Kew's Millennium Seed Bank - Design and build
The architects Stanton Williams worked closely with Kew's scientific and buildings maintenance staff to design the Millennium Seed Bank building.
Designer's sketch of the building.
The architects used Entada species as inspiration. (Photo: H.J. Schlieben, Tanzania 1935)
The design aims were:
1. to meet the long-term and flexible needs of the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership.
2. to fit a high quality building harmoniously into the surroundings.
3. to bring the public into close contact with the MSB's scientific work.
The building utilises natural contours. The ground floor nestles inconspicuously into the landscape. Topped by concrete barrel vaults, the scientific area is laid out logically and for maximum visibility from the glass-covered public area. Below, contours allow the seed vault to be buried and the bedroom and seminar areas to open onto the 'Academic Court'.
The transition between inside and out has been dissolved by drawing the landscape into the public area and by sandstone paving folding up into the elevations to 'lock' the building into the ground. A perimeter brick wall, echoing an existing Wakehurst site boundary, is threaded horizontally into the paving and the parterres.
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Latest news
The sadistic dispersal strategy of the puncture vine
by: Wolfgang Stuppy, Millennium Seed Bank blog 08 May 2012
In his third 'Seed of the Month' blog series, Wolfgang Stuppy warns us of the 'dangerous' seeds of Tribulus terrestris.
- 13 likes
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Behind-the-scenes of the Jodrell
by: Jean Helliwell, Millennium Seed Bank blog 23 Apr 2012
Millennium Seed Bank volunteer Jean Helliwell recounts her recent opportunity to visit the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew.
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Seeds from a lost world - the Texas mountain laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum)
by: Wolfgang Stuppy, Millennium Seed Bank blog 02 Apr 2012
In the second of his ‘Seed of the Month’ series, Wolfgang examines the mystery of why this dull-looking, nut-like fruit contains flashy red seeds.
- 18 likes
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Collections from the Caribbean
by: David Hickmott, Millennium Seed Bank blog 28 Feb 2012
Follow a Millennium Seed Bank collector on an expedition to the Dominican Republic to save threatened and useful plants.
- 54 likes
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Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Partnership ‘top banana’ as it celebrates banking 10% of the world’s wild plant species.
15 Oct 2009
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Partnership is celebrating collecting, banking and conserving 10% of the world’s wild plant species by banking its 24,200th plant species.
Sowing the seeds of UK biodiversity - Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank launches UK Native Seed Hub
17 Aug 2011
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew launches the UK Native Seed Hub at the Millennium Seed Bank, Wakehurst – an initiative that draws on the Millennium Seed Bank’s extensive collection of UK native seeds, as well as its horticultural and scientific expertise to support the UK seed industry, conservation groups and other organisations working to restore native plants to the UK countryside.
