Another home run for the bigs at BIG!

wow…the diagram is so great. But I think this concept looks like something made by Zaha Hadid.

i think they rendered to look like a physical model.

its nice, i like it…but once again…I dont know if bjarke ingels wants to be more mature or what, but Im missing something innovative here. couple a years ago, with every new project, there was also some kind of statment “how can we do it differently?” and there were tons of small ideas added to the project to make it more fun for the inhabitants / visitors and, what i think, make the building actually work.

here / its a library, but nothing else, people would come here to read books, but nothing else would make them spend some more time here and explore the building.

in one sentence: its nice, but it is boaring.

And that’s the worse you can say about BIG, cause, that’s theyr trademark. Not necesserily nice, but always FUN

The section is horrible. It reveals the uselessness of these weird, narcissistic shapes. It looks pretty from the outside though, and the diagrams are mildly entertaining.

I agree with Al Gaddor, very nice design but not especially architecture.
I don’t see that much a game with landscape, more a landscape creation, and nothing in the documents here about the interaction with surroundings or urban intentions, plus the floor plans look quite simplistic.
Ok, beautiful shape, renderings… i love it i won’t say, but i would be missing something if i wasn’t taking a closer look the the building functionality and meaning…

very lazy… just take any mathematical geometry and force a section within it’s skin, add some unconvincing diagrams to pretend it works and instant visual diarrhoea…

Why do they hire architects… if the renders are by a a render office and the ideas a recylced… they took the danish pavillion and scale it bigger… so no sense on the shape….
no sense on the concept
people say its nice just beacause they are like sheeps… following trends and since BIG is a trendy name… please people be more critical… and I also wonder all these “competitions” in corrupt countries… no context… no nothing
really concerning about the state of architecture nowadays

I think they were using the same concept, in both competitons, at the same time… and, “unluckily”, they won both…

not that ugly as it first appears.

how can they manage “waste space” ?

Dear readers,

Comparin this library to the Danish pavilion is like comparing a cube used as a stool with a house designed as a cube…

Both might be infinite loops, but their structures, and results are way different. The Danish Pavilion is a continuous section, containing a space with the same form, with the roof used as a bike path. This loop is a structural skin, that encloses different spaces, two separate structures… more like Seattle´s Library (on which Bjarke worked back in the day).

That´s why I reached BIG to feature all this detailed diagrams and plans (unlike other websites that just feature renderings and low res drawings), so you can fully understand what´s “inside” the project.

I also take this opportunity to publicly thank them for always sharing detailed info with us…. we do a big effort to be an architecture blog done by architects and aiming to HELP architects through information and debate. I hope you value this.

But Denmark pavillion for shangai was without mobius strip. Danish skyscraper by Bjarke was also without it(other M.C.Escher trick was used as inspiration). The geometry of pavilion was quite simple. It’s nice that finaly someone is going to build real 3d mobius strip as building skin.

the section is the best part.
if this gets engineered and built, it will make every future ecotect facade optimization seem totally rote. which is a good thing–it should be part of every design these days.

Don’t really get the point of a ‘SKIN’ around the internal structure which looks pretty cool in term of space creating for a discourse inside/outside and ‘wall becoming roof becoming floor becoming wall…” (OK the last one not sure but…)
Feel this skin really formal where I find the core of project having a really good potential …

Anyway it’s nice to read all your comments and thanks again archdaily for the everyday news, research, …, amazing work.

After doing all of OMAs ideas BIG is now doing UN Studios..or what? A big shape and twisted once again.
Looks almost like a monument from the old soviet or communist China! Only missing a statue of the president in the middle…I really miss democratic architecture….

BIG projects make me sad. i really do think they lack a consideration for materials, especially interior use, as most of their projects feature these overwhelming renderings from outside but look much less impressive in terms of spaces inside.

I thought, owkay I follow the proces, it can work. But than the section AUCH
Happy to see other people think the same

i like their simple, straight-forward diagrams. even the dumbest person can read them.
however there seems to be something lacking as of architecture… perhaps they should have at least shown us the context in one rendering?

BIG is amazing!

I enjoy BIG’s work for it’s fun, analytical approach, amazing graphics, collaborative approach. The work appears to be completely analytical by the diagrams but at the same time I don’t completely believe that. I think they are clever enough to portay it that way yet I do think they also have a some preconceived notions of ultimately how it is going to turn out, in this case a mobuis loop.

beautiful interior spaces. hope there is one in vietnam. love it

What is this? A library for ants? It needs to be atleast three times bigger than this.

I think this is a breakthrough project alongside
FOA’s Yokohama Port Terminal

Seattle Library is nice too but it lags in comparison technologically, aesthetically…it is less contemporary

Just read through all the comments – very interesting, many varied arguments for and against many elements of this scheme. However one key element that seems completely un-discussed is that of context… Both direct, i.e. this will be built in Astana – the 1st new capital of the 21st Century, a Utopian city being built on petrodollars by a 21st Century authoritarian ruler (Authoritarian with a small a!!) in the freezing cold steppe. Grand gestures and forms are part of the package here and in comparison to Foster’s pyramid I personally think this scheme a success. But surely the other key part of context is the social/philosophical context of working in Astana and primarily a regime like Nursultan Nazarbayev’s? Architects have always bickered and dis-agreed about levels of ethical responsibility – from extremes such as Speer (&Hitler) to Le Corbusier’s courting of Mussolini through to Venturi & Scott Brown’s entering competitions to build Saddam Hussein’s mosques. Nazarbayev is not on the same level as the genocidal dictators of the 20th Century but he is none the less unanimously condemned by all human rights organisations and holds the whole country in his grip, he offers Western architects huge fees and a lot of freedom in design (and build – the buildings themselves are built at Dubai speeds yet within a year of completion show signs of bad workmanship) and demands unique and utopian schemes which are undoubtedly fun for a designer to produce.. but where is the line? Should BIG be supporting/legitimising a corrupt regime where the President has made himself so for life and where vocal journalists disappear if they criticise him? Or is the argument that only through interaction and the exportation of ideals of democracy, expressed through architecture, can Architects fulfil their ethical role a valid one? I wonder what other readers believe? To me it seems only too easy to bypass the ethics that one might hold regarding other issues in life and hide behind logic referring to professional life when the carrot (financial & Design wise) looks so tasty..