•  Ulster museum operations emitted 2,004 tonnes of CO2 emissions for direct and indirect emissions in 2018/19, according to a baseline carbon audit. In 2021/22, Its emissions have been calculated as 1,872t CO2. Carbon reduction is now one of ulster museums lead environmental sustainability key performance indicators in their annual business plan.

• Ulster museum is committed to a 50% reduction in direct and indirect emissions by 2030 in alignment with the 2015 Paris Accord.

• Ulster Museum will use the Natural Sciences collection to educate visitors about the importance of biodiversity, ecosystem preservation, and the impact of human activities on the environment. 

• Ulster Museum are collaborating with  partner organisations like the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording, Bug life Northern Ireland, the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland , researchers and other conservation organisations to study and document biodiversity, track species distribution and population trends and monitor environmental changes over time. This research can contribute to better understanding of ecosystems and aid in the development of conservation strategies.

• The reawakening project they are apart of are new buildings that will be in tune with both the finest contemporary aesthetics and the best sustainable practice.

• Ulster Museum will use the Natural Sciences collection to educate visitors

In the autumn of 1913, an open competition was announced for the building of the Belfast Municipal Museum and Art Gallery. In May 1914, the winning design was confirmed to be that of James Cumming Wynnes of Edinburgh. Its neoclassical design consisted of a central courtyard surrounded by four wings, and was in keeping with the concept of the museum as a "temple". The proposed entrance façade, overlooking the Botanic Gardens to the north, consisted of a gigantic Ionic colonnade comparable to Edward VII's Burnet Gallery in the British Museum.

Ulster Museum is the only finished work of both Paddy Lawson and Francis Pym with whom Lawson worked on the Brutalist extension of the building.

The neoclassical and classical part of the museum was done by Architect James Cumming Wynnes, in the first half of the 20th century. During that time he also worked with Sir Richard Allison, a Scottish Architect. He designed the Science Museum in London (1919-1928), the Geological Museum in London and the Orange Street wing of National Portrait Gallery in London (1933).

Both Cumming and Allison took inspiration from the neoclassical architecture style, despite criticism of it already being outdated at that time.

It closed for three years between 2006 and 2009 for a £12m redevelopment that opened up the centre of the building (additional exhibition space and a radically transformed interior).

In 2021, the Ulster Museum had 127,000 visitors.

• Francis Pym's cubist sculptural tour de force, completed in 1971, is internationally renowned for its daring and prescient splicing together of old and new and for what the architectural historian David Evans calls the almost barbaric power of its great cubic projections and cantilevers brooding over the conifers of the Botanic Gardens like a mastodon."

• The English historian Mark Girouard has likened the Ulster Museum as a whole to one of those incomplete Michelangelo statues in which a "highly finished torso emerges out of a block of rough hewn marble."

• Not many people have ever loved the Ulster Museum. The effect of the north-facing, brutalist concrete entrance façade is undoubtedly sombre, even if compensated by the setting of trees and lawns in the Botanic Gardens. Inside, a free spatial flow of air-conditioned, artificially lit galleries made from concrete, glass and black Pirelli rubber ascends in a helical arrangement that could, if the building were only respected, produce a series of dramatic and varied interiors.

• There are problems of access that need urgent attention. There are leaks and it is hard to close off the temporary galleries, which form part of the museum's main visitor circuit. More revenue needs to be generated through a better shop and café. But there are also bigger, curatorial, problems caused by a museum policy that seems driven by the number of exhibits on display - a hopeless task anyway, given the museum's collection of 875,000 exhibits - rather than the quality of the viewer experience. A new approach is needed, but the current plan will only make things worse.

https://architecture.arthistoryresearch.net/architects/wynnes-james-cumming

https://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=203583

https://www.dia.ie/architects/view/5762/wynnes%2C+James+Cumming+%23

https://www.nationalmuseumsni.org/sustainability

https://www.ulstermuseum.org/

https://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/things-to-do/tropical-ravine/history-of-the-tropical-ravine

https://www.ulstermuseum.org/history-galleries

https://makingthefuture.eu/news/joe-caslin-artwork-transforms-ulster-museum-following-participant-led-programme

https://www.britishcouncil.ie/events/ulster-museum-evolution-amidst-revolution

http://www.npg.org.uk/

http://www.architecturalrecord.com/

https://www.npg.org.uk/assets/files/pdf/events/npg_inspiring_people_public_consultation.pdf

https://www.npg.org.uk/assets/files/pdf/corporate/busplan20172027.pdf

The entrance of Ulster is open with wide stairs, making the experience comfortable and enjoyable. On the other end, National Gallery’s entrance is more narrow and somewhat obscure and, in contrast with Ulster, it allows way less natural light to come inside the building. The narrow staircase, though wide enough to fit four people at the same time, feels claustrophobic. Later, with the long, tall and yet narrow exhibition rooms, National Portrait Gallery looks as if there was not enough horizontal space to fit all the wanted rooms and space economy had to be done. Entering from such an open space like the Trafalgar Square, National Portrait Gallery gives a continious emotion of rush, especially when there are many visitors.

Both Allison and Cumming use the corridors to divide the museums. Cumming is able to organise his available area in an efficient way as the building was built on an empty lot. Allison on the other hand is restricted not only by the Trafalgar Square, but also by the surrounding buildings and already existing structures.

Joe has developed a site-specific artwork for the Ulster Museum that has transformed the exterior of the building and given a voice to the people. It’s a message that speaks to the core value of the Making the Future project — a project facilitating conversations about the past, present and future in Northern Ireland.

It neighbours Queen's University, The Palm House and The Tropical Ravine.

On the northen side of the Museum, the statue of Lord Kevin, Belfast born mathematician, physicist and engineer.

They examine the exterior and interior with an eye to both architectural detail and practical purpose, such as the need for plenty of natural light, the radical intention of using sloping surfaces to carry exhibits and the importance of

east access by short, gentle flights of stairs.