From East Bookstore | scenic architecture

The bookstore is located at the northeast corner of Ziqidonglai Central Park in Jiading, a new town in Shanghai. It is right besides the city streets to the east and the north, and faces the park to the south and west. Recognizing its location inbetween the city and the park, we take a strategy of courtyard settlement to establish the relationships among architecture, city and nature. The wall is the executant of the strategy who forms the front court at the northeast and backyard at the southwest, and wraps up in the middle to contain the interior space, the atrium and the terrace. We conceive the environment of the bookstore as a whole, which provide an even and merged interrelation between interior space and exterior space, and guide people to read, to relax and to promenade in spaces with both continuity and different atmosphere. In different parts of the courtyards we creates multi-layered and enriched spatial sequences and experiences through various transformations of wall like continuous wall-height change, splits and merges of wall routes, and simple wall openings. Two “detoured” small gardens in the front court and the backyard further blur the property of the exterior spaces, and provide a sense of place with intimacy, security and openness. We use the organization of court settlement to introduce the spatial experience from the city into the architecture, and finally lead it to the nature.