Putting Books in the Middle of the Mall — Starfield Library and library@orchard

At Seoul’s COEX Mall, the wall of books at Starfield Library is visible from the concourse. In Singapore’s orchardgateway, the shelves and seats of library@orchard only come into view after you pass through an entrance between shops. Both malls make room for books, but they invite passersby to pause in different ways.

Two Floors, 2,800 Square Metres and 13-Metre Shelves

The mall operator describes a two-storey space of 2,800 square metres with shelves reaching 13 metres. The scale comes through in photographs, but the different kinds of seating are easier to see from above. Seats along the concourse suit a short wait, while tables and power outlets invite visitors to open a book or laptop and stay. There is also a dedicated section for Korean and international magazines. The wall of books draws people in, and shelves at eye level give them something to browse once they arrive.

When a Wall of Books Becomes a Landmark

Starfield Library’s shelves rise through both levels. For shoppers crossing the concourse, they mark where they are. For anyone who has gone downstairs, they offer an easy place to meet up again. Even if you never pick up a book, the shelves give you a point to remember in a vast underground mall.

Before counting books or magazine titles, notice what people do here. They stop. Starfield Library gives books a visible place in one of Seoul’s busiest shopping complexes.

People work on laptops, wait for friends or leaf through a few books. Some settle in to read, while others are there for only a few minutes. The space accommodates both, with the openness of a mall concourse and the seats of a reading room.

Shopping malls are designed to keep people moving between stores. A library in the middle introduces a different pace. It makes room to slow down, stay a little longer and think. Both Starfield Library and library@orchard change the speed at which people move through the city, even if only for a few minutes.

Books enter your field of view before you have decided to read. A shelf catches your eye, you slow down, and the next thing you know, you are browsing. That is one way to bring a library into everyday life.

The two libraries also sit on routes people are already taking. Inside a busy mall, a library can be somewhere you happen upon and pause, as well as a destination in its own right.

Someone taking a photograph and someone sitting down with a book use the same space at different speeds. The open view from the concourse makes a brief visit easy. The best place to meet a friend and the best seat for a long read can be quite different.

Two Floors, Two Ways to Browse

When library@orchard opened at orchardgateway in 2014, its collection focused on lifestyle, design and applied arts. The National Library Board described the lower floor as a studio for materials and programmes, and the upper floor as a loft where readers could choose a book and sit down. The curved white shelves in the 2017 photographs belong to that layout. Along the shelves, the path for browsing book spines gradually opens into places to sit. A single wide shot conveys Starfield’s scale. At Orchard, a sequence of photos from the entrance to the inner shelves better shows how the space works.

A Singapore Public Library Between Shops

Run by Singapore’s National Library Board, library@orchard offered seats where visitors could lean back with a book beyond the curved white shelves. The route narrowed as you moved away from the mall, making browsing and sitting down part of the same sequence.

Its focus on design, lifestyle and creative work gave visitors a reason to explore the shelves. A shopper could wander in by chance and stay longer than expected.

Starfield makes room for both meetings and reading inside the mall. Orchard provided a public-library service on an ordinary shopping route. The National Library Board announced that it would close for renovation from 28 October 2024. The photographs here show the library before that work.

Two Ways to Run a Library in a Mall

The COEX Mall operator created Starfield as an open reading space. Orchard was a branch of Singapore’s public-library network, with a specialist design collection readers could consult in one place. When the National Library Board announced the renovation, it said the collection would move to the Central Arts Library. The distinction between a room full of books and the institution that manages them explains where the collection went. Spotting books from across a concourse and looking through a specialist collection can each change how you spend an afternoon at the mall.

How Far Do You Have to Go to Find a Book?

In a photograph of Starfield, you look up at the shelves from a distance. At Orchard, you walk between them. In both cases, books are already on the route you take when you go shopping. You can stop in front of a shelf for a few minutes without setting aside time to read.

These spaces put books back into view. You can read one, buy one elsewhere, or simply notice that it is there. Books become part of the everyday cityscape again.

Walking through Starfield and thinking back to Orchard leaves one common impression.

A mall is privately operated and built around commerce. Putting a library in the middle is a choice about where a city makes room for public life. Both libraries show how that room can exist in the places people already pass through.

Libraries are traditionally associated with quiet. These two put books in busy, noisy places and let readers encounter them in the course of an ordinary day. A library can store knowledge and give people a chance to come across it unexpectedly.

Starfield Library and library@orchard look alike because they had to answer the same question: how do you put books where people will find them in the middle of an ordinary day?