Western Range ICT Consultant

The British Museum brings together the history of humankind, all cultures of the world spanning millennia. It connects us to our past and to each other.

It is a place where everyone is welcome, where many voices meet to understand, and to question what brings us together and what separates us. It is a place of exploration and a place of inspiration.

The collection that the Museum holds in trust for the world is of unparalleled breadth, depth, beauty and significance. A truly global resource, free and available to everyone.

The Museum's role is to enhance and make accessible the collection through research, through interpretation, through display, through lending, and to share what it learns, as well as the process of learning, with others. With this matchless position comes a responsibility to ensure that this work can continue, ensuring the collection is cared for and accessible for generations to come, and that the Museum remains a centre of excellence and is continually relevant into the 21st century.

The physical manifestation of the British Museum in Bloomsbury is iconic. It comprises almost an entire city block in one of the most intricate and established parts of central London.

It is a treasured national icon within a conservation area that is, in itself, emblematic of the Capital. The Museum has an internal floor area of over 100,000m2, within a footprint that is packed with a diversity of buildings; the estate is Grade I listed, with perimeter properties that are listed Grade II.

Each part of the Museum contains, iconic, often sizeable and irreplaceable items from the collection, and each is visited by many thousands of people, every day. Space on the site is both limited and precious, especially in terms of gallery spaces.

The original quadrangle was designed for 100,000 visitors per annum, a figure that was already far exceeded in the 1850s. As it stands, annual visitor numbers to the Museum now regularly exceed six million.

Today, there are heightened security requirements and a fundamental need to ensure inclusivity and access, as well as enabling intuitive wayfinding, addressing dilapidations, and creating an environment where people can connect with the collection, and by doing so, with each other. The Western Range Programme focuses on a substantial part of the estate that is in urgent need of both repair and re-imagining.

This offers the Museum an opportunity to make a statement of its future intent, through reimagined galleries, new state-of-the-art storage facilities and engaging contemporary architecture, in juxtaposition to the highly significant and already celebrated listed buildings on the site. A multi-disciplinary design team led by Lina Ghotmeh Architecture has been selected to deliver the Western Range programme which is currently at the end of RIBA Stage 2 in the design process.

Despite appearing as a single entity, the Western Range comprises a miscellany of 10 separate buildings which have been added to Robert Smirke's original Grade I listed Museum; as a result, the exact extent of the red-line boundary and phasing for this project is dependent on a number of interlocking considerations. The proposed project outline can be seen in the attached documentation.

In the region of 15,000m2, it accounts for almost 15% of the floor space within the Bloomsbury site, in a warren of inflexible and static rooms. Further, recent surveys indicate that the existing building fabric and infrastructure are in a state that is below modern expectations.

It comprises around 7,500m2 of gallery space and currently houses the Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece (including the Parthenon Sculptures), Rome, and Ancient Assyria and Middle East collections, along with 4,500m2 of back-of-house collection storage. The delivery of the Western Range redevelopment will take place within a complex and highly sensitive operational environment, requiring construction works to be carefully planned and coordinated alongside the ongoing activities of the British Museum.

As a live cultural institution, the Museum must continue to provide safe and effective access for visitors and staff, while ensuring the protection, movement, and management of its collections throughout the construction period. The project presents a number of unique challenges, including working within a heritage setting, constrained site conditions, restricted access, neighbouring property interfaces, complex logistics requirements, and the need to coordinate multiple stakeholder requirements.

An ICT Consultant is therefore required to provide specialist, project-specific expertise to develop a coordinated ICT strategy that supports the Museum's operational continuity, protects its data and systems, and supports the successful delivery of the Western Range Programme. The ICT Consultant will act as the lead ICT advisor to the Programme, working alongside the Client, Project Team, the British Museum's in-house Information Systems (IS) team and a wide range of stakeholders.

The Consultant will review project information and undertake independent research, including review of the Museum's existing ICT infrastructure, to support delivery of the programme. The appointment will take place over the following RIBA stages: Develop the Project ICT Strategy (RIBA Stage 3 - Spatial Coordination) • Review the completed RIBA Stage 2 design proposals and provide advice on ICT systems, infrastructure requirements and layout optimisation, including recommendations on spatial planning, server and network requirements, and IT security measures • Review and analyse the Museum's existing ICT infrastructure, including current systems, network topology and equipment inventory, and develop a Project-Specific ICT Brief addressing Museum-specific needs • Establish design principles balancing heritage sensitivity, operational robustness, visitor experience and future flexibility, and identify statutory compliance requirements specific to public heritage buildings • Develop a comprehensive ICT strategy for the Western Range, including communications room sizing, structured cabling infrastructure, network architecture, wireless coverage planning, and server room and data centre infrastructure, in alignment with the Cost Plan • Coordinate with security, MEP, architectural, structural, fire and heritage consultants on ICT integration, and provide input to and support the production of end of Stage reports Provide ICT Technical Design Advice (RIBA Stage 4) • Maintain an iterative review of the ICT design throughout RIBA Stage 4 and test the technical, financial and operational viability of the proposals from multiple viewpoints. • Develop detailed schematics for ICT systems, including wiring diagrams, equipment layouts and network topology plans, ready for contractor use • Develop a detailed outline for testing and commissioning of ICT systems, coordinating with the Museum's in-house Information Systems (IS) team on switch and network configuration requirements and dependencies • Based on the ICT design developed and the Client's existing specification material, develop an ICT specification to enable procurement of the works on a performance-based approach, informing the Procurement Strategy, Master Programme, Cost Plan and Risk Register. • Prepare and assist the Quantity Surveyor in collating tender documentation in sufficient detail to enable tenders to be obtained for the ICT works • Advise on any temporary ICT requirements needed during the construction phase, such as site communications or monitoring system.

Due to the confidential/commercially sensitive nature of information that will be included in the associated tender documents we require that interested suppliers enter into a confidentiality agreement before they are given access to the tender pack. The terms of the confidentiality agreement are not subject to negotiation. As soon as practical after the receipt of completed confidentiality agreements, interested suppliers will be granted access to the tender documents.