david chipperfield architects completes zhejiang museum of natural history in china

founded in 1929, the ‘zhejiang museum of natural history’ is located in the chinese city of hangzhou and has a collection of over 200,000 specimens covering geology, ecology, and paleontology. in 2014, the shanghai office of david chipperfield’s architectural practice won a competition to design the institution’s second location in anji — a rural setting populated with bamboo forests and rice fields.

all images © simon menges

set on a sloping site, the new museum is a staggered composition of eight, single-storey, bar-shaped pavilions that step down the hillside. ‘they follow the natural topography, minimizing the visual impact on the landscape, and frame an open garden,’ explains david chipperfield architects. ‘a loggia, or covered walkway, loops around this central space, mediating between the external and internal areas of the museum.’

at the site’s northernmost point, an entrance pavilion welcomes visitors and offers views over the central garden and landscape beyond. exhibition halls, which can be accessed directly or in sequence following the stepped loggia, are located on either side of this central garden. these halls have been designed to accommodate large exhibit pieces, such as dinosaur fossils, life-size models, and large-scale wildlife dioramas, as well as interactive exhibition elements.

reinforcing the relationship between the museum and the landscape, the entire complex has been rendered in red ocher to match the clay earth that surrounds the site. the solid forms of the pavilions are embedded within the dense landscaping of the central garden and the adjacent parkland. the planting extends onto the green roofs, which serve as a continuation of the surrounding landscape.

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project info:

competition: 2014
project start: 2014
construction start: 2015
completion: 2018
opening: 2019
gross floor area: 58,000 sqm / 624,307 sqf
client: zhejiang museum of natural history, people’s government of anji county

architect: david chipperfield architects shanghai (DCAS)
partners: david chipperfield, mark randel (design lead), libin chen
project architects: alessandro milani (competition), miguel angel (preparation and brief
to developed design), shen huiwen (developed design, design intent details), chuxiao li (site design supervision)
project team: hans christian buhl, zhexu du, tianyuan fan, jinghui hou, andrew irvin, han li, huiqun liu, jidi pan, fengjuan sun, nora wuttke, liping xu, zhixun zhou; visualization: andrew irvin
competition team: zhexu du, fengjuan sun, nora wuttke, liping xu; graphics, visualization: alessandro milani, zhexu du

in collaboration with —
local design institute: zhejiang south architecture design ltd., hangzhou (technical design to construction supervision)
structural engineer: ove arup and partners ltd., shanghai (concept design); zhejiang south architecture design ltd., hangzhou (developed design to construction supervision)
services engineer: ove arup and partners ltd., shanghai (concept design); zhejiang south architecture design ltd., hangzhou (developed design to construction supervision)
building physics, acoustics: zhejiang south architecture design ltd., hangzhou
lighting consultant: sunlux lighting design, hangzhou
exhibition planning: triad china ltd., shanghai
landscape architect: levin monsigny landschaftsarchitekten, berlin (concept design), zhejiang south architecture design ltd., hangzhou (developed design to construction supervision)