The "Haikou Cloud Cave Library" designed by MAD, led by Ma Yansong, was officially completed and put into use recently. This one-piece concrete building was called "the most anticipated building to be completed in 2021" by the British newspaper The Times. It will bring a more unique urban public and cultural space to Haikou citizens and tourists.

摄影：CreatAR Images

摄影：CreatAR Images

As an important port city in southern China, Haikou was once an important stop on the Maritime Silk Road. In recent years, with the establishment of Hainan International Tourism Island and Hainan Free Trade Port, Haikou's urban economy has developed rapidly and its influence has been growing day by day. How to enhance the uniqueness and artistry of urban public spaces, bring residents a more humanistic living environment, and shape the city's character and sense of belonging has become a major topic.

摄影：CreatAR Images

The project is located in Century Park on the shore of Haikou Bay, covering an area of ​​4,397 square meters and a construction area of ​​1,380 square meters. It includes a library and supporting facilities for civic activities: the library on the south side of the building contains a reading space that can store tens of thousands of books and a multi-functional audio-visual area, which is open to the public free of charge. The north side is a service facility for people, including a cafe, public toilets, barrier-free toilets, showers, a mother-and-child room, a public rest area, and a roof garden.

Video: Aoguan Architectural Vision

"Spiritual attributes are the core value of architecture; they will render the humanistic atmosphere of a city. We hope that this is an urban space that people are willing to go to and stay in their daily lives. Architecture, art, humanity, and nature meet here, and they will open up people's imaginative journey, exploring and appreciating the meaning that different beauty brings to people's lives."

- Ma Yansong

摄影：CreatAR Images

The beginning of a book is often the moment people look forward to the most. The same is true for the "Haikou Cloud Cave Library". People approach the building from the familiar urban reality and start a new journey of time and space. The layers and complexity of the cave-shaped space open up the space layer by layer, and also provide readers with an imaginative field of weightlessness.

摄影：CreatAR Images

The building, quietly located between land and sea, has a strong sense of sculpture. The free and organic form also shapes the changeable interior space: the walls, floors, ceilings, indoors and outdoors blur the boundaries.

Photography: Existential Architecture

The holes inside and outside the building are very similar to the "holes" that can be found everywhere in nature, making the boundary between architecture and nature gradually disappear.

Photography: Existential Architecture

The holes inside and outside the building are very similar to the "holes" that can be found everywhere in nature, making the boundary between architecture and nature gradually disappear.

摄影：CreatAR Images

People look at the sky and the sea through the holes, as if they are looking through the passage of time and space to see the familiar world around them. The different atmospheres and different scales of brushstrokes in the building touch with people's activities, creating a sense of ritual in life.

Photography: Existence Architecture

The sea-facing stepped reading space that runs through the first and second floors is not only a place for reading, but also a venue for daily cultural exchange activities.

摄影：CreatAR Images

The children's reading area is separated from the main reading space, with skylights, holes and niches, which stimulate children's desire to explore.

Photography: Existing Architecture

The openable glass skylight and oversized curved sliding door provide better lighting, sea views and ventilation.

Photography: Existence Architecture

Photography: Existence Architecture

The multiple semi-outdoor spaces and platforms formed by the structural form are also great spaces for people to read and look at the sea. In order to adapt to the hot local climate conditions, the gray space of the corridor outside the building adopts a cantilever design, which reduces heat radiation through physical shading and achieves building energy saving.

Photography: Existential Architecture

MAD hopes to adopt an "anti-material" approach, avoiding the intentional expression of structure and construction, thereby eliminating the inherent cultural significance of the material itself and allowing the spatial experience itself to become the main subject. Concrete is a liquid material, and its fluid, soft and changeable structural form is its greatest feature.

Photography: Existence Architecture

Photography: Existing Architecture

The interior and exterior of the building are made of exposed concrete, which is poured in sections multiple times to form a whole. The design deepening stage is all based on digital models. The roof and floor are both in the form of double-layer hollow ribs shaped like "waffles", which can not only meet the force requirements of large spans and large cantilevers, but also use the hollow structure to lay equipment pipelines and fill building insulation materials to achieve a simple and complete interior space, which is also the key to the design of architecture, structure, and mechatronics.

“海口云洞图书馆”由海口旅游文化投资控股集团投资建造，是大型国际公共艺术项目“海口·海边的驿站”中第一个落成的高标准驿站。该项目是邀请十余位全球顶尖的建筑师、艺术家以及跨学科专家共同打造的16座地标性公共驿站，以“自然·共生·未来”为理念的精品民生工程。Photography: Existence Architecture

The "Haikou Cloud Cave Library" was invested in and built by Haikou Tourism Culture Investment Holding Group. It is the first high-standard station completed in the large-scale international public art project "Haikou·Seaside Station". The project is a high-quality livelihood project with the concept of "Nature·Symbiosis·Future" and invites more than a dozen world-class architects, artists, and interdisciplinary experts to jointly build 16 landmark public stations.

Haikou Cloud Cave Library
Haikou, China
2019 - 2021

Site area: 4,397 sqm
Building area: 1,380 sqm

Partners in charge: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano
Partner in charge: Fu Changrui
Design team: Qiang Siyang, Shang Li, Sun Feifei, Dayie Wu, Alan Rodríguez Carrillo, Xie Qilin, Beatrice Bavuso

Owner: Haikou Tourism and Culture Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd.
Engineering design general contractor: East China Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd.
Curtain wall consultant: Afa Architectural Design Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
Lighting consultant: Beijing Ningzhijing Lighting Design Co., Ltd.
Logo design: 2x4 Beijing
Soft decoration design: Beijing Linghe Buyao Space Design
Construction general contractor: Beijing Yihuida Qingshui Construction Engineering Co., Ltd.