The Longhua Archive Library is located in the north of the Shenzhen Longhua Guanlan Cultural and Art Center, and was designed for the public citizens and the future.
The two narrow sites are connected with a bridge over a public road running in the middle and are of different heights to avoid an overlooking issue. The archives form a sharing platform for the city and is set to become a new cultural landmark for the Longhua New District. It combines education, exhibition and urban archive functions into a multi-purpose cluster, and provides flexible and horizontal creative spaces.
The greatest challenge Atelier Global faced in designing the library was finding the balance between security and publicness of the building whilst working with the urban context to provide those flexible spaces for diverse cultural possibilities in the future.
We transform part of the exhibition area into an interconnected public promenade that distributed on various levels in different forms and sizes for flexible exhibition and future transformation.
From the east side, you will enter a spacious urban foyer with steps up to the fourth floor. The grand steps lead to various terraces, becoming a continuous platform for multimedia and creative exhibition space. Also, from the east side, people may access the atrium space that consists of multi-functional steps and platforms for relaxtion and reading - it is also able to cater for various forms of public forums and exhibitions.
The Exchange Sqaure is a sunken plaza, acting as a buffer from the busy traffic and entrance to the building. People can enjoy the view of the river park from the Alfresco Cafe, and can participate in any future outdoor cultural events. If you enter from the riverside, through the sunken plaza, there is an uprising foyer that links to various educational programs with spiraling stairs.
A visual corridor is carved out in the central axis towards the Millennium Square for "better connection and interaction." People may take rest or read on the platform, or walk along the landscape promenade, experiencing the ever-changing development of the Longhua District. Through the visual corridor, you can enter the event platform on the second floor, which overlooks the exhibition center to the north.
Atelier Global is an aspiring studio and strongly believes in the power of design and creativity. They look for new insights and possibilites, as well as space and function, in hopes to establish cross-links amongst different cultures to enable transposition thinking and to generate new quality spaces. They have received numerous design awards from the United States, Europe and Hong Kong. To find out more, visit their website here.
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