Proceeds of £10m sale will help fund planned move to new premises at Commonwealth Institute in 2015

The Design Museum building at Shad Thames will be used by Zaha Hadid to house its archive and as an exhibitions space. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

A former banana-ripening warehouse on the Thames that has been home to London's Design Museum for 24 years has been sold to Zaha Hadid's architecture practice, it will be announced on Monday.

The sale will provide a boost – estimated to be in the region of £10m – to fundraising for the museum's planned £80m move to the Commonwealth Institute in west London.

The Design Museum will remain in the building until the move in 2015.
Deyan Sudjic, the museum's director, said: "Whilst we are sad to be leaving Shad Thames we are leaving the building in the best possible hands. The sale is a significant moment in the museum's relocation plans and a substantial contribution towards our new home."

In a statement, Hadid said the building would be an opportunity "to consolidate our archive in a single location". It would also be used for architecture exhibitions where "the research and innovation of global collaborations in art, architecture and design" could be put on display.

The sale of the building, in a prime location near Tower Bridge, was always a key part of funding the move to exhibition space in Kensington that has lain empty for a decade. Terence Conran, the museum's founder and owner of the Thames building, said in 2011 he would gift the sale proceeds, plus £7.5m, to help start a new chapter in the museum's life.

Zaha Hadid at the Guangzhou opera house. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian

Hadid, who was made a dame last year, runs a worldwide practice that employs nearly 400 people. Her best-known British building was the Olympic aquatics centre, while other projects include the Guangzhou opera house in China and the BMW Central building in Leipzig.

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