The architectural intervention conceived by CF Møller and developed by Purcell Miller Tritton provides a new means of access to the Museum and a point of connection with its historic neighbour, Greenwich Park. The building is derived from the landscape reinforcing the geometry of Andre Le Notre’s C17th baroque plan, establishing a new east – west terrace that extends from King William Walk, past the Museum wings and on to the Queens House, where it meets the centre piece of the formal axis.

Landscape and building are conceived as a series of overlapping layers which slide past each other, enabling the ground plane to rise and fall, drawing the public down to the new entrance plaza and upward toward an open viewing terrace from which one can enjoy glimpses of the Park and Observatory beyond. Churchman’s landscape solution extends the simple grass carpet of Greenwich Park up to the classical Museum façade achieving a sense of visual continuity and openness. Blades of clipped hornbeam provide green facades to the new structure reinforcing the notion that this building is at one with its setting. The maritime references influence the detail of the design a linear water rill extending 160 meters from the site boundary to the entrance draws drawing people to the heart of the scheme while providing a degree of fun, engagement and a chance to race paper boats or Pooh sticks. Other details currently being explored include an extension to the celebrated herbaceous border which is filled with frothy billowing vegetation and a series of ornamental gates that reference the trade crops which underpin our maritime heritage. The construction work is scheduled to begin on site this summer with completion of the whole scheme expected in 2011 in time for the Olympics, in which the Museum hosts the equestrian events.