Worldwide studio Snøhetta has accomplished Beijing Metropolis Library in China, a glass-lined constructing full of towering tree-like columns and rooms disguised as hills.
Positioned in Beijing’s Tongzhou district, the library was designed by Snøhetta to “reinstate the library’s relevance within the twenty first century” and goals to supply a “new imaginative and prescient” for the typology.
Its design is predicated on pure landscapes and prioritises serving to guests to hook up with the skin, attractive them away from their screens.
“The terraced panorama and tree-like columns invite guests to carry their gaze and focus at a distance, taking within the larger image,” mentioned Snøhetta accomplice Robert Greenwood.
“This can be a place the place you might be sitting underneath a tree, studying your favourite guide”, says he continued.
“The Beijing Metropolis Library has an intergenerational high quality about it, the place you’ll move in your tales to youngsters and introduce them to the titles you have beloved.”
Beijing Metropolis Library was publicly revealed in 2022 after being chosen because the winner of a world competitors in 2018. It has been accomplished by Snøhetta in collaboration with native studio ECADI.
Based on the Snøhetta, it’s one in all three new main cultural buildings in Tongzhou which might be hoped to remodel the district into “a vigorous arts and cultural vacation spot”.
The center of Beijing Metropolis Library is Valley, a 16-metre-tall atrium full of a collection of hill-like mounds which might be lined with tiered seating, stairs and bookshelves. A winding walkway runs via its centre.
It’s supposed to evoke the close by Tonghui river and serves because the library’s predominant circulation house, linking its north and south entrances.
“The terraced hills rising from the Valley are designed to create a sculpted inside landform that serves as the bottom, seating, and shelving – a casual zone with alternatives to loosen up, discuss, or learn quietly, all whereas staying linked to the bigger house,” mentioned Snøhetta.
Beneath the hilly mounds are a collection of personal areas for studying and conferences, and elements of the mounds are flattened to deal with tables. Beijing Metropolis Library additionally incorporates areas for performances and guide restoration.
One of many library’s most notable particulars is its tall, slender columns that “mushroom into flat panels” at their peak to assist the roof.
Snøhetta modelled these on the leaves of a ginkgo tree – a 290-million-year-old species that’s native to China – to kind a ceiling that resembles a cover.
The columns have a modular design, developed to cut back materials waste and combine applied sciences resembling lighting, acoustics, and rainwater assortment.
Exterior, actual ginkgo bushes have been planted on the entry factors, framed by the glass partitions that purpose to “additional improve the reference to nature”.
Finishing the mission are roof overhangs to cut back photo voltaic achieve on the glass partitions, which Snøhetta mentioned are “at present the most important load-bearing glass system in China”.
In the meantime, the roof has built-in photovoltaic (BIPV) building components to generate renewable vitality. The general design has achieved China’s GBEL Three Star – the very best score within the inexperienced constructing certification.
The studio concluded that it hopes the mission can assist restore the significance of libraries as neighborhood areas, reasonably than “a mere repository of books”.
“It’s the love folks have for books that has made libraries survive the digital age and maintain new potential to present again extra to town and its public,” mentioned the studio’s co-founder Kjetil Trædal Thorsen.
“It’s as much as us to reinterpret the connection between physique, thoughts, and the environment to rekindle the enjoyment of studying away from the display screen. Libraries are right here to remain.”
Snøhetta was based by Thorsen with architect Craig Dykers in 1989. The studio specialises in each structure and design.
Its first library was the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, and it has since additionally designed the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and Far Rockaway Library within the USA.
The images is by Yumeng Zhu.
Venture credit:
Architect: Snøhetta
Consumer: Beijing Planning and Pure Useful resource Bureau
Govt architect: ECADI
Structural, geotechnical, and civil engineer: ECADI
Price advisor: ECADI
Constructing sustainability engineer: ECADI
Facade & BMU engineer: Eckersley O’Callaghan, Meinhardt
Lighting designer: ECADI
Fundamental contractor: China Railway Building Engineering Group
