The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has announced its appointment of ISG to carry out a £24 million restoration of the Temperate House at Kew Gardens, as the building phase of a wider £36 million project.
The Temperate House, dating from 1863, is the largest remaining Victorian Glasshouse in the world. It houses Kew’s important collection of temperate zone plants, including some of the world’s rarest, most useful, interesting and beautiful plants. The expert glasshouse team has spent the last year preparing and moving large mature plants, as well as creating a collection of newly propagated plants. These are now temporarily housed in glasshouses ‘behind the scenes’, to be grown, ready to form a rejuvenated collection for planting into the restored Temperate House. Construction works are due to complete in spring 2017, then follows a year of replanting work, with plans for a formal re-opening in May 2018.