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Lib-Ark / Central Park

2021 / Architecture

Aerial view over Central Park showing Lib-Ark, with mobile reading pods and landscape paths embedded between forest and lake, and the New York skyline in the distance.
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Lib-Ark / Central Park is WAY Studio's 2019 proposal for a future library responding to an ideas competition for a new library in New York's Central Park. The project combines the concepts of library, amusement park, and ark into a mobile reading system. Using the hero's journey as its narrative structure, the design turns reading into a slow spatial experience moving between nature, city, and story through suspended tracks, mobile reading pods, mountaintop and valley nodes, highland platforms, main gathering spaces, still water, waterfall meditation areas, crossings, and flow-state zones.

Linear graphic expressing the route, rhythm, and journey direction of the Lib-Ark mobile reading pods.
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Visitors enter a transparent mobile reading pod from a park path, with the reading space suspended between Central Park’s hills and lake landscape.
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Mobile reading pod traveling along a suspended track through slopes, grass, and water, forming a journey that combines reading and viewing.
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Reading pod arriving at a mountaintop node, where visitors can overlook the New York skyline from inside Central Park.
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Diagram of how books are accessed in Lib-Ark, showing the relationship among reservation, display, pickup, and mobile reading.
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Section of the mobile reading pod, showing two levels, a tree atrium, circulation paths, and reading seats.
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Interior of a mountaintop reading pod under a transparent dome, where readers sit between trees and city views.
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Curved symbol expressing the experience of sinking, enclosure, and landscape pressure within a valley space.
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Aerial view of a Lib-Ark valley node, where grass slopes, water, and a mobile reading pod form a lower reading scene.
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Path symbol for a highland platform, expressing pause and ascent within the reading journey.
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Aerial view of a highland platform and outdoor reading space, where paths form places to pause and look out on the grass slope.
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Book and arch symbol for the main space, expressing a combined place for events, information, and back-of-house functions.
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Main space hidden below an artificial landscape structure and facing the lakeshore as a sunken public activity space.
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Still-water symbol formed by concentric rings and horizontal lines, expressing reflection, calmness, and reading focus.
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Lake surface reflecting the Lib-Ark reading pod and grass slope, creating a quiet reading and viewing atmosphere.
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Symbol of a sunken circular space and flowing water path, expressing the relationship between waterfall and meditation space.
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Aerial view of a circular meditation space below a waterfall or water flow, organized around still water and grass slopes.
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View from the lakeshore toward Lib-Ark and the New York skyline, showing the relationship among park, architecture, and city context.
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Crossing-path symbol expressing choice, branching, and connection within the Lib-Ark journey.
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Multiple paths intersecting between grass and water, with the reading pod becoming a crossing node in the journey.
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Suspended tracks and reading pod node in woodland, showing Lib-Ark moving through the natural environment.
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Arrow symbol extending outward from a central point, expressing focus, diffusion, and flow state during reading.
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Transparent reading pod hidden within trees, where readers enter a focused state surrounded by nature.
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Overall layout of Lib-Ark in New York’s Central Park, showing lakes, paths, reading pods, and the future expansion system.
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