The Hungarian Natural History Museum in Debrecen has been named a double winner at the 14th Annual Architizer A+Awards, receiving both the Jury Winner award in the Unbuilt Landscape category and the Popular Choice Winner award in the Unbuilt Institutional category. The A+Awards recognize architecture and projects that exemplify design excellence, innovation, and impact across the built and unbuilt environment.

Selected through an international competition, the 23,000 m² museum is set within the city’s historic Great Forest, where three overlapping landscaped ribbons rise from the forest floor to form a new destination for exhibitions, education, and research. Conceived as a manmade hill in a forest clearing, the building integrates exhibition halls, learning spaces, and public amenities within a mass timber structure that is partially embedded in the landscape and clad in locally sourced timber.

The environment of the project is the Great Forest, which defines the design concept, based on the dialogue between built space and nature.  

Fully aware that construction inevitably has environmental impacts, the museum was designed with a responsible, sustainability-focused approach, aiming to leave the site in a better condition than it was found, both for people and for nature. The roof, covered with native plant species, extends the forest canopy naturally, encouraging the return of flora and fauna to an area that was once an integral part of the city’s forest.

The building is more than an exhibition space — a living and constantly evolving place where science meets the public, education connects with the community, and sustainability aligns with innovation. 

Reflecting the museum's core mission, this sustainable building covers part of its energy needs from its own sources and places the minimal possible burden on the surrounding environment.

The museum is a "green-smart" building that continuously minimizes harmful emissions and generates a significant portion of the energy it consumes.