Hainan Science Museum

The science museum opened on the edge of a national wetland park and drew more than 350,000 visitors in its first four months. With more than thirty schools and kindergartens within three kilometres, it was conceived from the first sketch as civic infrastructure for the families around it, closer to a public library than to a landmark.

A wide canopy lifts off the ground floor, shading an open plaza beneath the museum and drawing public space under the building, so the lobby reads like a town square under a roof. Visitors who start at the top descend through ring-shaped galleries from deep space and the ocean, through rainforests and tropical agriculture, to a hands-on level for children; those who enter below walk the same path in reverse.

The whole spiral is carried by three concrete cores, which free the exhibition floors of columns and lift the ring above an open ground level over reflecting pools. The exterior is wrapped in 843 fibre-reinforced polymer panels that form a silver shell shifting with daylight and weather. The 46,528 square metre complex also holds a planetarium, a giant-screen cinema, a sunken plaza and shaded planting areas for agricultural education.