Pageone Bookstore


Pageone Bookstore

Pageone Bookstore

Office Aio

ARCHITECTS
Office Aio

AREA
10,000 Sqft - 25,000 Sqft

YEAR
2021

LOCATION
Beijing, China

TYPE
Commercial › Retail

A new PageOne recently establishes itself in the center of Beijing's Haidian.

It is a district where some of the nation's brightest minds work and reside. In its vicinity are many elite high schools, universities, national research centres, and technology headquarters.

Pageone Bookstore
Pageone Bookstore

OFFICE AIO gives the bookseller a design that caters to its cerebral community. But it also redefines the plot with a civic underscore beyond the building's confine, a vision which it acts as a social place that nourishes both book lovers and hurry-throughs with respect and openness to culture.

RECREATING A CIVIC ENSEMBLE

The two-story structure sits right by a boulevard on a concourse. It was first a developer's spectacle gesture as a sales center, then a precinct crammed by food businesses serving weekday professionals. Over time, this deconstructivist building has faded in discord with the mundane activities it houses.

Pageone Bookstore
Pageone Bookstore

Numerous restrictions were in place for facade renovation. But OFFICE AIO insisted on opening up the ground floor to recreate an inviting exterior that takes advantage of the plaza in front.

Its previous faceted aluminum cladding is restructured and replaced by a glass curtain wall. A new canopy reflects the street and its interior to the passer-by. Extruded logotype visually draws the bookstore out to the public area.

With its long edge featuring series of shelves displaying opened books and magazines, a playful recessed opening serves coffee-to-go. The exhibit acts like an captivating installation for window reading as one waits for the drink.

Pageone Bookstore
Pageone Bookstore

This updated band of transparency and continuity results in a brighter and lighter structure, blurring the boundary between the concourse and the building. With people converging from all directions, it reasserts its presence with new potential for the area to become a marketplace, a performing stage, and a public plaza.

SHUTTLING THROUGH KNOWLEDGE

The elongated building is sandwiched between a business tower and the Wudaokou subway station.

To extend the building's civic nature, the proposal's interior resonates with the rail tracks nearby. Lines of bookshelves shelving uninterrupted flows of books are laid in parallel, with few diagonally crossed openings.

Pageone Bookstore
Pageone Bookstore

Like a train plying through a landmass with quickly shuffling sceneries, a person passes by the milieu of knowledge, busying the eyes and minds with the volumes' interconnected yet varying perspectives.

Consistently veneered surfaces and hidden structural elements provide a clear frame of mind for wandering in the maze of books. Contrasting the solitude shaped on the North- South, the South- North side on both floors houses public and social programs.

Pageone Bookstore

A cafe, register and several stands on the first floor align with the bookshelves' linearity, with a few seatings lining the entryway corner.

On its second floor, an open space with flexible partition can host various events, connecting the visitors with a full view of the concourse and the city beyond.

China's economy is on the cusp of leveraging cultural businesses for popularity of commercial developments.While a new book store brings substance to the area, OFFICE AIO's design further elevates the building's prominence in a larger context, from a place to rush through to a cultural destination that embraces and captivates its customers and passer-by with books and more.


Pageone Bookstore
Pageone Bookstore
Pageone Bookstore