Belgian studios NU Architectuuratelier and Archipelago have created a visitor centre for the Meise Botanic Garden near Brussels that is topped by a shingle-clad vaulted roof.
The Green Ark pavilion, which contains educational spaces and a seed bank, was completed as part of the wider renovation of the botanic garden at Bouchout Castle, which contains one of the world's largest collections of endangered plant species.
It sits at the heart of the garden's 7,600-square-metre conservatory complex and was designed by Nu Architectuuratelier and Archipelago to offer a "vantage point" from which to look into these glasshouses.
NU Architectuuratelier and Archipelago have created the Green Ark pavilion
"The pavilion is nestled in a sea of glasshouses with climate zones from around the world," Nu Architectuuratelier told Dezeen. "It is the treasury of living plants and seeds that the pavilion unlocks visually for the public," the studio continued.
"This is an impressive multipurpose visitor pavilion that floats, as if inhabited, between the glass walls of the conservatory, designed as an elevated vantage point over the greenhouses around it."
It provides a visitor centre for Meise Botanic Garden
On the ground floor of Green Ark, the fully-glazed interior of the pavilion provides a space for exhibitions, workshops and receptions with views through into the conservatories.
In the centre is a double-height area created beneath the pavilion's distin...