Lattice Book House / Scenic Architecture Office

Central stair. Image © Shan Liang

• Architects: Scenic Architecture Office
• Location: Xuhui Riverfront Park, Shanghai, China
• Lead Architects: Xiaofeng Zhu, Shan Liang
• Area: 350.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Shan Liang

• Structure & Mep: Tongji University Institute of Architectural Design and Research
• Client: Xuhui Riverfront Development Investment and Construction Ltd.

Old train track and south facade. Image © Shan Liang

Text description provided by the architects. Supported by freestanding steel lattice structure walls, a group of platforms float in the trees with various heights. A bending stair links all the platforms and brings people to every space in diversified locations and sizes. Relying on the platforms, these spaces are interrelated and open to each other. The steel lattice wall and glass curtain, which are both transparent, blur the layer boundaries between platforms and interior/exierior.

Second and third platform. Image © Shan Liang

Section

First floor reading space. Image © Shan Liang

The Lattice House is a book café. Sitting at any corner of the house, the books on the lattice structure and surrounding branches and leaves become all touchable sceneries. This building reproduces the spatial experience of forest in an artificial way, and makes a symbiotic relationship between abstract and representational in a continuous scale.

Mutual perception between inside and outside. Image © Shan Liang

Detail. Image Courtesy of Scenic Architecture Office

Second and third platform. Image © Shan Liang

We expect to merge structure, furniture and space into one, to make this building a physical media that can establish relevance among scale, space and perception. We believe that this relevance is the beginning of architectural mind.

View from the rooftop platform to Huangpu river and Lupu bridge. Image © Shan Liang