- Area: 4800 m²
- Year: 2008
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Photographs:Wei-Min Yuan
Text description provided by the architects. Being the leading bicycle manufacturer of Asia, Giant INC. Product Design Headquarter works not only as a research & development office, but also is in charge of retail marketing, product design and staff training in the Pacific area. To respond the company’s image, our design tries to transfer the idea of motion and speed into the experience of bicycle movement. At the same time, the Giant INC. also wants this building to stand as a model of the sustainability in Taiwan.
As the headquarter of the Pacific area, the first and second floor serve as the Giant retail store and the bicycle ramp that wraps around the building becomes the main character of this project. The 2-meter-wide ramp is 46 meter long, and raises 4 meter high from the ground level pedestrian to the second floor retail store entrance with an 8% slope in average. The ramp also cuts the five corners in plan and creates a curvy boundary for the building skin. Although this bike ramp actually stops at the second floor, we tried to make the rest of building skin looks like the ramp extension that goes up to the roof, and finally comes up with this spiral-like expression. We wish the idea of motion and speed could be delivered with the ramp and the spiral-like expression.
Located next to the former Taichung local airport, the building skin also tries to react to the movement of heavy traffic and north wind. This industrial-design-shaped façade not only makes the street corner more dynamic, but also reduces the drag coefficient impacting on the building skin. The office interior tried to break the stereotypes of a modern headquarter, by introducing more intimacy and comfort in the work spapce.
