A walkable roof park extending from the landscape of Yanzi Lake creates a new cultural landmark for Shenzhen

Shenzhen Natural History Museum was conceived as an expansive terrain formed by sloping roofs, terraces, and public plazas. Its walkable roof park extends the surrounding ground plane over the building, creating a civic landscape that can be used by residents even without entering the galleries.

Adam Mørk

Viewed from the city, the museum forms a fluid silhouette inspired by local rivers and surrounding hills. Carved openings in the granite façade reveal glimpses of the exhibition spaces within. Rather than treating the building as an isolated object, the design positions it as part of a landscape shaped by geology, water, and time. 3XN founder and architect Kim Herforth Nielsen explains that the concept emerged from the idea that nature is never square but remains amorphous, dynamic, and continually in formation. The project therefore sought to create not simply a building, but a landscape that appears to have always belonged to the site.

Adam Mørk

Adam Mørk

Adam Mørk

Five Cone Shaped Volumes Define the Visitor Journey

Five cone-shaped volumes organise the principal exhibition halls and establish the spatial identity of the interior. As visitors move between them, they encounter cave-like passages, atriums, terraces, and framed views. Light and shadow move across the curved surfaces, transforming the story of natural history into a physical journey through space. Eight themed galleries present 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history, from the origins of the universe and the emergence of life to dinosaurs, human evolution, and the ecological systems that shape Shenzhen. Animal, plant, mineral, and fossil specimens are combined with large-scale installations and media environments, linking global natural history with the mountains, rivers, and seas of South China.

Adam Mørk

Exhibition designers Atelier Brückner and Museum Studio collaborated with the architects on the scenography of the main galleries. Curved walls, vertical spaces, specimens, installations, and cinematic media form immersive environments that shift visitors from observers to active participants in the narrative.

International Collaboration Creates a Cultural Landmark

3XN led the architectural vision and concept design from Copenhagen. B+H Architects served as lead consultant, executive architect, landscape architect, and interior designer, while Zhubo Design provided local technical expertise, regulatory coordination, structural engineering, and building services design in Shenzhen. Delivering the complex museum required close coordination between architecture, engineering, landscape design, exhibition planning, and construction teams across several countries. The collaboration preserved the clarity of the competition-winning concept while resolving the technical demands of a building of exceptional scale and complexity. From its public roof park to its cone-shaped galleries, Shenzhen Natural History Museum operates as a living educational landscape. By connecting science, nature, architecture, and civic life, the museum establishes a new cultural destination for Shenzhen’s communities and international visitors.

Adam Mørk

Adam Mørk

Adam Mørk

About 3XN

3XN is a Danish architecture practice founded in 1986 by architect Kim Herforth Nielsen. Its work combines aesthetics, human behaviour, circularity, and well-being, based on the belief that architecture actively influences the experiences of its users. The practice has studios in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Sydney, New York, London, and Amsterdam.

About B+H Architects

B+H Architects is a global architecture and design practice with more than 70 years of experience. Working across architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, planning, and advisory services, the firm creates enduring environments grounded in local context and technical rigour.

About Zhubo Design

Founded in 1996, Zhubo Design is a multidisciplinary design organisation based in Shenzhen. Its team of more than 1,600 professionals works across architecture, urban planning, and interior design, with expertise in BIM, ecological building, sponge-city systems, prefabrication, and intelligent-building technologies.