Take a look at this gorgeous, see-through “book house.”
Because you can never have enough gorgeous libraries to imagine yourself visiting: Condition_Lab’s new Pingtan Book House library in Pingtan, China, built by working closely with local carpenters and CUHK architecture students, is a luminous, organic structure with a matrix of bookshelves in the walls. Inside, a staircase spirals up to nowhere. Write the architects: “The staircase has no destination; it is the destination itself.”
The book house is built of timber, in order to honor the heritage of the area; villages in Pingtan have historically been built of Chinese fir. The only “foreign” material is the polycarbonate panels used for the outside, which let sunlight filter in during the day, and let the house glow at night. The goal: to exist as a form of “living heritage,” reconnecting visitors—especially children—to culture in an era of increased concrete construction. Take a look at some of the beautiful images below, taken by Sai Zhao and Xiaotie Chen:
[h/t DesignBoom]
