Natural History Museum of Guiguang, Guangxi Province

Ring of the Universe, Eye of Guigang

The Museum of Natural History lies on the mid-lake island of Yujiang river, which runs through Guigang to the east and meets the ocean, witnessing the river basin civilization of Guigang over thousands of years. Located in the central part of river, the museum is a finishing touch, and it exists as the "eye of the future", containing the knowledge and civilization, representing the spiritual core and historical context of Guigang.

The design concept of the project is based on galaxies, in which all activities follow the gravitational orbits, forming stable and cohesive organisms under the influence of gravity. In terms of the planning scale, the design takes the main buildings of natural museum as the core. It adopts the base number of the ancient Chinese traditional calendar year (12), forming the ellipse with the stable constant (120) and its long axis parallel to the main axis of the city, as an imitation of the gravitational orbits. All the above rules serve as the environmental basis of the master plan.

Guigang is famous for Luoyue culture, which has had a profound influence on East Asian civilization. The Luoyue jade ring is adopted as a metaphor for the structural shape of the architecture, and the mathematical laws of modeling heaven and earth in ancient China are applied to shape the architectural scale, generating a spiritual community with the history and regional culture as the core. In the aspects of architectural structure, interior design and detailed construction, the concepts of universe, galaxy, humanity and geography are further integrated. For example, the roof curve is designed to imitate the galaxy trajectory, corresponding to Luoyue jade. In addition, the interior design of the stacked organic aluminum plates is applied to depict the mechanism of gravity; the outdoor plaza is also an abstract imitation of orbits, forming a public activity place corresponding to the structural shape of the architecture.