Lausanne in Switzerland has unveiled plans to combine the city’s three major art and design museums into a single cultural hub, with all three institutions getting new homes as part of the landmark development.

Known as Plateforme10, the three museums will sit on 22,000sq m (237,000sq ft) of repurposed industrial land next to the city’s main train station.

Laid out as “an open terrace, an esplanade revealing the scope of the emerging district devoted to the fine arts, design and photography”, Barcelona-based architecture firm Barozzi/Veiga have been working on the design for the Musée Cantonal des Beux-Arts. According to Barozzi/Veiga, the design will “define the urban area around it”, renewing the disused land which will become a backdrop for the museum building.

The museum will be bordered to the north by a series of arcades whose activities will also be linked to the arts, forming a “cultural driveway” to the both the Musée de l'Elysée photography museum and the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts. Portuguese architects Aires Mateus are developing both museums as a single coherent experience inside one building.

The expansive development is due for completion in 2020. As part of the merger between the three museums under the Plateforme10 banner, Musée Cantonal des Beux-Arts, Musée de l'Elysée photography museum and the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, have launched a CHF900,000 (US$906,500, €813,000, £621,000) project to digitise their respective collections, with funding coming from the Engagement Migros development fund.

Plateforme10 will also be presented in Venice on 28 May as part of the Architecture Biennale.