The innovative and imaginative Giant's Causeway Visitor Centre was opened in June 2012 and is both eco and carbon footprint friendly, it was designed by the architects Heneghan Peng who won an international competition for the design. The construction was carried out by Gilbert Ash. The exemplary building is for the most part underground with an accessible grass roof which blends seamlessly into the environment. The polished basalt columns that form the facade rise out of the ground and give the viewer a modernistic interpretation of the causeway stones. The stone was quarried locally at Kilrea, cut and polished in County Down before being built by stonemasons, every piece in each column is different.

The building is also unique in having very few right angles, everything follows the diagonal including the retail displays and cafeteria layout.  The interior houses a retail, cafeteria and an interpretation area where people can browse at their leisure or if they wish follow a fast track system to the exit point for the shuttle bus down to the causeway stones. To facilitate the new centre a large car park has been created adjacent to the building and another park exists at Innisfree (car park 3). 276 car spaces are available onsite (car parks 1 & 3), 65 car spaces (car park 3) and 15 disabled spaces. A Park and Ride system operates from Dundarave Car Park at Bushmills where 92 car spaces, 4 disabled spaces and 8 coach spaces exist.

People parking in Bushmills which is free, can purchase a Green Ticket which will save money on the cost of the Causeway Experience ticket. Alternatively, if you travel and visit National Trust properties regularly you should consider taking out a membership as this grants free access to all National Trust attractions. Access to the Causeway Stones remains, as it always has, free of charge in keeping with the public 'Right of Way' to the foreshore as ruled by the High Court in Dublin in the late 1897. This access is open at all times with no exceptions, unless a major rockfall occurs. If this happens then warning notices are placed on the site to guide people.

There is a network of walking trails including one suitable for wheelchair users, the trails have rest points, information viewing locations, these enhance the experience and offers easier access to Runkerry Head and also between the Visitor Centre and Innisfree Farm (Car Park 3). The Giant's Causeway is a protected site, therefore the building had to be constructed within the planning restrictions and guidelines of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the new building has a BREEAM Award ‘Excellent’ rating, the world’s leading design and assessment method for sustainable buildings. To achieve this recycled aggregates were used for the concrete ceiling, floors and pillars along with two innovative underground cooling and heating systems.

The fascinating geometry of the building required exceptional precision and co-ordination in the construction phase, the entire structure had a 1-millimetre tolerance which meant that each stone had to be perfect. As 1800 square metres of the building is semi-buried, lighting was introduced in the form of glass panels along the grassed roof area. The building is also declared 'inalienable' meaning it must be preserved in perpetuity, which was enabled under the government's National Trust Act, due to the quality of the building alone. Today we have a building that our local and international visitors deserve.