HARA DESIGN INSTITUTE

Minna no Mori-Gifu Media Cosmos is a multipurpose facility in Gifu City that was designed by Toyo Ito. It features conference space, studios, and exhibit space on the first floor and a library on the second. In the second-floor library, eleven 'globes'-giant umbrellas made of triaxial woven fabric-hang from the ceiling, with bookshelves radiating outwards around them. The challenge for NDC was to find a way to lead visitors to the bookshelves in such a vast space without walls. Because the first floor was also a wide-open space like the second floor, making it impossible to predict how visitors would move as they entered from entrances at the north, south, east, and west, signage needed to be visible from any direction.