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The design aims to transform an originally "ordinary" office building into a bookstore through façade renovation and interior design, creating a transparent, open, and flowing bookstore space in the nature of the wetland. By stripping the original building down to its of spatial fields deeply connected to nature. Within the fluid space of the bookstore, diverse types of reading spaces are created, offering visitors moments of pause and immersion.
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Hangzhou Xixi Wetland is a rare urban secondary wetland in China. The building is situated at the threshold between the city and the natural wetland, where many nearby residents come daily to walk or cycle. The environment combines the attributes of ecological nature and urban life. The bookstore we created is not only a space for selling and reading books, but also a public urban living room where people can inhabit the wetland environment for daily interaction.
The intervention of new “structures” imposes a new order onto the formerly chaotic frame structure, transforming it into spatial fields deeply connected with nature.
The timber double-beam system establishes a horizontal spatial order, allowing the natural environment to fully penetrate the interior. Extending beyond the building’s boundary, the timber beams cantilever outward to support secondary eaves, which provide soft diffuse light for reading and guide the eye downward toward the water. Reflections of rippling waves enhance the immersive experience of the bookstore floating above the wetland. The secondary eaves, elevated tables and benches, and fully openable folding windows create multiple in-between fields between architecture and nature. Natural greenery streams into the interior through these gaps, where visitors can read and rest in such transparent spaces.
The vertical book tower is a spiritual space rising upward, drawing in daylight. Two rings of horizontally stacked mezzanines form a theater-like section. The sunken waterside pavilion offers an outdoor reading area immersed in the wetland. Its silver ceiling acts as a reflective backdrop for shimmering light, allowing the wetland to subtly “enter” the interior.
As structural installations, book-beams interweave with timber beams to form a framework of longitudinal and latitudinal order, defining fields with blurred boundaries that open toward nature—where readers see both books and scenery, inside and out.
The bookstore’s operator was pleased that the design created diverse reading fields. While ensuring spatial fluidity for commercial use, it also provided diverse, three-dimensional spaces for pausing, quiet reading, and enjoying the beauty of the wetland. Despite a short construction period(two and a half months) and a limited budget, the project achieved an artistic bookstore space with contemporary aesthetics and a strong connection to nature—through minimal interventions and humble materials.
Atelier Wen'Arch is founded in 2022 in Suzhou,China. (originally name as swoop studio), engages in a range of design projects including public cultural buildings, interior and exhibition design, as well as art installations.
“Wen”is a Chinese word refers both to the order of structures and traces of meaning. Atelier Wen'Arch is committed to exploring the possibilities of creating distinctive places in contemporary everyday life environments through modest yet precise design and construction.
