teamLab's First US Museum Will Be a Color-Shifting Shell Beside Anaheim's ARTIC Station
teamLab's first permanent museum in the US will be a largely windowless building wrapped in a textured skin that shifts in color as the sunlight changes through the day. Designed by smith-clementi, the roughly 110,000-square-foot museum is scheduled to open in 2030 at OCVIBE, the 100-acre district under construction around the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
Tentatively named teamLab Museum Anaheim, the building is purpose-built around teamLab's work and will open with a new exhibition. "The artworks change with the presence of people, making them an integral part of the art itself," said Toshiyuki Inoko, teamLab's founder.
Founded in 2001, teamLab is a collective of artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects. Its permanent museums include teamLab Borderless at Azabudai Hills in Tokyo, open since February 2024, and teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi in the Saadiyat Cultural District, open since April 2025. In California, its work is already in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.
A cloak for darkened galleries
teamLab's galleries need darkened rooms, so smith-clementi, which is also OCVIBE's master planner, treated the exterior as a cloak around them, with a pattern drawn from natural forms that suggests scales and movement. The building anchors one end of the district and is highly visible from the freeway. LPA is architect of record and is working directly with teamLab on the exhibitions.
"This building feels different depending on the direction or pace of your approach," said Julie Smith-Clementi. "The time of day, or movement of clouds participates in rendering its iridescent cloak, enriching what you think you see."
The inverse of ARTIC
Next door, ARTIC, the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, is transparent and lit from within. The museum is designed as its inverse: a solid, colorful mass that comes alive in daylight and gives way to ARTIC's lit form after dusk. Seen from the station and from OCVIBE's park, it forms a backdrop to the landscape.
The district
OCVIBE is a privately funded sports, entertainment and arts district, backed by a $5 billion commitment from the Samueli Family and targeted for full completion in 2033.
teamLab Museum Anaheim is scheduled to open in 2030. No opening day or ticket prices have been announced.
