Project: Taiyuan Fab Cinema + Zhongshuge
Interior Designer: X-Living Year: 2021
Location: Taiyuan, China Photographs: Feng Shao Via Archdaily
In Taiyuan, China, FAB Cinema and Zhongshuge Bookstore teamed up to create a space where different cultural and entertainment activities coexist and create exciting spaces. The architectural firm X-Living, which has already designed many public space projects in China, conceived the areas to offer a cultural space to the movie theater’s customers and an entertainment experience to the bookstore’s customers.
Melamine panels with different finishes draw a multifaceted landscape, inspired by Taiyuan’s mountains, a hilly city. The ample space on the fifth floor of the Taiyuan IF Center houses both the cinema ticket office and the reading room of the Zhongshuge bookstore, and the different functions are distributed in rooms designed by walls entirely covered with melamine faced chipboard panels.
Thanks to the many possibilities of processing, the melamine panels in different colors design the space of the conference room. The versatility of the surfaces, and the availability of coordinated edges, allow creating with a single material both the horizontal surfaces, which serve as stairs and as seats, and the vertical surfaces, which give shape to the large cabinets and shelves to house the books.
The melamine panels are highly suitable for public projects of this kind, as they are fire-retardant and certified, with non-toxic paint finishes – key elements for materials installed in spaces with a high presence of people. The corridor linking the cinema to the bookshop is a striking feature, bordered by large 10m-high arches, also in melamine, which create an atmosphere that is both intimate and grand, like that of a cathedral.
The space thus becomes less commercial and more suitable for cultural functions; in fact, the events held in this area are of different kinds, linking entertainment and culture, with conferences, debates, and projections on books and cinema.
A special mention for the area dedicated to children, where multicolored panels skillfully crafted recreate the elements of a movie theater, with the projector and video camera, thus emphasizing the playful side of the area for children.
This article illustrates the endless possibilities for furnishing and designing interior architecture with melamine panels, such as the Saviola Group’s 100% recycled panels. The first panels made in Italy entirely recycled from post-consumer materials.
The Saviola panel collections offer a wide range of finishes, decorations, and textures to satisfy the most demanding interior designers and the possibility of coordinating surfaces and edges.
Visit the website’s dedicated section for a complete overview of Saviola panels, the first 100% recycled panels.