Over the weekend we traveled to Dallas to visit our son at college and do a little sightseeing in Big D. We’d stared curiously at this Borg-like building from the highway through downtown Dallas on several previous visits, and this time we finally had a chance to visit the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

A white cube, it’s striking amid the glass skyscrapers of downtown, and up close it’s even better, with textured ridges and horizontal slit windows. A dramatic glass escalator hangs onto the building’s facade, and you can see people riding it from the highway. We rode it too and enjoyed views of downtown as we ascended.

An encircled entry plaza is bisected by a wide rill that cascades down a few steps and flows into…

…a froggy children’s play area on a lower level near the entrance. Children are encouraged to take off their shoes and wade in the “creek” (not pictured in the foreground). Sheltered by a bosque of bald cypresses, with artificial turf standing in for a swampy lake, it’s a charming place for kids to burn off some energy.

We saw kids playing leapfrog on the frog’s backs and having a fine time.

Inside, you enjoy multiple views of a green roof planted with tawny grasses, “shingled” with slabs of sandstone, and littered with monumental concrete slabs that look as if pieces of the building fell off during construction — or as if this is a post-apocalyptic garden that nature is reclaiming.

Designed by landscape architecture firm Talley Associates, the grounds are as interesting as the building itself. According to the museum website:

The landscape design celebrates an abstract cross-section of Texas, from an East Texas-inspired forest of large native canopy trees to the plains of the Texas Panhandle. Tucked within the bosque of mature trees is an urban plaza complete with the Café and an interactive water feature. An acre of rolling roofscape comprised of rock shards and native Texas drought-resistant grasses reflects Texas’ indigenous landscape. The parking lot to the east is bordered by a planted bioswale to capture runoff water for the cistern system.

Here’s the bioswale, which collects runoff from the parking lot.

As for the museum’s indoor exhibits, I thought they were nicely designed but just OK in content and too dependent on informational plaques that you read rather than interesting displays. However, we didn’t visit the children’s interactive museum on the lower floor, and maybe that’s the big draw. Still, it’s a good place to while away a couple of hours, and anyone with an interest in architecture and landscape architecture will enjoy visiting.

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