Urban Nature Project Wins Gold at Wood Awards

Exciting news for the Urban Nature Project: the project has won a Gold Award in the Education & Public Sector category at the Wood Awards.

The Wood Awards recognise outstanding wood design, craftsmanship and installation, and this award celebrates the transformation of the Natural History Museum’s underused gardens into an oasis of urban nature.

Sustainable Design

The project integrates two new buildings - the Nature Activity Centre and Garden Kitchen - designed by Feilden Fowles Architects with landscape architecture by J&L Gibbons. Both buildings exemplify sustainable construction, using locally sourced, low-impact natural materials including UK-grown Douglas fir and British limestone.

The timber structures were carefully designed with future reuse in mind, with connections allowing for disassembly and reconstruction. Each building meets or exceeds RIBA Climate Challenge targets for embodied carbon.

Nature Activity Centre

The single-storey education building houses a classroom, science lab and support areas for garden staff. Its asymmetric pitched roof, formed from solid and glulam Douglas fir and clad in western red cedar shingles, dramatically overhangs to provide shaded outdoor space for learning.

Garden Kitchen

Functioning as a café, events space and seasonal storage for exotic plants, the Garden Kitchen blends a solid and glulam timber frame with a load-bearing masonry façade. Large bespoke timber sliding doors and high-level timber shutters allow for natural ventilation and daylight from three sides.

A Model for Urban Nature

This recognition highlights how the Urban Nature Project serves as an exemplar of nature-positive and climate-friendly design. The gardens and buildings demonstrate how urban spaces can actively contribute to biodiversity conservation and climate resilience while providing valuable educational and community facilities.

The project continues to inspire conversations about sustainable landscape design and the role of urban green spaces in addressing the climate and biodiversity crises.