BIG Bjarke Ingels Group has won the international competition to design the home of the new Hungarian Natural History Museum in Debrecem, Hungary’s second-largest city. The 23,000-square-meter complex will go up within the centuries-old Great Forest (Nagyerdő) in the form of three overlapping sloping volumes covered with native vegetation.

The location is a former sports ground near Nagyerdei Stadion, and the scheme was drawn up in collaboration with Vikár és Lukács Építés Stúdió. Museum Studio, and TYPSA. The new building will replace the institution’s existing premises in Budapest.

The layout of spaces, organized radially, allows the volumes to intersect and give rise to housing exhibition halls, a library, and a variety of educational and research facilities. The result is an artificial hill of gentle organic forms blending into the landscape.

Approaching from any direction, visitors come across large plazas and curving paths that lead them to the entrance, which is accessible from all sides. A large square on the south, intended as a spot for encounters, serves as a venue for community activities as well as museum events.

With a solid timber structure and a facade clad in panels of carbonized wood, the construction is partly underground, fusing with the environs and blurring the boundaries between architecture and nature. The project harnesses geothermal energy and incorporates photovoltaic plaques to maximize sustainability.