Danish architecture firm BIG, headed by architecture it-boy Bjarke Ingels, recently won the design competition for France's Museum of the Human Body, with a plan for eight separate rounded pavilions. Ingels compared the structures to "individual fingers united in a mutual group," and, at the risk of overextending that metaphor, their louvered exteriors do sort of resemble a close-up view of the ridges of a fingerprint. The plans, construction for which begins in 2016, also blend the 84,000-square-foot museum into Montpellier's Charpak Park, using walkable green roofs to form "terraced pockets overlooking the park and elevating islands of nature above the city."
Montpelier's medical school dates back to the twelfth century, and to do justice to the city's historical place in the world of medicine, the museum is set to "explore the human body from an artistic, scientific and societal approach through cultural activities, interactive exhibitions, performances and workshops." It's all one of many major steps for BIG, whose twisted Beach and Howe Tower was recently approved by the Vancouver city council. Ah, but lest they get too confident, let's remember exactly whose plans were once lovingly compared to a "humungous Tostito."
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