As part of South Korea’s plan to build 140 museums and 46 art galleries by 2023, UNStudio has unveiled its design proposal for The Challenge Museum, a unique museum that creates an immersive and participatory experience for visitors.
The Challenge Museum’s massing and general site approach contrasts with urban conditions to provide restful, flexible outdoor spaces where community engagement is key. In order to get to the museum, a compulsory two minute walk through farmland creates an experience for visitors meant to make them feel more connected to the earth, according to the architects.
Courtesy UNStudio and Plompmozes.
The building’s entrance includes an introductory space that then directs visitors towards the exhibition floors. The museum, which is spread across three floors, is organized in a series of immersive Marine and Celestial spheres. Throughout the museum, the spheres overlap with each other to allow users to explore the skies above and the sea below through scenographic storytelling.
See Also: Foster + Partners wins competition for the expansion and remodeling of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
The ground floor, which will have a focus on educational and public programs, has a porous design approach that connects with the outdoor farm. Exhibitions continue to the second floor, with the main body of the exhibitions existing on the third floor. A roof terrace connects visitors further to the outdoors.
Courtesy UNStudio and Plompmozes.
Courtesy UNStudio and Plompmozes.
Courtesy UNStudio and Plompmozes.
Courtesy UNStudio and Plompmozes.
Courtesy UNStudio and Tellart.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, HDR top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 100 largest institutional building design firms
A ranking of the Top 100 Institutional Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
Museums | Aug 11, 2010
Design guidelines for museums, archives, and art storage facilities
This column diagnoses the three most common moisture challenges with museums, archives, and art storage facilities and provides design guidance on how to avoid them.
| Aug 11, 2010
Museum celebrates African-American heritage
The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture recently completed construction on the Wells Fargo Cultural Campus in Charlotte, N.C. Designed by the Freelon Group, Durham, N.C., with Batson-Cook's Atlanta office as project manager, the $18.8 million project achieved nearly 100% minority participation.
| Aug 11, 2010
Design for Miami Art Museum triples gallery space
Herzog & de Meuron has completed design development for the Miami Art Museum’s new complex, which will anchor the city’s 29-acre Museum Park, overlooking Biscayne Bay. At 120,000 sf with 32,000 sf of gallery space, the three-story museum will be three times larger than the current facility.
| Aug 11, 2010
Thom Mayne unveils ‘floating cube’ design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science
Calling it a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science,” Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne unveiled the schematic designs and building model for the Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park in Dallas. The $185 million, 180,000-sf structure is 170 feet tall—equivalent to approximately 14 stories—and is conceived as a large...
| Aug 11, 2010
Piano's 'Flying Carpet'
Italian architect Renzo Piano refers to his $294 million, 264,000-sf Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago as a “temple of light.” That's all well and good, but how did Piano and the engineers from London-based Arup create an almost entirely naturally lit interior while still protecting the priceless works of art in the Institute's third-floor galleries from dangerous ultravio...
| Aug 11, 2010
The Art of Reconstruction
The Old Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C., completed in 1867, houses two Smithsonian Institution museums—the National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum. Collections include portraits of all U.S. presidents, along with paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings of numerous historic figures from American history, and the works of more than 7,000 American artists.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall Philadelphia, Pa.
Built in 1875 to serve as the art gallery for the Centennial International Exhibition in Fairmount Park, Memorial Hall stands as one of the great civic structures in Philadelphia. The neoclassical building, designed by Fairmount Park Commission engineer Hermann J. Schwarzmann, was one of the first buildings in America to be designed according to the principles of the Beaux Arts movement.