This competition entry for the Kaohsiung Cruise Terminal and Port Service Center in Taiwan comes from Forrest Fulton Architecture. The architects approached the design of a new gateway as a challenge to design a contemporary version of the traditional city gate.
For more on this project come back after the break.
Forrest Fulton Architecture designed the gateway as a large table-like space that creates a deck and plaza that juts out over the Cruise Terminal below. The large form creates a threshold for both passengers boarding and disembarking, as well as the cruise ships themselves. It is an attraction that all entering the harbor can see as the entrance or the destination.
The table top holds offices and a Port Service Center. The plaza floor is carpeted with a pattern of trees, grasses and color to create micro-environments and intimate spaces. On the plinth are also a terraced resort and hotel towers. Parking, terminal drop-off and pick-up traffice, and retail space all fit under the plinth. The plinth delivers an urban room to the site, where attractions inhabit the ground and roof of the structure. The large space creates a shelter and a home for civic life in Kaohsiung’s tropic climate.
The climate factors of the chosen form for the gateway are also considerable. The table creates a shaded, dry place for Kaohsiung’s hot days and rainy season which also harvests the rainwater for graywater use and is reserved in pools. The structure that supports the slab are deep hybrid virendeel-bowstring trusses that span over the plaza plinth below and allow opeb office space above and daylight to filter through the sun screen. From the distance, the form reads as a pure white line that frames the city in all directions and gives an outlook from the future of the new Kaohsiung and Southern Taiwan.
Architects: Forrest Fulton Architecture
Location: Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Program: Cruise Terminal and Port Service Center; Mixed-use complex with hotel, retail, restaurants, health center, spa, underground parking, public green space and plazas
Terminal and Service Center Area: 35,000 sm (375,000 sf)
Client: Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau, Ministry of Transportation and Communication, Taiwan
Status: 2010 Competition Entry for Port of Kaohsiung Passenger Transport District: Port and Cruise Service Center, Terminal, and Master Plan
Project Team: Federico Cavazos, Jared Fulton, Brandon Shigeta
