The Design Museum in London has announced that it will be relocating to the former Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington, London in 2014. It will be positioned in Kensington’s cultural quarter, joining V&A, Science Museum, Natural History Museum and Royal College of Art.

The move will provide three times the space of the current building, allowing for expansion of its education and public events programme. There are also hopes that visitor numbers will double to 500,000 per year. According to the museum’s director, Deyan Sudjic, it’s time to move: “We’re at the limits of what we can do here. It’s time to grow up to become a successful major museum. It’s time to move beyond the niche, to take the message of what design means to a wider audience.”

The project is estimated at £80 million, with designs for the site already produced by John Pawson (interior redesign) and OMA (the surrounding residential development). The building has been dormant for over a decade, thus the refurbishment will give a neglected London icon a new life and purpose and will revitalise an important area of West London. The design team for the new project has been assisted by Lord Cunliffe, a leading member of the original architectural team for the Commonwealth Institute in 1958, and by James Sutherland, the building’s original structural engineer.

Watch the video below which outlines the future plans:

The current exterior of the former Commonwealth Institute building

Proposed plan for exterior of the museum

Proposed plan for the interior of the museum

All images taken from the video released by the Design Museum.