Mr. Li used to cover the Liyuan library's roof and exterior walls with local fruit tree branches.Mr. Li used to cover the Liyuan library's roof and exterior walls with local fruit tree branches.
Mr. Li used to cover the Liyuan library's roof and exterior walls with local fruit tree branches. - What the building is mainly meant to be is a magnet for day-trippers from Beijing, eager to escape the city’s perpetual smog and dirt for a bit of beauty and calm. © Credit Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

Nestled among the shimmering chestnut, walnut and peach trees of a deep valley surrounded by craggy hills, the tiny village of Jiaojiehe suffers from being close to the nation’s capital. The young flee easily to the big city, leaving the elderly behind, lonely and poor. ... But Li Xiaodong, an award-winning architect who fuses traditional Chinese ideas of design with Western themes, had a different idea for Jiaojiehe. He was captivated by the potential he saw in the village’s most abundant natural resource, the branches of its thousands of trees, which the locals harvest for fuel.

So he built a library — with a twist. At its base, it is a steel and glass box in the vein of a Philip Johnson open-plan creation from the 1950s, but its exterior walls and roof are clad with fruit-tree twigs.

The spindly sticks are arranged in vertical rows, and their uneven shapes allow natural light to filter into the library’s reading room, while keeping the building cool in the summer and cozy in the winter. They also act as a kind of camouflage, making the library’s rectangular edges barely noticeable in the landscape as visitors approach the village on a narrow, twisting road.

Li Xiaodong, a prize-winning architect, was inspired by the branches of local fruit trees, which he used to cover the Liyuan library's roof and exterior walls.
Li Xiaodong, a prize-winning architect, was inspired by the branches of local fruit trees, which he used to cover the Liyuan library's roof and exterior walls. - The interior of the Liyuan library is basically just one large, casual room, lined with open bookshelves and an eclectic collection of works that include President Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” “Forrest Gump” and traditional Chinese novels about the Qing dynasty. There are no chairs or desks, just a polished wood floor with several elevated platforms where readers can lounge with their books. © Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times