Whether it’s your bathroom renovation or the Sydney Opera House, construction timelines have a tendency to balloon regardless of client pressure. Not the case with Zaha Hadid Architects’ latest project, however, which managed to accelerate what would typically be a five-year job for the construction of the truly space-age Chengdu Science Fiction Museum.
Originally commissioned in 2022, the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum needed to meet a hard deadline: the 2023 World Science Fiction Convention (October 18th — 22nd). Remarkably, the team at Zaha Hadid Architects were able to finish the job in just a single year, and we have to say, it looks bloody incredible.
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This incredible rate of work was only made possible thanks to cutting-edge software which allowed the firm to simultaneously design and build the cavernous 635,070-square-foot exhibition space. Boasting an organic seven-pointed star shape inspired by nebulous star clouds, the alien-like metallic structure appears to literally float on water.
“Science fiction has always taken that leap forward, looking at what technology is currently and what technology could evolve into,” Paulo Flores explains in an interview with CNN. “We want to be part of that movement of creating what the future looks like — not only visually, but also technologically.”
After successfully hosting the 2023 World Science Fiction Convention, the new museum will continue to serve as an educational site with further showcases to be announced.
