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Architects: GLA
- Area: 1540 m²
- Year: 2018
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Photographs:ARCH-EXIST
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Manufacturers: CSYPE, WACANG, Wuhan Fumeiyuan
Text description provided by the architects. The library, lying at the northwest corner of Wuhan Huashan Eco-City, where there originally was a wetland with abundant resources, connects to the city's sports theme park in the east and faces closely to the Baiyang Mountain Scenic Area in the north. The design, featuring five well-proportioned, lightweight and simplified boxes scattered on the wetland, expresses a concealing and humble posture into the current ecological environment and leaves the original ecologic landscape intact as much as possible.
From east to west there are five boxes of different sizes that contain unique functions and have various façade expressions. Driving along the road and sequentially passing through the five boxes unfolding horizontally, one can see that the boxes on both sides, made of glass curtain walls with backing roller blinds as main facade materials, protrude gradually toward the center, in which an exhibition center with a complete air-driven aluminum-sheet curtain wall is presented as the climax of the series, emitting a flexible and elusive gorgeousness.
However, the main entrance of the Living Hall at the north roadside is not a direct pathway, so that visitors have to set foot on a trail covered by Miscanthus from one side before passing through a group of feature walls and building gables, which adopt dry-hang Lavender Blue stones in the same module to joint with stainless steel. The transition from the concrete to the visual, with the zigzagging entry, provides visitors with a special experience that it can only be appreciated distantly but not reachable.
To get inside of the building, one has to go through a one-entry landscape atrium with its four sides enclosed, and get through a laigh connecting corridor to the two-storey exhibition area, which serves also as a book bar. The large-scale French ultra-clear glass doesn't separate the indoor book room from the outdoor landscape, but blends them together for a bright and enlightened view.
The forms and structures in a sleek array, combined with facades made of stone, glass and metal materials, endow the library with a different beauty. Seeing the surrounding, the materials on the four sides of the building along the travel route express differently: the east and the west create a solid landscape, while the south provides a transparent view and the north gives a misty feeling.
As you stop and watch, time brings a second life to the venue: the air-driven aluminum sheet on the north side reflects the view of the Huashan Mountain during the day, and turns into a gauze that emits the soft lighting inside the room at night; The clear window on the south: mirrors the scene of the atrium in daylight, and reveals the warm candle lights from the book room at night, as if it had never existed.
The emergence of the wind makes this organic life body blossom and shine again. The semi-fixed air-operated aluminum curtain wall oscillates with the wind, showing an agile and interesting picture through the reflection of the light of heaven from different angles. As the wind rages, the building seems not to be able to hold back, dancing with the wind like a roaring silver snake. As the wind breezes, ripples rising from the water dance finely with the quietly moving Miscanthus at feet, forming a delightful contrast.
Wuhan Huashan Library, with a sleek figure, distinct materials and intelligent details, blends in the gentle landscape, which is straightforward and lively, yet delicate and euphemistic. The interaction between light and wind entrusts the small community library new roles and missions in urban public space.
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