UCCA Dune Art Museum

The UCCA Dune Art Museum is carved into a sand dune on a quiet beach on the coast of northern China.

By creating a structure that is embedded in the sand, the architects hope to defend the vulnerable coastal ecosystem against ocean-view property developments that have destroyed other dunes.

Local workers, some of them former shipbuilders, shaped the complex three-dimensional geometry of the museum’s concrete shell by hand.

Inside, a series of cave-like spaces open up to skylights that provide natural light at all times of the year

Designed by OPEN Architecture.