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London

Hyde Bean

Competition 

Sited by the Serpentine River, the Hyde Bean seeds an underground book depository, a flexible above-the-ground space, and a depository of e-books and e-catalogues nesting on cloud.
 
Tapping onto sustainable energies and through natural lighting, Hyde Bean introduces minimal disruption to the landscape of Hyde Park. The architectural design of the Hyde Park Global Bean follows that of a bean, an organic seed symbolizing the cultivation of knowledge and an act of seeding the public's interest in reading.
 
With the underground book depository taking up three-fifth of the space, Hyde Bean is a new-age library where visitors are able to not only borrow physical, e-books but also be able to borrow replicas of artefacts. The flexible above-the-ground space hosts the information centre, retail, tuck shops, children centre and a comfortable seating area for visitors to read.
 
Unconstrained by the physical locale of the library, Wi-Fi marks the unseen boundaries of the Hyde Bean, where visitors are encouraged to gain access to an online catalogue of e-books and articles. Beyond the main library site, visitors are also able to access the library's depository from off-shoot seedlings shattered in various locations around the park, making Hyde Park the library in itself. 

This is the sprout of something new.

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