Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales have mentioned several buildings as particular influences on the design: the Ryoan-ji Zen temple in Kyoto, Japan; the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas; the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland; and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. The Pavilions is built of precast concrete blocks that were poured during different seasons to produce variable coloring. Though it is one building, the Pavilions is meant to appear as multiple separate buildings from a distance. The structure contains eleven galleries connected by glass-enclosed walkways, with windows made of panels of glass. The galleries make heavy use of natural light through clerestories, oculi, and skylights. Regarding the architectural approach to the Pavilions, Emily Rales said, "we knew we wanted these discrete spaces where you could essentially enter into another world that happens to be an art installation". Glenstone's 2018 expansion was a "critic's choice" in The Wall Street Journal's review of the best architecture of 2018, with Julie V. Iovine writing that Glenstone's architecture takes an approach "that offers a sequence of events revealed gradually with constantly shifting perspectives, as opposed to classic modernism's tightly controlled image of architecture as geometric tableau". In 2020, the expansion was a winner of the American Institute of Architect's Architecture Awards. In 2019, Glenstone opened a environmental center on its campus. The building contains self-guided exhibits about recycling, composting, and reforestation. Landscape The Pavilions is built around the Water Court, an water garden containing thousands of aquatic plants such as waterlilies, irises, thalias, cattails, and rushes. The Water Court's design was inspired by the reflecting pool at the Brion Cemetery in northern Italy. Referring to the way the museum returns visitors to the Water Court, Samuel Medina wrote for Metropolis, "Art isn't the heart of the Glenstone Museum, which opened in October -- water is". Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Sebastian Smee wrote of the Water Court:It's as if you've entered a beautiful sanctuary, possibly in another hemisphere, maybe another era. Although you've descended, you actually feel a kind of lift, a buoyancy, such as what birds must feel when they catch warm air currents. You exhale. You feel liberated from everyday cares. You're ready for the art. The expansion also added of land to the campus, a landscape largely composed of woodland and wildflower meadows. The landscaping was designed by landscape architect Peter Walker's firm PWP Landscape Architecture. The effort included the