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Architects: Chin Architects
- Year: 2012
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Photographs:Jeffrey Cheng
Text description provided by the architects. At Kuo Yang Tien Mu, which is located at an important urban junction in Taipei, Taiwan, we attempt to transform the building envelope that protects the residents’ private lives into a meaningful public city façade. The architecture is to initiate an intriguing dialogue with the disordered built environment through a unique yet contemporary gesture. The design wishes to break away from the typical mundane and repetitive urban residential housing, and express a vibrant city life specific to TaipeiCity instead.
In response to the urban scale, a horizontal band in white crystallized glass panel clearly defines the residential and the commercial programs. The band then turns vertically to become an urban lighting wall that hopefully will redefine the boundary of Tien Mu area in both day and night. The elevation on the East side uses white cracked-ice glaze mosaic and black stone mosaic to form a modern representation of vertical village on an 80 meter long city wall. The building envelope with various protruding white frames becomes the in-between interface involves an individual with the city. The frames with depth not only provide the necessary sun screen, but the resulting visual artistry also evokes imagination. While the frames embrace and display urban life, they also keep private life away from environment with a proper yet ambiguous distance. On the West side, the service core is expressed by 6 vertical heavy walls with lanterns on top. They lit up at night to enrich the city skyline, and to provide guiding direction for the residents from Zhi Shan MRT station.
