After failed proposal for a mountain-shaped museum along the Chicago Waterfront, the museum has again tapped architect Ma Yansong and his firm, MAD Architects, to design both proposals for the California sites, the first along the water on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, and the second for a site in Exposition Park in Los Angeles, adjacent to the city’s Natural History Museum and the Coliseum.

On the Treasure Island site, the museum has been placed along the water within a larger master plan for the island designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. To combat the site’s blustery seawinds, MAD has chosen to move the majority of the public space inside, instead providing large, glazed surfaces that look out over the water and toward to San Francisco skyline.