The Hainan Science Museum has opened in Haikou, the capital of China’s southern Hainan Province.
Inspired by cloud formations and the local monsoon rain forests, the 46,528-sq-m structure on the edge of Wuyuan River National Wetland Park has a reflective silver fiber-reinforced polymer façade.
Architect MAD designed it to look like it’s floating above water and the public plaza below.
Its spiralling structure is carried by three concrete core tubes, allowing the exhibition floors to be column-free while lifting the ring-shaped volume above the open ground level and reflecting pools.
Inside are galleries, a planetarium, cinema, sunken plaza and garden, all connected by a walkway accessible from the top and bottom of the building.
Entering from the top, visitors pass down through ring-shaped floors dedicated to deep space, the ocean, Hainan’s rainforests and a garden at the foot.
Ma Yansong, MAD’s founder, said: “I wanted the project to be built on the idea of flow and chaos, space, function and knowledge to flow into one another, freely.
“Different subjects should connect, overlap, and stay open. If artificial intelligence can already answer almost any question, a science museum’s job is no longer to deliver facts. It is to teach children how to ask them.”
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