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Adept insertion: Enclave Book Shop by Aether Architects
Photo: Zhang Chao
The small retail space is located in the NanTou, a village near the city of Shenzhen. The new bookshop mainly specialises in poetry publications but will also be hosting small art exhibitions and other events.
Originally the converted building was a residential property. Coming at mere 31 square metres in size, the bookshop consists of an elongated, tunnel-like space, and it was this that gave rise to the idea of seeing it as a "site". Accordingly the interior is regarded as a street, a place where inserted bookshelves play the role of three-dimensional buildings with their own exterior and interior areas. The result is a landscape of public and private spaces on a very small area.
The inserted volumes consist of three-dimensional curved elements executed in white painted steel. The convex and concave forms generate different spatial layers, with the curved vertical volumes corresponding to positions of the human body: open and broad in the middle and more restricted at the walls, where seating is located.
Originally the converted building was a residential property. Coming at mere 31 square metres in size, the bookshop consists of an elongated, tunnel-like space, and it was this that gave rise to the idea of seeing it as a "site". Accordingly the interior is regarded as a street, a place where inserted bookshelves play the role of three-dimensional buildings with their own exterior and interior areas. The result is a landscape of public and private spaces on a very small area.
The inserted volumes consist of three-dimensional curved elements executed in white painted steel. The convex and concave forms generate different spatial layers, with the curved vertical volumes corresponding to positions of the human body: open and broad in the middle and more restricted at the walls, where seating is located.