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When Designers Can't Get Their Way: Photographs of a Mega-Library in China

…with one disappointing rejection of a crucial design element

By Rain Noe - January 3, 2018

in Architecture

In Tianjin, China is this massive Tianjin Binhai Library, designed by Dutch architecture firm MVRDV and the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute.

Photograph by Ossip van Duivenbode

The massive structure is some 363,000 square feet and houses over a million books.

Photograph by Ossip van Duivenbode

The sphere you see in the center of the space is an auditorium.

Photograph by Ossip van Duivenbode

The structure is intended to serve not only as a library, but as a social and cultural community center.

Photograph by Ossip van Duivenbode

The five-level building contains extensive educational facilities, arrayed along the edges of the interior and accessible through the main atrium space. The public program is supported by subterranean service spaces, book storage, and a large archive.

Photograph by Ossip van Duivenbode

One thing you've got to be wondering is how the heck the patrons access those books on the upper tiers.

Photograph by Ossip van Duivenbode

The designers came up with a clever way to do this, but, disappointingly, the idea could not be realized due to time constraints:

The library is MVRDV's most rapid fast-track project to date. It took just three years from the first sketch to the opening….

The tight construction schedule forced one essential part of the concept to be dropped: access to the upper bookshelves from rooms placed behind the atrium. This change was made locally and against MVRDV's advice and rendered access to the upper shelves currently impossible. The full vision for the library may be realised in the future, but until then perforated aluminium plates printed to represent books on the upper shelves.

Photograph by Ossip van Duivenbode

Fake upper books aside, it's still a magnificent structure!

Via PetaPixel

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Christopher Hanks

6 years ago

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Very cool, and I like how the reading bench, book shelves, and aisles are basically all the same surface. I feel sorry for those who might try walking those aisles in high heels, don't slip!

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Ray Jepson

6 years ago

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Half-baked architecture. Maybe they should have taken more time on this. If the books are accessible from the other side, they could be pushed and fall on someone in the atrium.

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- Austin Jarvis
  
  Ray Jepson
  
  6 years ago
  
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  Solution: glass.
  
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Juan Cano

6 years ago

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That's a weird solution but I guess valid; fake books.

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