US studio Allied Works has created a building to honour military veterans in downtown Columbus, which appears as a circular form crisscrossed by large concrete arches.
The National Veterans Memorial and Museum was built on a seven-acre (three-hectare) site that sits alongside the Scioto River in Ohio's capital city.

Encompassing 53,000 square feet (4,924 square metres), the building contains a range of galleries and gathering spaces. The design is meant to unite "architecture and landscape in one gesture", said Allied Works, which has offices in New York and Portland, Oregon.

"Our design for the museum and memorial helps to articulate the intention of this new institution through its very form, transforming the land itself into a monument to service and into a community gathering place fostering conversation and commemoration," said founding principal Brad Cloepfil in a project statement.
The circular building is wrapped in glass and intersecting bands of concrete. The structural bands, arranged as three concentric rings, are meant to "give to form to the museum and bind the building to the site". A ramp curls around the exterior and connects to a rooftop plaza.

Visitors enter the building through a ground-level forecourt and pass underneath a pair of concrete arches. Inside, they step into a lobby, which leads into a double-height hall offering views of the river and cityscape.

The perimeter of the ground floor is occupied by galleries, w...