British Museum monitoring | UK

A world conservation project

As part of the World Conservation and Exhibition Centre project, Sixense were appointed to provide a strategy to monitor ground movements and groundwater changes caused by the construction of this extension to the British Museum.

In order to protect this sensitive heritage structure, monitoring the existing structure and adjacent ground movements permitted timely review of the ongoing construction process, and it’s impact, to reduce the risk of adversely impacting the British Museum and its artefacts.

The monitoring programme included:

• A noise impact study

• Noise and Vibration monitoring

• Retaining wall movement monitoring

• Prop load monitoring

• Existing building performance monitoring and

• Groundwater level changes.

The monitoring data provided verification of the ground movement design and adjacent building damage assessments to be made. The automatic monitoring was supplemented with manual surveys on adjacent structures.

This important project is designed to transform an underused part of the Museum site to provide world class facilities for visitors and researchers involved in conservation and scientific research, allowing the museum to continue to perform its vital local, national and international functions in the future.