Shenzhen Art Museum & Shenzhen Second Library, Shenzhen, China

We created a venue for activity, interaction, and communication. The shape of the building, its uniform stone façade,and the museum’s projecting roof link the two building sections visually. The roof symbolizes a door to the world of knowledge, art, and culture. The public plaza provides a space for dialog, not just between the building sections but also between visitors, the urban space, and our architecture.

In the interior, the library’s bright rooms form a kind of “urban living room”. Open galleries with bookshelves and reading areas arranged around a central atrium into which daylight falls from above, fostering an intimate and calm atmosphere. The intention is for visitors to enjoy using the five-story reading room, which boasts some 2,2000 desks.

With its expansive glass façade, the museum opposite is both open and inviting. Architecturally, we opted for a different emphasis here: Natural stone (symbolizing the origins of art and crafts) and mineral surfaces form a calm background and set the architectural frame in which are is presented. The exhibition levels are terraced downwards in the glass atrium and to the plaza, and double up as a viewing platform from where you can watch the city and plaza alike.