Millennium Seedbank

Wakehurst Place, Great Britain

Architects: Stanton Williams

Year: 2000

Long life storage vaults were designed for this ‘living library’ of over 300 million seeds along with laboratories, a visitor centre, residential and educational science facilities. The site is adjacent to a Site of Special Scientific Interest and within an Area of Outstanding

Natural Beauty.

The 5,500 m² of flexible new buildings in six barrel-vaulted forms were designed to connect with the landscape and were inspired by the gentle curves of the local barns. The design located the storage vaults underground in the sloping ground to meet planning height restrictions and create the secure, energy efficient and strictly controlled low temperatures (down to minus 40C) and humidity levels required for seed storage.The original brief for the building was developed and the form of the building ‘turned inside out’ – the scientists were located in open offices around the public exhibition area and winter garden to help visitors be inspired by the importance of the collection. The sustainable strategy used low energy thermal mass design and local construction labour to minimise environmental impact. Water run off was managed to ensure the area’s hydrology is unaffected by the building.