DESIGN FOR NEW HUNGARIAN MUSEUM BLENDS INTO THE LANDSCAPE

The proposed design features three overlapping ribbons that rise from the forest floor, shaping a public and scientific destination. With a mass timber structure and charred timber façade, the 23,000 m² museum is partially sunken into the ground, blending into surroundings with a sloping roofscape. The design integrates open plazas, winding forest paths and framed views through and over the building. Accessible from all sides, the arrival experience is marked by a southern plaza, serving as a meeting point for community life and museum activities.

The roof is to be planted with native species, explicitly designed to provide habitats for local flora and fauna, and visually extending the park over the museum. Vegetation will also be integrated into the building's interior, accompanying rest and gathering areas for visitors throughout the year.

Commissioned by the Museum and the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, the new building will house permanent and temporary exhibition halls, educational and research facilities, public amenities, and back-of-house spaces. The building will feature five exhibition wings dedicated to permanent galleries and one for temporary exhibitions and public programs, arranged in a radial layout.

"Our design is conceived as an intersection of paths and lineages. Intersecting ribbons of landscape overlap to produce a series of niches and habitats, halls and galleries, blending the inside and the outside, the intimate and the mastodontic in seamless continuity. The result is a manmade hill in a forest clearing; geometrically clear yet softly organic - an appropriate home for the wonders of the natural world, "explains Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director of BIG.

Located on a former sports ground at the northern edge of Debrecen's Great Forest, Nagyerdő, the museum is being developed by BIG in collaboration with Vikár és Lukács Építés Stúdió, Museum Studio, and TYPSA. 

Images via ArchDaily