Debi Shanghai Book City WE

Steel Rain: We used 500 white aluminum panels of three different widths, 160, 320, and 480 millimeters, with randomly generated forms based on my sketches, to create a heavy rainfall on the facade. Perforations in the panels form Morse code of random dots and dashes, creating an information rain waiting for someone to decode. The rain needs thickness, so the aluminum panels are arranged in three layers, inner, middle, and outer, like a waterfall reaching the ground, with the outermost layer concealing the awning, preserving visual completeness without sacrificing function. Passing through the heavy rain into the lobby, the rain has not stopped. I designed the steel bookshelves in the shape of falling rain, extending the facade vocabulary into the interior to create continuity. I lazy-minded, and I collectively referred to metals like perforated aluminum panels and steel bookshelves as steel, so this is Steel Rain. Songs in the Rain: The lobby features oversized folding windows that, when opened, make interior and exterior one unified space. The lobby is also in the rain. Within the rain, a red terrazzo counter combined with greenery creates a garden museum that serves as the lobby lounge. Because it is in the rain, I required the original columns to retain their construction traces after decorative removal, an initial state that serves as a metaphor: heavy rain can wash away our conventional habits of seeing. The project by Wutopia Lab, led by Yu Ting, creates a bookstore that is as much a conceptual art installation as a retail space.