Designed by Foster & Partners, the Great Court will house an education centre, galleries and new facilities for the museum's million's of visitors.

Since 1857 the Museum's courtyard has been hidden from public view and used in the main for book storage, it will now become the focus of the building as originally intended.

Inside the courtyard two monumental staircases will wrap around the central drum of the Reading Room and lead to new elliptical shaped accommodation at the north end housing an exhibition gallery and restaurant. From the restaurant level a bridge link will take visitors into the upper galleries of the museum whilst beneath the courtyard there will be an Education Centre, African galleries and Centre for Young People.

To suit the prestigious project the consulting engineers Buro Happold specified that a Warmafloor heating / cooling system be installed throughout the main areas covering 4,000 sq mtrs. The underfloor system will provide heating in the winter periods switching to a cooling mode in the summer served by chilled water from the central plant room. The underfloor installation uses Warmafloor's top of the range System Plate pipe clipping arrangement comprising a composite floor panel with plastic eggcrate pipe location system. Warmafloor's Polybutylene underfloor pipework with a 50 year warranty is clipped into the plates in the predesigned circuit configurations. Output from the floor will be 100watts/sq. mtr heating and 50 watts/sq mtr cooling. Warmafloor is working for main mechanical services contractors Sulzer Infra. Warmafloor is recognised as the market leader in Heating / Cooling or Cooling only underfloor systems and is carrying out a number of such projects.