“The Cloudscape of Haikou is located in Century Park along the Haikou Bay coastline. Home to both an intimate library and a waystation for park visitors, the sinuous, biomorphic 11,000-square-foot vessel expansively embraces the surrounding sea, sky, and land, blurring the boundaries between them. Inviting visitors on a journey that transcends time and space, like reading itself, The Cloudscape embodies MAD’s “anti-material” approach, which prioritizes spatial feeling over structural expression.
The interior and exterior of the building are cast in fair-faced concrete to create a single, unified vessel. To maintain a flowing, uniform appearance in a building that does not have a single right angle, MAD used both a CNC-cut and 3D-printed model. Its roof and floor feature double-layered waffle slabs that support the building’s scale and large cantilever. To minimize visual intrusions in its surfaces, The Cloudscape’s mechanical, engineering, and plumbing is hidden within the form’s concrete cavity, and most of the bookcases are in shelving recessed into the walls.
Project: The Cloudscape of Haikou
Firm: MAD Architects
Jury Winner & Popular Winner, 11th Annual A+Awards, Architecture +Concrete
