MAD builds hainan science museum with a spiraling metallic structure

"With architecture led by Ma Yansong, the museum has already welcomed more than 350,000 visitors during its soft opening, with peak days drawing more than 5,800 people."

"From above, the building reads as a compressed coil set between highway, city, and wetland. Its rounded shell-like facade appears to hover above the ground, with broad bands of metal catching the pale sky and softening the scale of the institution. The form gives the Hainan Science Museum a sense of movement before visitors step inside, as if the building has been shaped by rotation instead of stacked floor plates."

"Inside, the team at MAD organizes the Hainan Science Museum around a single spiraling route that connects every gallery. Visitors can enter from the top and descend through ring-shaped exhibition spaces, moving from deep space and ocean themes toward Hainan's rainforests, tropical agriculture, and hands-on children's areas. Those beginning at the ground floor follow the same path upward, with tactile learning expanding toward the cosmos overhead."

"This continuous circulation gives the museum its architectural logic. Science is presented through adjacency and movement, with subjects placed along a shared path instead of isolated rooms. The route turns learning into a physical sequence. Visitors see across voids, sense the next level above or below, and keep contact with the larger volume as they move through the exhibitions."

The Hainan Science Museum by MAD opened in Haikou, China, rising beside Wuyuan River National Wetland Park. A silver, spiraling volume led by Ma Yansong forms a compressed coil between highway, city, and wetland, with a rounded facade that appears to hover above the ground. Broad metal bands soften the building’s scale and suggest movement before entry. Inside, a single spiraling route connects every gallery, allowing visitors to descend from the top through ring-shaped exhibition spaces. Themes progress from deep space and ocean to Hainan’s rainforests, tropical agriculture, and hands-on children’s areas. Science is presented through adjacency and movement, with views across voids and a continuous physical sequence that keeps visitors connected to the larger volume.

Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine