National Space Centre

The idea emerged in the mid-1990s as a joint venture of Leicester's city council and its university, which hoped that a space-themed attraction might bring more students to the university's space research centre. With funding from the Millennium Commission, the project went ahead as one of the East Midlands' Millennium projects.

The architect was Nicholas Grimshaw, whose practice was then called Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners. The centre stands on a 14.5-acre (about 5.9-hectare) brownfield site in the Abbey Meadows area, a former sewage treatment works. Arup was the structural engineer, S H Structures the steelwork contractor and Sir Robert McAlpine the main contractor. Building began in 1999, and the centre opened its doors on 30 June 2001.

The scheme has three parts: an exhibition podium, the rocket tower attached to it, and a prefabricated Challenger Learning Centre. The podium, square on plan and about 5,000 m², is a double-height space (6 m) on a steel frame laid out on a 14 m grid, which leaves the exhibitions free to be arranged as needed. It occupies the renovated shell of a former storm-water tank, which also holds the education areas. A double skin encloses it: inside, a wall of glazing and silver sinusoidal steel cladding; outside, perforated stainless-steel panels that unify the building from a distance and whose varying opacity becomes apparent on approach.

At the centre of the exhibition space, the geodesic dome of the planetarium pierces the concrete roof slab. It crowns the spiral geometry of the roof and answers the vertical thrust of the tower.

The 42 m tower was designed to house the Blue Streak and Thor Able rockets, and their dimensions define its volume. Its main structure is curved, made of steel arcs of differing radii laid end to end and twisted one against the next, braced by a concrete stair core; secondary supports are kept to a minimum. Horizontal curved steel tubes carry the skin of ETFE pillows at 3 m vertical intervals, a material weighing less than 1% of the equivalent glass. The pillows announce the building from afar, and the tower is lit at night.

The centre is a not-for-profit charity. The visit takes in a set of galleries (Into Space, The Universe, Our Solar System, Home Planet, Space Oddities and LIVE Space), the 192-seat Sir Patrick Moore Planetarium, and the rocket tower.

Four exhibition levels in the tower trace the history of rocketry and the Space Race, including Britain's own. It also holds the Gagarin Experience and a genuine piece of Moon rock. The centre's collections include rockets, spacecraft, spacesuits and satellites.

The centre opens at 10:00. It closes at 16:00 on weekdays in term time, and at 17:00 at weekends and during school holidays; the rocket tower and the café may shut a little earlier.

The visit is self-guided, and the centre suggests allowing three to four hours. It advises booking online: at busy times it has to turn away visitors who arrive without a ticket.

The centre lies two miles (about 3 km) north of Leicester city centre, just off the A6.