museum Archives | edESTESdesign

shimmering facades wrap cavernous galleries of büro ole scheeren’s róng museum of art

shenzhen’s tech growth translates to design innovation

The Róng Museum of Art, designed by Büro Ole Scheeren, is taking shape in Shenzhen’s Nanshan District as a cultural institution embedded within a larger urban campus. With its organic surfaces and glimmering facade, the project signals a shift across the Chinese city where growth in technology is translating into the creation of landmark cultural spaces. Inside, the museum focuses on visual culture across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with works on view bridging art, architecture, design, and film.

visualizations courtesy Büro Ole Scheeren

büro ole scheeren clusters five organic buildings

The architects at Büro Ole Scheeren define Róng Museum of Art in Shenzhen by five sculptural volumes that rise from slender bases and expand as they ascend. These elevated pavilions hold the primary exhibition spaces, while their separation from the ground creates a shaded public plaza beneath. The effect is immediate on approach, with the building hovering above a continuous surface that remains open to the city.

This ground level operates as a naturally ventilated forum, protected from sun and rain yet fully accessible. A large skylight draws daylight down into the space, where people can pass through, gather, or pause without needing to enter the galleries above. The museum extends outward here, functioning as part of the public realm rather than a contained object.

five elevated volumes lift the galleries above a shaded public plaza

the facade of suspended glass tubes

The exterior is formed through horizontal layers that step back as Shenzhen’s Róng museum of Art rises, shaping each volume into a tapered form. Around this, a second skin of suspended glass tubes creates a textured envelope. These elements are parametrically designed to generate a surface that shifts in density and depth across the facade.

Light enters the building through this layered system as a filtered condition. The glass diffuses sunlight during the day, reducing heat gain while maintaining a soft interior brightness. At night, the facade emits a steady glow as individual tubes can be illuminated in sequence which gives the building a visible presence across the skyline.

The glass tubes serve multiple roles beyond enclosure. Their spacing allows for airflow, while their density provides shading, contributing to the building’s overall energy performance. The structure also collects rainwater across its upper surfaces and directs it toward retention areas at ground level for reuse.

the open ground level functions as a continuous civic space throughout the day

inside the upcoming róng museum of art

Movement through the Róng Museum of Art follows a gradual upward path. A stair traces the outer edge of the structure, leading visitors from the plaza to the galleries and eventually to a rooftop garden. The route stays close to the facade, offering shifting views of the surrounding district and the waterfront beyond.

Volumes combine into a flexible exhibition sequence. A double height space accommodates larger installations, while adjacent areas allow for varied scales of display. The organization supports different modes of viewing, from focused encounters to more open circulation.

a central skylight brings daylight into the covered plaza below

a parametric skin of suspended glass tubes creates a textured envelope

buro-ole-scheeren-rong-museum-art-shenzhen-china-designboom-08a

organic surfaces shape cavernous interiors illuminated by filtered light

connections to bridges and transit integrate the museum into the city network

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project info:

name: Róng Museum of Art

architect: Büro Ole Scheeren | @buroolescheeren

location: Shenzhen, China

client: Tenova

completion: expected 2027

visualizations: © Büro Ole Scheeren, TMRW, Atchain, Frontop, Bezier

Zaha Hadid Architects designs curving cultural district on Hangzhou waterfront

by Starr Charles

A series of sweeping public buildings are set to make up the Qiantang Bay Cultural District designed by UK studio Zaha Hadid Architects along the Zhedong Canal in Hangzhou, China.

Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the development will contain cultural and educational buildings, including a library, youth centre and museum, framed by landscaped parklands, plazas and performance spaces.

A gallery, music hall and fitness centre will also be built as part of the development.

Qiantang Bay Cultural District render — Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a cultural district along the Zhedong Canal in Hangzhou

Renders of the proposal reveal a trio of sculptural waterside structures flanked with planted outdoor space and steps down to the canal.

A network of bridges and paths are set to weave through the site to connect both sides of the canal and the surrounding city with the new district.

“The Qiantang Bay Central Water Axis creates a series of new landscaped parklands, terraces and gardens along the Zhedong Canal – redefining the former industrial areas of the canal basin into a new green corridor and that weaves through the heart of the city,” the studio said.

Visualisation of cultural space by Zaha Hadid Architects — The district will include a library, youth centre and museum. Render by Atchain

Zaha Hadid Architects drew on Hangzhou’s terrain for the buildings’ sinuous designs. This includes a glazed library volume, which will be framed with large “inhabitable architectural columns” set to double as storage and reading spaces for visitors.

“Serving as structural support and defining the institutes identity as assembled ‘stones of knowledge’, these columns will accommodate the library’s extensive literary collections and archives,” the studio said.

Externally, the library’s facade will be fitted with folded glass elements to draw natural light into the interior, paired with masonry tiles informed by the region’s jade artistry.

Renders of the building also reveal a shiny underside to the overhanging roof, and curving wooden structures on the interior.

Exterior render of Qiantang Bay Cultural District — The library will have “inhabitable architectural columns”

Alongside this, the International Youth Centre will have a tiered, terrace-lined structure influenced by the adjacent waterfront.

According to the studio, the building’s facade geometries will extend to its “carved interior”, where auditoriums, studios and event spaces will cater to the city’s students.

Waterside youth centre at Qiantang Bay Cultural District — Terraces will wrap around the International Youth Centre

Throughout the development, flood-prevention strategies influenced by Hangzhou’s existing sponge-city infrastructure will be implemented.

Landscaping strategies will include permeable surfaces, planted swales and water-retention features for stormwater management.

Also in Hangzhou, Zaha Hadid Architects recently completed a curving footbridge that weaves around a trio of arches and Aedas completed a loop-shaped museum on an artificial island.

The renders are by Proloog unless otherwise stated.

An extension to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights opens

Daniel Jonas Roche

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR) was founded in Georgia’s capital city by Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s first African American woman mayor. It was designed by Phil Freelon, founder of The Freelon Group, and opened to the public in 2014. The Freelon Group was acquired by Perkins&Will that same year. Freelon died five years later, in 2019.

Today, the NCCHR houses the original manuscript of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and other Civil Rights Movement ephemera. A recent $58 million expansion to the NCCHR by Perkins&Will, Cooper Carry, and ATELIER BRÜCKNER affords the institution new and improved exhibition spaces.

NCCHR has two new wings attached to the original building that cumulatively total 28,733 square feet. Its Human Rights Gallery—dedicated to telling the stories of refugees and other oppressed peoples—has been upgraded and coalesces near a new Activation Lab, a space where visitors can design personal civic engagement plans.

The new east wing will host conferences, corporate retreats, weddings, milestone celebrations, and community gatherings. There, visitors can enjoy roof access and gaze out at the city beyond.

The extension is clad in bronze panels similar to the original volume completed in 2014 by Freelon. It tapers upward, much like the exterior glass and steel fountain by artist Larry Kirkland, featuring engraved texts by Nelson Mandela, Margaret Mead, and Dr. King.

With the extension, designed by Perkins&Will, the NCCHR can accommodate an estimated 250,000 annual visitors. Cooper Carry’s Experiential Graphic Design Studio and ATELIER BRÜCKNER were the exhibition designers.

And, indeed, the timing couldn’t be better.

Set against the backdrop of crackdowns at the Smithsonian Institution over alleged “divisive” and “improper” narratives, and the defunding of museums and schools nationwide, the NCCHR affirms it will stay the course and continue the work of its forbears, who faced similar adversity to progress.

Dr. Bernice King, the youngest child of Coretta Scott King and Dr. King, is the inaugural curator of a gallery entirely devoted to her father.

Elsewhere at NCCHR, the Without Sanctuary collection and a memorial by artist Lonnie Holley speak to Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. Another gallery exhibits Black Southern artists active in the 1980s who confronted white supremacy and built solidarity.

Jill Savitt, NCCHR president and CEO, said in a statement: “Our reopening arrives at a pivotal moment. The [NCCHR] exists to show how history speaks to the present. With these new galleries and spaces, we can offer not just stories of the past, but pathways for people to reflect, engage, and shape the future.”

“American history has never been a straight road. It has always been a dialogue between progress and pushback, between our highest ideals and forces that resist them,” Savitt added. “This expansion gives us new ways to share those stories with integrity, and to remind people that all of us can help bend the arc toward justice.”

Savitt touted the women-led design and development team. “This expansion carries the imprint of women’s leadership at every stage,” she said. “From our founder Shirley Franklin to our exhibit design, construction, and curation, women have shaped this expansion with care and vision.”

Perkins&Will recently completed another project involving Phil Freelon, the North Carolina Freedom Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. The public space features architecture inspired by civil leader and activist Lyda Moore Merrick.

In April 2026, at NCCHR, a new gallery for children under 12 years old will open to the public, which center officials call “a secret headquarters for change agents with interactive activities that build civic skills and curiosity about justice.”