A network of subterranean concrete galleries forms the UCCA Dune Art Museum, which Beijing-based OPEN Architecture has completed in Qinhuangdao, China.
The building, which took three years to complete, is carved into a dune on a beach in the coastal city in northeast China.

Its experimental design is emblematic of the current mood in the country, according to OPEN Architecture co-founder Li Hu.
"I feel like this whole country is the experiment," he told Dezeen. "Many things are changing and life has changed super fast and yet we still live in the cities that we inherited."
"The architecture, the very concept of architecture, the city, it's all changing," he continued.
"Now, one of the advantages we have in China is that we have the chance to build a new architecture – to start from scratch."
Ten galleries and a cafe are interlinked beneath the sand. The interconnected, organically-shaped spaces echo those of caves, the earliest form of human refuge and a form that inspired the narrative behind the museum.
"The walls of ancient caves were where art was first practiced," Li Hu explained.

Local workers from Qinhangdao used strips of wood to hand shape the concrete shell. The architects chose to leave the irregular texture of the formwork, so these traces of the manual construction can be read across the walls.
Openings throughout the building frame different views of the sea and the ...