The library is the largest public space as a central hall in the Campus The entire campus plan was inspired by the "Red Brick Cuo Village" preserved from Ming Dynasty, which is constructed in a unique way with white stone embedded in red brick wall. Our strategy is to create vertical and horizontal flowing space into nature, and meanwhile integrate local materials and traditional crafts into the new building in the original urban context.
The central hall in the library is a multifunctional space, which is enclosed by two sides of book hill. Along book shelve walls, are two zip zap stairs slowly rising on both sides to connect different floors. More than circulation, the book hills play an important role as vertical communication space for students.
Along the waterfront, we plug a 70-meter-long continuous LOFT space cantilevering 6 meters from the third floor. As a horizontal view frame, the reading LOFT unfolds the landscape in a way of traditional Chinese scroll painting. This open area is coated by natural wood and connected to the upper level by two spiral stairs.
The both side walls of the library are made of used white granite embedded in old red bricks in a traditional way. It took months for us to collect enough materials from the old town, where fast development is shrinking the area of Ancient Cuo Villages. Fortunately, we found local artisans to work with us to integrate these recycled materials into the building by using the original craft.
Last year more than 40 countries took part in the WAN Awards with strong showings from Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. And we saw some truly outstanding projects, take a look at the winners from last year here.