The National Archives

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, KEW

This highly prestigious project involved the complete fit out and refurbishment of all the Public Records areas within The National Archives (TNA) at Kew, Surrey. This project was driven by the need to relocate TNA’s services located at the Family Records Centre, in order to create a single and central national archive. The works covered 80,000 square feet of public viewing space and required the division of the floor space into 12 separate areas of operation. It involved the creation of new public toilets, multimedia talks and presentation centre and glazed and solid partitioning to create private study areas. A state of the art CCTV monitoring facility was installed, including 91 security cameras and the lighting systems were completely rewired. Additionally, a bespoke lighting feature, reception desk to the welcome area and new public toilets were installed. The project included heavy use of environmentally friendly materials. This design and build project with Turner and Townsend involved working around 800 staff and 400 users. It lasted 25 weeks all whilst the building remained in use with full admission by the public.