The Cloudscape library

Text description provided by the architects. MAD joins this group of wings with a building containing a library and amenities for citizens. Located in Century Park on the shore of Haikou Bay, the project covers an area of 4,397 square meters, with a construction area of 1,380 square meters. On the south side of the pavilion is a library and reading space for 10,000 books, as well as a multifunctional audio-visual area: free and open for public use. Meanwhile, the northern area of the building contains a café, public restrooms, barrier-free restrooms, shower rooms, a nursery room, a public rest area, and a rooftop garden.

The beginning of a new book is often a cherished moment for readers: an adventure into the surreal or the unknown and gentle departure from everyday reality. The experience of visiting Cloudscape is similar. Architecture allows people to approach the building far from our familiar urban reality, and to start a new journey that transcends time and space. The cavernous intricacy of the form breaks up the space layer by layer, providing readers with a weightless scope for their imagination to inhabit.

The building, which is located in a quiet place between land and sea, is highly sculptural. The free and organic forms of the pavilion also allow the creation of unique interior spaces, where walls, floors and ceilings merge in unexpected ways, and the boundaries between inside and outside are blurred.

The building's circular openings are reminiscent of holes formed by wildlife or the seas, blurring the boundaries between architecture and nature. The different sizes of the openings allow natural light to enter the interior and create a natural ventilation effect to cool the building in Haikou's year-round warm climate. Through the holes, people observe the sky and the sea, as if they are looking at a familiar world through the passage of time and space. These layers of atmosphere, and the collision between people and space, create a sense of living ritual.

The successive reading area facing the sea, which connects the first and second floors, is not only for reading, but also a place for cultural exchange activities. The children's reading area is isolated from the main reading space, as skylights, holes and niches stimulate children's desire to explore.

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The structural form creates many semi-outdoor spaces and platforms, which also serve as excellent spaces for people to read and look out to sea. In response to the hot local climate, the gray space of the building's exterior corridor was designed to achieve comfortable temperatures, culminating in a sustainable and energy-efficient structure.