Museum of the Weather

Museum of the Weather, Coe Fen, Cambridge

This entry received a Commendation in a competition run by the RIBA. The brief was for a museum dedicated to weather phenomenon, including exhibition areas and public facilities. The design is based around the formation of a new water channel, a tributary off the side of the existing Mill Pond. The museum building bridges over this and frames views from Coe Fen northwards to King's College Chapel, irrevocably linking the building to its context.

The museum spaces are largely raised off the ground in recognition of the flood plane, with entrances and vertical circulation appearing as pods on the ground floor. A mixture of formal and informal garden spaces surround the structure and mark the transition from natural fen to manmade environment.

Weather monitoring facilities are built into the design, as are current audio visual techniques for the presentation of and interaction with changing weather conditions. The museum is seen as a node in a national weather monitoring system.