Shangfeng Public Library and School Gymnasium

he project locates at rural fringe of Taichung City. It has called for a library and for the community and a school gymnasium, right next to an existing primary school. The challenge of this project is more than just simply placing these two buildings and programs in a very difficult site, but to create a sense of community space through expanding layers of activities, natural conditions, tectonic details and ambiances.

These two buildings face each other and create a communal square in the middle. The square becomes the new focus as well as the new side entry for school which knitted the community and school even closer. Outdoor terraces, roof gardens and ramp projecting out from these two buildings, trying to extend the periphery of the communal square.

The site and the school are separated by an abandoned irrigation channel which filled with native aquatic plants and habitats. Rather than treating the irrigation channel as site constraint, it has become the stimulus for the form of the library as well as the landscape surrounding it. Now the channel is expanded as a pond and surrounded three sides of the library. It serves as the fence for the school without disrupts visual continuation of the landscape.

The idea of the library is to be a neutral container of books as well as the space and its surroundings. Once entered the library, people will be greeted with sumptuous view of outdoor landscape at the foyer thanks to large windows facing north at one side. On the other side is an airy central atrium that acts as a pivot to all spaces in the library. The ribbon like stair in the atrium meander three floors of the library, directing or hinting spaces beyond. The roof of the library lifts up to allow indirect soft southern sunlight to fill the space. The inclined roof garden will let people wil get a glimpse of landscape up and beyond, therefore encourage readers to step outside and to discover further as we should in the sea of knowledge.