Shanghai-based architecture firm Wutopia Lab has created a continuous space for a stack of books on the 52nd floor of Shanghai's tallest building, Shanghai Tower. Commissioned by Shanghai Century Publishing (Group), the store presents a fluid atmosphere and different movement patterns inside, while making easy to take a book from the shelves.

Named Books over the clouds, the store is a small culture complex with seven different functions, including bookstore, lecture room, exhibition, coffee, dessert and light meal. 

It houses 60,000 books and 2,000 products saled in 2,200-square-metre area. The store on height of 239 meter is the China's highest commercial bookstore. The bookstore is an important public cultural place in the vertical city of Shanghai, and a cultural landmark of Shanghai.

Standing in the South Garden, watching the spectacular Huangpu River twists and turns, as if standing on the mountain. I decided to build a white abstract mountain, which consists of translucent bookshelves stacked in layers. 

At the end of the mountain is the magnificent sky. The sky and the city should be part of the design of the bookstore. The ground should be clean and tidy. On a sunny day, the sky can be reflected on the floor. All this makes the mountain floating. Become a daily miracle in Shanghai.

A round bookshelf is used to synthesize a black study room, which is the secret of Shanghai. The circles are connected to each other and expand outwards, each of which is independent but can wrap you tightly. Due to fire protection requirements, the movable bookshelf is used as a partition to separate different areas of the room. 

At the same time, the bookshelf is not to the ceiling, fire hydrants and fire doors are kept, so the original fire zone is guaranteed not changed. The bookshelf is divided into transportable parts based on the size of the freight elevator, without changing appearance. The bookshelf is prefabricated in the factory, and installed on 52 floors.

Between black and white, they set a gray space. There are two layers of the wall, the outer layer rotates out to form a heavy screen. It is a multi-purpose space can be used as a wall for exhibition, or for exhibition speech. It is also a social place where we can speak, exhibit and exchange memories.

There are huge potted plants in the garden, fountains and stone piers occupy the space, these things are heavy and cannot be removed, so in the South Garden, I designed two stainless steel leaf-shaped high tables, silvery leaves embedded in the trees between the pool and the stone pier, it is a state-of-the-art art installation. 

The table is like a sparkling pool, reflecting the shadows of the trees. The owner named this place as the Cape of Good Hope. I used a prefabricated metal plate to hide the fountain in the South Garden and change it into a stage. 

There is a circular groove in the center of the stage, suggesting the shape of the fountain hiding below. The place near the outer wall of the stage is a semi-circular pit, which is a place where people can look at the clouds. You are in Shanghai, the most peaceful and daily life will not be the same.

Standing in the North Garden, looking from the global financial center through Shanghai Jinmao Tower, at the end of The Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower, the architects think there needs a bar, sitting at the bar, at the end of the line of sight the surface of the earth can clearly seen, so the 52-meter-long bar was born.

"Any story is inseparable from people, and the relationship between men and women is a topic we have been keen to discuss." The story begins with the boys, who belongs to Tiffany Blue's fine coffee embedded in the white study. 

"The story ends with the girl, it is sparkle pink dessert house, which stands alone at the end of the story as big surprise. Some people criticized me for expressing girls in the stereotype color of pink. But autonomous girls are not bound by color or the meaning behind color," said the studio.

The corner of the White Study is the Douban High Score Book Area, which corresponds to the dark green London Book Review Bookstore area at the end of the distant black study. One represents the East, one represents the West, and the East and the West are like this, interdependent and competing with each other, but sometimes there is love, sometimes it is not. But our world seems to be composed of the East and the West.

The site is 2,200 square meters. 100 workers worked 60 days, according to 300 drawings to finish the bookstore. 150 people use 15 days to transport 260 tons of shelves to 239 meters high floor, and 10 days to install it. 

After that, 35 bookstore employees put 60,000 books and 2,000 products on the shelves in 4 days, and set up everything in 6 days. The flagship store of Duoyun Books is finally elegantly displayed in front of the world.

"I created Space with a continuous stack of books, created Scape with symbols and landscapes, and the owners and readers gave Spirit, and the wonderful place of Duoyun books flagship store was born," said Wutopia Lab.

"The flagship store of Duoyun Books is a place that can evoke all your imagination. Shanghai needs such a high level bookstore."

Sketch-1

Plan

Axonometric drawing

Project facts

Design Firm: Wutopia Lab 

Chief Architect: YU Ting

Project Architect: Shengrui PU

Design Team: Dali PAN, Wutian SUN

Construction Drawing Design: Alignment Studio, Shanghai Southeast United Engineering Design Co., Ltd

Constructor: Shanghai Interior Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd. 

Lighting Design: Chloe ZHANG

Client: Shanghai Century Cloud Culture Development Co., Ltd       

Location: Floor 52, Shanghai Tower, No.501 Yincheng Mid Road, Pudong, Shanghai, China

Area: 2259 square meters

Project Year: 2019.08

All images © CreatAR Images

All drawings © Wutopia Lab 

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