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Video: Darwin Centre – The Engineer's Story

150 years after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the latest extension to the Natural History Museum in London – the new Darwin Centre – opened to the public in September 2009. The Darwin Centre provides a storage space for the Museum's collections, laboratories for its scientists, and new galleries to educate the public about biodiversity and scientific enquiry. In this programme, Ed Newman-Sanders, Arup's lead structural engineer for the project, talks us through the main structural considerations, from the piling through to the full-height columns in the atrium. The major focus is on the construction of the 8-storey, spray-concrete Cocoon, including its design, the build up of its shell, the construction of its internal ramps, and the transfer of loads through the structure.