“Sky Gallery” Aerial Study Room
Located at the intersection between the busy Suzhou archaic zone and Wuzhong district, when lights lit up at nightfall, sky gallery, the aerial study room as leisure and cozy space outlined by the lofty building office with lemon yellow light and whirling lamp shadow covered by endless green. In the range of sight, the project overlooks the charming history and traditional culture of the whole ancient city, Suzhou.
Special Arrangement
In a relatively crowded space, the sky gallery was used the “microcosmic garden construction” method to be designed. By introducing concepts of corridor, garden, and pavilion, extending and reconstituting the space on the basis of existing by skillfully using garden constructing methods of Suzhou tradition, by which transforming it into a new composite space of open and semi-open. In the interlaced microcosmic view, one could get into a spirit world with leisure.
Entrance Space
The entrance is interleaved in by a corner, which offered an exploratory sense of space access. Meanwhile, the landscape that was implanted in the corner of the entrance shows various morphologies with the change of the user’s view, giving the space more rhythm and rhyme. The main path to the study room used the open streamlined alignment to solve the crowded situation that the space is too small to move. On the way from the outdoor to the indoor, the emotion could be gradually transformed from noisy to relief, until the composite space is wholly shown in front of the eyes.
Liquidity of Space and Materials
The interior space used a mesh metal ceiling in light quality and continuous ordered steel frame to reconstruct the artistic conception of the veranda, which divided the large space into areas with different sizes and functions. However, the impediment of sight didn’t segment the continuity of space. The whole space is always in a balance of dynamic and static combination.
The continuous and tortuous white wall was placed into the junction between the space and the void, which ensuring safety. Meanwhile, part of the wall was embedded with continuous and visible window, which link the interior space with the exterior space and bring in the outdoor scenery. With the change of users’ walking path, occasionally shown green plants reinforce the dynamic of the space again. The scenery changes with walks seem like a garden tour.
The project didn’t use complex decorations or expensive materials, just explored a new possibility only by searching the locational attribute and own situation, plus the suitable materials to respond to the construction method of traditional architecture. Finally, in the selection of material, the project kept closely with the modern retro language and responded to the business environment with extreme restrain.
Immersive Experience of Escaping from Reality
Here, people could briefly leave away from the busy reality in the city. It makes people feel like in a quite natural garden. Either body or emotion could get relaxed from the busy work so that enhancing the study efficiency. The well-constructed curved workbench in contrast with the linear corridor space. The continuous curved interface divides the interior office space into different areas, making different transition experience. The green mat under the desks and chairs makes people feel like in the meadow. The small plants that relatively low such as ferns which intersperse across the workbenches could not only make users feel nature but also practically improve the indoor microclimate and environment in function. These plants make every area full of green. The semitransparent white punched plates surround the space without closing, which blurs the border of space. Therefore, the solidity of the wall is vanished, which changing the stiff impression of space division. Purity, nature, and lightness are topics that the whole space following. By the contrast made by the busy streets of Gusu, the space seems static and becomes a beautiful scenery of the city. The introduction of different sceneries of normal life outside the window makes each corner of the study room different. No matter green or white, it makes each user have an exclusive location to stay.
