De Architekten Cie., Jason Lee and Patrick Koschuch, has won the open international Kaohsiung Port Station Urban Design competition in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
The competition was initiated by the city government of Kaohsiung to transform the derelict site of the old railyards and port station from a barrier between two important areas of the city (the Hamasen and Yancheng districts), into a connective piece of the urban fabric. The stated ambitions by the client for the 15.42 hectare site are to highlight the cultural heritage of the site’s former function while introducing new programmes and building volume to accommodate city expansion. These twin objectives are to be achieved in a phaseable and highly sustainable manner. Since a large portion of the site and existing railway buildings are designated as historical monuments, the central challenge of the brief was to strike a balance between the desire for cultural preservation/revitalization, introducing new development onto the site, and establishing enough connections across site to transform the area from an urban barrier into an urban connector.
