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The Brooklands Museum

Surrey, England

The Brooklands 1

Housed in a restored WWII Bellman Hangar, the Brooklands Aircraft Factory at the Brooklands Museum pays tribute to the site’s history and continuing legacy as a center of global innovation in flight and aviation.

The Brooklands 2

RAA was asked to provide interpretive design services detailing the history of aircraft manufacture: from the pioneering planes of wood and fabric to the supersonic airliner Concorde and the technologies of the future.

The Brooklands 3

The new interior of the hanger was designed as an “Aircraft Factory,” harking back to the hangar’s original use as a manufacturing building. The “Factory Floor” creates an authentic factory atmosphere and focuses on the techniques employed in the manufacture of aircraft. The “Design Office,” located on a new mezzanine overlooking the “Factory Floor,” showcases the design, prototyping, and breakthroughs of flight technology that have been made on the site.

The Brooklands 4
The Brooklands 4

A new “Flight Shed” houses working aircraft and has direct access to the site’s open-air demonstration spaces. Hands-on activities and live demonstrations create a unique learning experience by enabling visitors to try out aircraft-building and design skills for themselves.

The Brooklands 6

In the year after reopening, the museum not only received a record number of visitors, who were staying longer on average than before, but it was also recognized for having the Best New Permanent Exhibition at the Museums+Heritage Awards.

Size 2,400 square metres

Year 2017

Project Details

Fabrication & InstallationElmwood

Audio-Visual IntegrationSysco

Interactive MediaAy-Pe

Mechanical InteractivesAIVAF

LightingMichael Grubb Studios

ScriptwritingCatherine Morton (Scriptwriting; Frances Button (Copyediting)

Structural EngineeringAlan Baxter Associates

MEPCrofton

RenovationBrymor

Brooklands Interior

Photography © Andrew Lee