Dazhou Public Library
Text description provided by the architects. Located in west China, Dazhou city has a population of around 580 thousand. Dazhou Public Library serves as the collection center of literature information resource, as well as the communicating/service center of the city. It is a significant symbol of Dazhou’s culture development.
The project site is quite narrow with a height difference of about 4 meters from north to south. The main volume consists of a 2-storey underground garage and a 5-storey building with an open layout aboveground. The building Includes exhibition, classroom, café at the first floor, main entry, lecture hall, kids’ reading room at the second, open reading space at level three to four and the curator office at level five.
Utilizing relative altitude of the site, the design placed main entry on the second level. Lecture hall was placed to the north of the main volume, separated from the south-part reading space. The reading space was composed around a skylight atrium, from which one can take in the whole reading room in a glance. Readers can reach each floor with the stair in the atrium. The changing direction and altitude of the stair expressed an image of ‘mountian road’, which indicated Dazhou’s mountainous geographical environment.
To avoid the bad influence of direct sunshine from both east and west, the long side wall of reading room consists of two layers of glasses, the outer Ceramic Fritted glass and the inner frosted glass. The double glazing provides a stable diffused light environment which meanwhile insulates noise from street, thus making a high-quality reading environment. The staircases and washrooms are placed to the west so as to insulate heating in the afternoon, saving energy for air conditioning. This kind of distribution also liberates whole floor space for arranging reading function freely.
