A closed case: safely displaying 1140 spirit preserved marine animals for a new permanent public gallery.

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery (rebranded as The Box) began a 5 year redevelopment project in 2015. As well as a new public space outside, and a large extension to the main museum building, there would be 7 new permanent galleries. The new natural history gallery would display a range of different natural history collections, including over 1140 spirit preserved animals. This paper outlines the design process for the specialist case to safely hold this large number of specimens preserved in hazardous fluid. With no equivalent in any UK museum, the design relied upon several experts working closely throughout the whole process, and clear communication between different teams. The resulting case not only displays newly conserved spirit specimens, but has built in mechanisms to ensure that any hazardous fumes are removed from the case and not let into the gallery. This new display case allows visitors to see marine animals that they have never seen before.