d+a | Issue 116 • Jun/July 2020

/ RETAIL / 44 CHURCH WITHIN A CHURCH The floor plan includes a main hall in the centre of the building, flanked by two smaller side halls. To showcase the books, Yu and his team built a steel bookcase structure that followed the outline of the interior walls and ceiling in the main hall. This was set 50cm apart from the walls of the main hall so it looks like the “bones” of the church. Additional book display areas were created within the two side halls – one for children’s books and the other for cultural and creative books. According to Yu, the biggest challenge was finding a way to drop this huge steel bookshelf into the narrow and tall interior volume. His solution was to have a crane with expandable steel pipes and motors built on site. It would rise upwards so welders could graft the steel plates of the bookshelf as the structure advanced to greater heights. “The steel bookshelf was built by 30 workers in 80 days. The workers first cut 5mm steel plates into 128 standpipes, 640 large steel plates and 2,921 small steel plates to create 23 layers of crossbars according to the drawings. “They then pre-assembled the parts outdoors before moving the sections indoors and welding them together. The 9.9m-tall bookshelf was then placed 50cm apart from the wall so it looks like ‘a church within a church’,” says Yu. RESPECTFULLY UPDATED Blue film was chosen to replace the faded stained-glass window. Explains Yu, “An infinitely transparent blue is rendered when sunlight spills into the side halls, dissolving the separateness 1. Main hall 2. Side hall 3. Side hall 4. Cafe 5. Showroom 6. Reading room 7. Pulpit 8. Lounge 9. Baking room 10. Lavatory FLOOR PLAN