What looks at a glance like a hilly section of forested landscape is actually a new greenery covered natural history museum by influential studio the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). The energy efficient building is being primarily constructed from wood and will allow visitors to walk all over its raised form.
The Hungarian Natural History Museum will be located on the outskirts of Hungary's second-largest city, Debrecen, within its Great Forest.
It will measure 23,000 sq m (almost 250,000 sq ft) and is conceived as a manmade hill made up of three overlapping greenery covered ribbons that will allow people to walk on top and enjoy views of the surrounding landscape. Structurally, the building will primarily consist of timber, with a charred wooden facade, and it will also be partially sunk into the ground.
"Constructed from mass timber, the building features a facade of locally sourced charred timber panels that emerge from the ground, blurring the lines between architecture and wilderness," explains Hanna Johansson, partner at BIG. "The museum draws on the thermal mass of the ground and integrates on-site energy systems, including geothermal loops and photovoltaic panels, to ensure a stable indoor climate year-round. Rather than simply preserving the site, the building restores and enhances it - regenerating biodiversity while quietly adapting to its surroundings."
The interior design brings to mind BIG's Plus furniture factory and will make superb use of the natural beauty of wood, with a large reception hall that acts as a central waypoint and offers access into the surrounding exhibition wings. Above this area there will be a library and restaurant, while down below there will be a collection of workshops, play spaces and research labs.
BIG's design for the Hungarian Natural History Museum was chosen following an architecture competition and follows several high-profile buildings designed for Hungary by other studios in recent years, including the somewhat similar Museum of Ethnography and the House of Music.
We've no exact date for when it's due to be completed, but it's part of a wider plan to improve Debrecen by 2030, so should be finished by then.
Source: BIG
