TReading: A Library Organised Like a Tree, With Social Life as Its Trunk

Most library proposals still begin with the shelf and work outward. TReading begins with the conversation. Its argument is blunt: once information lives on every screen, a physical library can no longer justify itself as a storage room for books. It has to earn its place as somewhere people meet, exchange, and read alongside each other. The designers translate that argument into a tree, with communal activity as the trunk, reading spaces as the branches, and the envelope as a canopy. The metaphor does more than shape the silhouette. It sets the spatial hierarchy, the circulation, the furniture and the skin.

Designed by Yuxiang Qi and Yang Yang, TReading was recognised as an Editor's Choice entry in BookMark 2020. The proposal traces the library's long arc, from guarded archive of manuscripts, to public reading institution, to an uncertain present shaped by digital archives and social media. Its answer is a vertically layered building where reading sits next to digital media, exhibitions, workshops, recreation and intergenerational exchange, and where social behaviour generates new forms of reading instead of disrupting them.

A Timber Stair Rising Through the Social Trunk

The atrium is where the trunk becomes legible. A timber stair climbs past concrete walls, while low bookshelves keep sightlines open and children settle on the floor to read in soft daylight. Keeping the shelving low matters: the books are present without walling anyone off, so the stair, the readers and the people passing through all share one field of view. Circulation and gathering occupy the same volume, which is precisely the designers' definition of the trunk.

The reading hall shifts register without breaking the connection. A curved concrete arch frames computer desks, and a boy works on a tablet beside perforated screens. The screens are the quiet protagonist here. They filter light and partially veil the room, giving digital work its own territory while keeping it visibly tied to the rest of the library. Screen-based reading is treated as a legitimate branch of the tree, not a concession tucked into a basement media room.

Four Levels Gathered Under a Single Curved Canopy

The cutaway axonometric shows the whole system at once: four levels of reading floors and furniture beneath a curved roof, set among trees. The hierarchy is easy to follow. The core carries movement and shared activity, the floors extend outward to hold reading rooms, workspaces, classrooms and exhibition zones, and the roof wraps the composition into one recognisable object. The canopy has a double job. It controls light and visual exposure inside, and it gives the library a clear identity from outside, which counts for a lot in a building type that needs to signal public welcome.

Mezzanines That Look Back Into the Core

On the mezzanine, a woman reads by a translucent screen beneath curved skylight beams, a timber railing and bookshelves beside her. This is the branch in practice: quieter and more enclosed, yet still open to the activity below. The translucent screen offers privacy without total isolation, so a reader can shift from concentration to observation simply by looking up. The project's central claim, that difference and connection can coexist, depends on calibrated thresholds like this one.

The section confirms that the arrangement is consistent through the building. Stacked floors are linked by stairs, planted terraces step along the edges, and a dipped roof pulls the canopy down over the interior. Birds and a cyclist in the drawing are more than decoration; they place the library within everyday street life. The terraces extend the branch logic to the outside, letting reading and pausing spill into open air rather than ending at the glass.

Overlap, Mixed Ages and Shared Furniture as Design Tools

The diagram sheet is the clearest account of the project's thinking. Five axonometric studies test overlapping uses, mixed ages, shared furniture, penetration, and vertical interaction between floors. Together they treat the library as a set of social conditions to be designed, not just rooms to be allocated. Shared furniture lets strangers occupy the same surface; penetration and vertical links ensure that what happens on one floor can be seen and heard on another. This is where the tree metaphor stops being an image and becomes a working method.

Why This Project Matters

TReading addresses the question that every contemporary library brief avoids: what is the building for when the information is already in your pocket? The designers answer with relationships between people, activities and space, and they back that answer with a coherent hierarchy rather than a scatter of programmes. The trunk, branch and canopy logic gives users real choice over how social or solitary they want to be, without dividing the library into separate camps.

The proposal is strongest where its metaphor turns into specific decisions: low shelves that keep the atrium open, perforated and translucent screens that set degrees of privacy, terraces that carry reading outdoors. Those moves are transferable well beyond this scheme. For anyone designing civic space in a digital era, TReading is a reminder that the most valuable thing a public building can hold may be the chance encounter, not the collection.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designers: Yuxiang Qi, Yang Yang

Enter a Design Competition on uni.xyz

uni.xyz runs architecture and design competitions year-round that reward proposals with spatial conviction and real site intelligence.

Project credits: TReading by Yuxiang Qi, Yang Yang BookMark 2020 (uni.xyz).