Chengdu City, China

Shanghai-basedDUTS Design were appointed to design Chengdu Jinniu District Library which comes out as a surprising ‘three-dimensional book’ with its unique and charming architectural image, reflecting the public culture of the new era into a high-level architectural culture.

The Jinniu District Library is located in the south of “Tianfu Cultural Landscape Axis” on Jinniu Avenue in Chengdu. The cultural presence of Southwest china is strong as you walk along this axis. The project includes two functional programs: Jinniu District Library and Waihuacheng Middle School.

The Jinniu District Library project was short-listed for a 2021 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The whole structure includes a library, a local chronicle, and an archive, which have enormous space requirements; Waihuacheng Middle School needs to be placed on the southeast of the teaching space to ensure that the teachers and the students enjoy sufficient sunshine and outdoor playground activity.

The site is long and narrow with a 36 meters plot height limit. Waihuacheng Middle School is located at the southern end of the plot to maximize the use of the middle school playground and the sunlight conditions; the library is located on the north side, bordering with an urban green space that is “borrowed” as the front square for the library, saving plenty of space in the overall layout. This decision has been made with multiple design iterations, taking rational needs and functions into consideration.

In this project, the chief designer used a kind of ‘upgrading’ design thinking and integrated the idea of urban planning and design into the architectural form. The Jinniu District Library and the Waihuacheng Middle School next to it are actually two plots of social functions, but they are culturally consistent, and they happen to belong to the same owner.

Under the deliberation of multiple plans, the architects finally Innovatively use the horizontal extension of the building in the sky to ‘cantilever’ part of the top floor space of the library onto the teaching building of the Waihuacheng Middle School.

This design breaks the constraints of the site conditions and allows the functions and forms of the two buildings to be achieved perfect ‘complementarity’, increasing the use efficiency of urban space, and becoming the biggest highlight of this building. The library building in Jinniu District is made up of three rectangles with different volumes intersected with each other.

The library building is partially suspended above the school. The facade adopts a glass and metal curtain wall system with a steel structural system. The light volume contrasts with the stable and heavy shape of the original parking lot, reflecting the high technology of modern architecture.

This design also reinforces the integrity and interaction of the two independent plots. The shape of the building takes the meaning of a ‘three-dimensional book’, which combines the cultural meaning of the book with the clean lines of modern architecture. The library and school are shaped with bright straight lines. By extending the deep lines, the inner area of the library can be maximized.

The degree of expansion abstractly extracts and integrates the morphological elements of bamboo slips and books, presenting a continuous and rising trend as a whole, concise and dynamic, magnificent and lively, implying the flourishing urban humanistic spirit. The library adopts the layout method of partitioning by layer.

The main body of the library is located on the 1st to 3rd floors of the building, the archives is located on the 4th to 6th floors, and the local chronicles are located in the semi-basement. The divisions are clearly defined, and their respective flow lines do not interfere with each other.

The library, the local chronicles, the archives, and the school are organically integrated, and the flow is transparent and smooth. A seven-story atrium is set up in the middle of the building, which effectively solves the problem of lighting inside the building and breaks the dull pattern of the building’s shape.

The introduction of natural light not only saves electricity, is green and environmentally friendly, but it is also made of glass and metal transparent roof that can show an ever-changing atmosphere under different lights and shadows but without glare.

The large hall on the first floor of the library is transparent and open, creating a relaxed atmosphere, which can encourage people to communicate with each other, giving guests a comfortable feeling of being at home.

After four years, the Jinniu District Library and Waihuacheng Middle School project in Chengdu were finally completed. Through the design thinking of upgrading and the exploration of innovative architectural firms, the architects broke through the constraints of land use conditions and created an environment for the city and citizens. Both bring positive effects in the public cultural space.

Project: Chengdu Jinniu District Library
Architects: DUTS Design
Client: Chengdu Jinniu Urban Construction Investment Co., Ltd
Contractor: Chengdu Jinhua Construction Engineering Co., L
Photographers: Qingshan Wu