous. Also security now plays a more active role in everything on site. Global events in recent years have focussed us to be more safe and secure to protect our staff, our visitors, the collections and the building. From a project perspective, its Grade 1 listed status influences a lot of what we do in our project work from exhibitions, gallery refurbishments and maintenance to major masterplan initiatives such as the Darwin Centre and Hintze Hall, and we work closely with our local authority the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Historic England to get things right. All our work pays homage to the building and its history in some way and we strive to deliver projects that are both sympathetic to the existing architecture and respect and protect the building for future generations. Investment is essential in preservation and our ongoing Hintze Hall programme of refurbishments is a good example of this. We’ve undertaken lots of building conservation work as part of this project from terracotta cleaning and repair works, to mosaic floor repairs, stained glass window cleaning and repairs, we’ve installed a new discreet passive ventilation system to try and manage the rising temperatures in the summer months and we’ve even constructed a new accessible ramp on the first floor west balcony based on the old east balcony design so we can provide step free access right the way round so visitors will be able to enjoy all the new amazing displays we’ve got planned. We're also developing a new accessible main entrance with new ramps and handrails, new ticket desks and a brand new lighting scheme throughout to illuminate the spaces and spotlight the beautiful architecture. It’s going to look stunning. In terms of terracotta cleaning and repairing, it can often be a tricky thing for us as we have so much of it; it’s sometimes hard to know where to stop and how far you should go without impacting the character of the brick pattern, which has taken years to establish. Luckily we’ve really honed our methodology for treating it now. 

Is there anything you don’t like about the building? 

You wouldn’t see them as a visitor but we’ve got some 60’s buildings back of house that house collections and staff offices. They probably wouldn’t get built today. Also managing modern projects in a historic setting is a huge challenge and we sometimes struggle with access, getting large things in through small doorways. I’ve lost count of how many huge specimens like elephants, giraffes and rhinos I’ve brought in through the front doors of the museum which believe it or not is still the largest aperture and most economical way into the museum for big things—and we have to build fairly elaborate scaffolding platforms to get over the front steps to do this. We’ll be bringing our blue whale in through this route this year which will take centre stage in the new Hintze Hall. 

Pest management can also be a problem in an old building like ours but we have a great Integrated Pest Management and Conservation team at the museum that are usually one step ahead of pests in terms of preventative conservation. And new designs always build IPM in. 

If you left your job at the Natural History Museum, what would you miss most? 

I’d miss my colleagues and the wider staff of course. There are so many talented and clever people working at the NHM. On the science side, you’ll often find yourself talking to the world’s leading authority on this or that. A chat with our director of science Professor Ian Owens can be pretty enlightening, or Professor Chris Stringer on Human Evolution. It’s so fascinating. Of course I’d miss the building, its challenges and idiosyncrasies but most of all I’d miss the variety of work that we do in the Central Project Office. As PM’s we are constantly learning new things. I’ve always said that project work should challenge us in different ways to keep us on our toes and help us learn and develop as professionals and as people.