A radical, ‘once-in-a-generation’ transformation of the National Science and Media Museum, a cultural cornerstone of Bradford City of Culture 2025.

AOC have led the design and delivery of a site-wide masterplan for the redevelopment of the 20th century museum building. The project improves the visitor experience through the transformation of the main public foyer, the introduction of a new public lift connecting eight floors and the new Sound and Vision galleries displaying the permanent collection across two floors. The works improve the buildings' environmental performance and enhance back of house facilities to support the museum’s long term sustainability.

The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford is housed on a significant site in the city within a theatre building commenced in the 1960s and extended in the 1990s. It combines seven floors of gallery with three cinemas, including Europe’s first opened iMax screen. The redevelopment of the museum carefully removes redundant elements, opens up the existing spaces and establishes new visual connections, making the most of the building’s spatial potential to create a coherent experience for visitors.

The designs support the museum’s target to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2033. Embodied carbon is minimised by the creative reuse of the existing fabric and by using low carbon, biogenic and recycled materials for new elements. Exhibition linings and setworks are predominantly timber with natural linoleum flooring and lightweight recycled acoustic linings. New efficient services plant, reused improved ventilation and LED lighting reduce the operational energy use and subsequent carbon emissions.

The main public foyer of the museum has been transformed to create a new public interior, looking over the adjacent City Park. The foyer allows for the open display of large objects and provides an inclusive visitor experience, a functioning entrance to the IMAX cinema and a dynamic event space. The new ceramic floor and acoustic timber linings support easy conversation, whilst a new discrete services infrastructure allows for flexibility on a daily basis.

A participative design process included engagement with diverse users to ensure the museum is shaped by the voices of people from Bradford. AOC worked closely with the museum’s Access panel, including local representatives from Blind and Visually Impaired Audiences, D/deaf, Learning Disabled and Neurodiverse Audiences contributing to an accessible and inclusive design. Co-creation with community groups explored new forms of engagement and interaction with the collection. Workshops with local groups, including a music production company working with young people, a local sixth form college and Bradford Community Broadcasting (BCB), informed the co-development of new gallery displays, selecting content and informing interpretation, making the museum’s collections continue to be relevant to contemporary audiences.

The 1,000sqm of new Sound and Vision galleries on Levels 3 and 5 of the museum feature over 500 exhibits, a range of interactive displays and a new art commission. The galleries allow visitors to journey from monochrome into glorious technicolour, experiencing the evolution of analogue technologies into digital tools and media. Calm, object-focused displays use a palette of natural materials to enhance the collection’s sensory qualities and tell stories with local relevance and national significance. Photography, moving image and sound are carefully deployed across the galleries at various scales and volumes to support an overarching narrative and compliment content themes.

Amidst the displays, intense, immersive scenes inspired by the collection use audiovisual and digital media to provide key moments for visitors to engage with the collection and each other. A range of interactive displays support the heightened scenes, from a Foley sound effects device that allows visitors to create sounds to accompany a film clip, to a Pepper’s Ghost recreation of the ‘Cottingley Fairies’.

A new double height space connects the two gallery floors and increases the volumetric variety of the visitor experience. AOC collaborated with multimedia artist Nayan Kulkarni on ‘Circus’, a site specific, interactive installation of live cameras and ‘digital mirrors’ in the space that invites visitors to experience the gallery as one connected, dynamic experience.

The Sound and Vision Project was funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, Art Fund, David Family Foundation, Sovereign Health Care, Spectacle Makers Charity and Shenward LLP. 

Design competition. First Prize. Realised 2025.