Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi

The museum & the collection

The Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi is part of the Saadiyat Cultural District. It’s designed as a long stone-and-glass building with wide planted terraces and hanging gardens that step down towards the waterfront, blending architecture and nature into a green landscape. On the inside, more than 10,000 m² of galleries explore 13.8 billion years of natural history, from the Big Bang to a sustainable future for our planet. Visitors are greeted by striking specimens such as Stan, the Tyrannosaurus rex, and the Murchison Meteorite, alongside many other rare objects that are subject to the highest conservation standards.

The assignment & the challenges

Meyvaert designed, produced and installed 128 custom showcases, including very large and exceptionally high cases, irregular shapes and curved-glass designs. To deliver the museum’s ambitious vision, we needed to minimize glass joints for perfectly unobstructed views of the iconic objects. In parallel, the showcases had to be closely integrated with setworks, AV, lighting and other specialist systems.

The conservation requirements were strict: the showcases needed a very low air exchange rate and double climatization to maintain a stable, low relative humidity for highly sensitive objects. 

We also had to operate within an extremely tight construction timeline where basebuild, fit-out and showcase installation ran in parallel.

The solultions & the result

Our engineering team developed innovative, precisely calculated custom solutions and opening systems. These included: tall, polygonal cases with doors up to 5 metres high; sliding glass hoods up to 4 metres long; and 5-metre-long triangular glass panels with a hydraulic lifting system. These bespoke designs were optimized for airtightness to support the conservation requirements. To allow for big and heavy objects, the showcase access was maximized, and the structure was reinforced without compromising the transparent character and minimalistic design of the showcases. 

The display case opening systems are recessed into the floor and ceiling to maximize the glass surfaces and integrate the display cases as seamlessly as possible into the building and the scenography. The cases had to match perfectly with openings already cast into the terrazzo floor slab, leaving zero margin for error. To maintain the architectural purity of the galleries, all opening systems and locks were invisibly integrated behind discreet removable access panels.

From the earliest design workshops to the final on-site coordination, this project became a model of close collaboration between Meyvaert’s project teams, Alec Fit-Out and the wider design and construction partners, aligning showcase structures, floor openings and setworks down to the last millimetre. Our site teams were flexible in coordinating with basebuild and fit-out activities so that showcases could rise through floors and ceilings exactly where planned.

That collaboration now supports an immersive visitor journey through 13.8 billion years of natural history, where large, irregular glass volumes feel effortless, while complex mechanics and climate systems sit just out of sight. The custom solutions we developed for NHM Abu Dhabi have become part of Meyvaert’s expanding expertise, ready to be adapted to future projects with similar ambitions.