Reading with a Vending Machine

Honorable mention, Archasm Competition | 2018

abstract:

As more convenient tools to perceive information starts to prevail, the future of library identity is not characterized by books physical collection, but the experience of reading. Passive Reader is such a device. A large slated reflective canopy receive the surrounding down to the readers, and likewise, the live activity of reading is projected to the city, forming a living facade. 

By providing zone-based wireless information access, readers don’t need to be physically segregated from the urban. 

Since everyone could access its database while connecting to its network, infrastructure as libraries has been shrunk from a enclose human scale architectural space to a machine scale data center. Physical copies have been digitalized in an automatic workshop while organized by a compact robotic management system. Therefore, instead of inserting a building in the site, we spare most of the site as public parks of reading by and minimizing office space and cantilevering our physical collections. The Readers and nonreaders can share the same open ground. most of the site area is dedicated as public parks to mix the two group to the max. 

However, the materiality of books is not abandoned. The robotic management system serves as a vending machine reserves those who still want to come and have a hard copy in hand. As the robotic arms slide above the free park, an upside down reflection of people reading, can be seen merged with the archive behind. 

Although both utilize network service, it is different from internet reading where information is free to share. A library is where information is free to access but the ownership is not relinquished from the authority. 

Honorable mention, Archasm Competition, 2018
Partner: Junchao Yang

back