Ambitious plans by Finnish architects JKMM will see an entirely new ‘quarter of culture’ being built adjacent to the Heureka science centre in Vantaa, Finland.

The new five-hectare (12 acre) centre will take around eight years to build and will include the expansion of Heureka, a music and dance centre, a hotel, four museums and 13,800sq m (140,000sq ft) of conference and office space.

The expansion to Heureka itself will include a new lecture theatre with a giant screen, six science laboratories capable of hosting a range of programmes for visitors and a heated footbridge connecting the existing building to the new museums.

The four museums to be built within the new cultural quarter will include the Museum of Broadcasting, Museum of Moving Image, the Museum of Information Technology and the Finnish Aviation Museum.

According to plans, the first phase of construction, which includes a music and dance centre, will open to the public in 2008