pinocchio children's library

The most powerful enchantment of fairy tales is that they opened an imaginary world that elevates our life beyond the laws of nature. The normalities of our life transcends in these iridescent story settings and release their enchantment, very often, through the simple move of inverse. As one of the most widely-read childhood adventures, the story of Pinocchio took on the classic concept of creating scenes that step across the line of normality and break free from the limits of everyday life. Wonders, we think, begin here as a fairy tale ‘architect’ build this new world through unbounded imagination. The mythical spatial principles embedded in these tales are the foundations of our childhood adventures that light up our paths growing up and bring the bestow upon these odes of virtue and truth a wonderous glow that will never fades away. The guiding concept of the design of this library complex is to recreate spaces that echo with the enchanting scene settings in fairy tales that will reconcile with the deep childhood memories as well as become pillars of imagination for young audiences. To achieve that, we extracted three core components that would become the cornerstone of the imaginative spatial experience that we try to provide: the dispensation of gravity, the traverse of time and the distortion of scale. Each design strategies were developed encompassed around the three core concepts that together create an imaginary field that was set apart from the surroundings.

Design Competition l 2016 Fall Location: Huanlian, Taiwan Collaborator:Xinye Sun

architectural solution

[the dispensation of gravity]

Childhood adventures often include the reconfiguring the vertical section of the world we live in: flying above the trees, sinking into the deepest of seas, have the stars in our reach. The main library space incorporate this idea through the sinking garden and gradient glass canopy in the middle of the building. The pitched geometry with the reddish roof echo with the building context of the town, while the interior of the library were mostly constructed with child-friendly wood materials that provides a warm and safe reading environment. While amidst all these is a hidden world in the center, where the audiences find themselves entering an imaginary world where the trees (from the sinking garden) are at their feet and the sea (the gradient glass tiles) above. The media space was placed adjacent to the sinking garden, enjoying the view of the secret landscape as its performing background.

[the traverse of time]

Time is another thing that we cannot escape, but in fairy tales, time opens its gateway. The exhibition resides in the original paper factory, whose classic façade aged by time was preserved. Minimum interventions were allowed inside the space to preserve the linear spatial experience as well as allow the maximum flexibility of the exhibition room. On the other side of the site, the library coffee sets in the new linear building with identical geometry of the main space of the paper factory. The configuration of the façade salute to the classics of history while the material of the façade, the polished translucent stone, revealed its modern feature with a subtle reflection of the past. The workshop happens behind this time passage as an underground “rabbit hole” space with skylight that receives the animation of the surrounding landscape.

[the distortion of scale]

Scale is the bridge between us and everything else in the world. Fairy tales releases the constraint to allow a bean tree become the ladder to the sky and a flower become a fragrant home. The lavished grassland made possible by underground parking and elevated ground level was circled into landscape pockets by trees and fountains. The density and the scale change of these landscape elements create zones that escape from reality. The fragrance of the grass and the mist of the water fountain elevate the fairy atmosphere that frees the children as well as bring back the memories of childhood days for the adult visitors.

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