Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum
Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum | Rebirth of the Crystalline Space Over the years of stone mining, the manufacture has discovered numerous fossils. The manufacture decides to dedicate the headquarter building to a museum to tell the history of the fossils and the natural science of researching the fossil. There are two major challenges during the renovation process. The first one is the conflict between private headquarter and public museums. The second one is the direct sunlight gained at the atrium space. The addition of museum space will limit the deficient light to the office space even more. The archaic rock was first discovered at the crystalized base inside the landmass. Those crystalloids become how they look like today through a long term of high temperature, high pressure, mixture, and accumulation. The original form of the stone, its crystal structure, brings us a new architectural language. Photography by Courtesy of Atelier Alter Architects
We introduce three intersected crystalloids into the atrium space. The quadrangular pyramid light well stretches from the building roof to the first-floor ceiling to bring light into the first-floor museum atrium while the second-floor exhibition space and the rest of the office space are lite by the remaining portion of the building skylight, as well as the reflected light bounced by the tilted outer-surface of the light well. Surrounding the vertical crystalloids, there are hor...