Water worlds.

Set on the edge of the North Sea, this surreal pavilion provides information about Dutch water management advances as well as celebrating water's sensuous aspects.

Historically, the Dutch have enjoyed a very particular and intense relationship with water. Much of the Netherlands' low lying terrain is below sea level and, over time, a complex network of dykes and embankments has been engineered to keep the sea at bay. Without these man-made barrages, there would be catastrophic flooding. Water management is therefore a subject of national importance and this curious hybrid pavilion designed jointly by NOX and Oosterhuis Associates aims to educate and inform the public about the latest technical advances, as well as to celebrate water's more sensuous properties. It forms part of a larger project to upgrade the recreational and educational facilities on Neeltje Jans, a former construction island for the partially complete Oosterschelde dam. Located in the far south-western province of Zeeland, the tiny, remote island lies at the mouth of the Oosterschelde tidal basin, which will eventually be bridged by the huge dam.

The pavilion is divided into two sections, housing salt and freshwater exhibition zones. Surrounded by an undulating landscape of sand dunes, the amorphous, impenetrable form resembles a strange, beached sea creature. The two volumes are clearly articulated. The salt water pavilion (designed by Kas Oosterhuis) is a brooding mass, like a deformed hull, while NOX's freshwater pavilion is a sleek, silvery structure that contorts energetically among the dunes. The two parts merge into each other, like a giant, mutating organism, the shimmering metal cladding of the freshwater element forming a lightweight foil to the dark, opaque bulk of the salt water pavilion.

The fashionable 'cyber-baroque' of NOX and Oosterhuis' computer-generated forms is the antithesis of the Netherlands' ordered, gridded polder landscape. Geometry is deliberately warped and fractured to surreal effect, an impression enhanced by the remoteness and bleakness of the site on the edge of the North Sea.

The fluidity of the architecture extends to internal exhibition spaces. Visitors enter the tapering north end of the freshwater pavilion into an interior realm articulated by series of canted and deformed planes. Nothing is horizontal, everything is convulsed and with no windows to orientate you, the experience is akin to promenading through the innards of a giant slug. However the exhibits of real and virtual water are both ingenious and diverting. In the freshwater pavilion, the real water takes many forms - spraying mist, a frozen glacier tunnel, a sheer pool that continually drains across the floor surface, a rain basin with stroboscopically-lit showers and a well containing 120 000 litres of water. Virtual water is experienced through a series of interactive systems controlled by sensors distributed throughout the pavilion. Visitors can manipulate the sensors to transform their environment through light, colour, projection and sound. In the freshwater pavilion's curved spine, 200 blue lights generate a saturated, dreamlike, underwater atmosphere.

The route through the adjoining salt water pavilion describes a huge figure of eight over two levels. Visitors enter under a (real) wave of water at lower level that washes over the 'Wetlab' exhibition area. From here, you ascend a panoramic platform with views over the Oosterschelde, making a brief connection with the external environment. The final part of the tour immerses visitors in the 'Sensorium', a specially devised light and soundscape controlled by multi-coloured fibre-optic cables set behind the pavilion's inner skin. This enables projections of virtual water on the floors and walls to be perceived as direct extensions of the building. Visitors navigate through slow-moving ice, shoals of water molecules, a whirlpool and changing cloud formations. Informed by potential of computers and fibre-optics, the pavilions are a contemporary manifestation of the same Dutch ingenuity that over centuries has tenaciously reclaimed and protected precious land from the clutches of the sea.

Architects NOX, Oosterhuis Associates, both Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Project teams NOX: Lars Spuybroek, Joan Almekinders, Maurice Nio, Pieter Heymans, William Veerbeek

Oosterhuis Associates: Kas Oosterhuis, Menno Rubbens, Ilona Lenard, Adrian Fisher, Marjo Kekkonen, Marino Gouwens, Eline Wieland, Karoly Toth

Structural engineer Zonneveld

Photographs Peter Buteijn 1, 2; Lars Spuybroek 3, 4; Kas Oosterhuis 5, 6, 7