A shining bookstore opens in China
The Peixi Goldmye Bookstore By Atelier Wen'arch is located in the Xixi moisture areas of Hangzhou, China. The project transforms a 20-year U-shaped office building, which is originally closed and increased above a water court, into a layered and open space for reading and collecting.
The building was originally characterized by an disorganized structure and a separate relationship with its wet building. Through a number of conscious architectural intervention-introduction of new structural systems, wooden frames and water surfaces-the project is fier on the website into a sequence of spatial experiences that the landscape celebrates.
Pictures © chen Hao
Atelier Wen'arch frame a closed structure new
Led by the architect Shen wenThe Atelier Wen'arch team begins the project with a dissolution of the existing roof and wall system of the book trade. A hanging ceiling offers mechanical devices, while a colonnade along the west facade is reorganizing the symmetrical composition in a more horizontal, flowing volume. A new pedestrian path of staggered concrete strips comes back and creates a more nuanced and more variable input sequence.
In accordance with the original structure network, the architects introduced a double jet wood system. These laminated pine rays cut the concrete pillars and stretch out in measured booms, which defines a rhythm of horizontal spaces. Between each pair of wood, lighting and air conditioning returns are carried out, which integrates the infrastructure into the material logic of the structure.
The bookstore is raised to gently hover over Hangzhous Xixi wetland
Pavilion for literal tower and water
Two spatial interventions by Atelier Wen'arch create vertical connections between the architecture of the book trade and the surrounding nature. A book tower anchors the southwestern corner and climbs with stacked mezzanines, which wrapping in nested rings. The structure uses a hidden grille from steel I rays, which is flush with the wooden floor to maintain the visual and tactile coherence. On the top, the tower is light and view, while the interaction of human silhouettes and horizontal lines revives the room.
The southern pavilion, once a faceted glass volume, was redesigned into a sunken room in the water with a torn roof. Part of the original floor was removed so that the pavilion could settle closer to the water edge. Zinc panels cover the roof and a silver -based blanket reflects ambient light. Used seats open the room towards the wetland and pull nature into the interior through calm changes in the material and level.
Atelier Wen'arch calculated a U-shaped office in a light-flooded cultural space
Filter the light with secondary eaves
Atelier Wen'arch was supported by the precedent of the song dynasty and designed suscaped secondary eaves that reinterpret historical solar attacks. These eaves are hung on the wooden rays by upward tensioning rods with downward struts in the middle. They serve double functions: reflect on the soft light in the reading rooms and restrict visual perspectives in order to maintain intimacy and concentrate on the wetland.
The eaves, folding windows and benches between columns build up a field of architectural in-between, which is neither completely inside nor only outside and exclusively outside between the constructed and natural environments.
The original frame is reduced to columns and reorganized with wood rays
floating 'book rays'
Six sets of structural bookshelves or “Book Beams” stretch up to six meters between the pillars. The shelves developed with the civil engineer Zhang Zhun consist of horizontal, adhesive wood, which is linked to vertical stainless steel panels and forms torsional I carrier. Hangled by rods and anchored on the columns, they serve both as a shelves and as a light spatial separator.
These floating book rays interweave the primary wood system and build a subtle frame that combines structural clarity with spatial openness. The view extends through the shelves and frames books against a background of water, vegetation and light.
“Book rays” span between the pillars and are used by the picturesque landscape