Alex Yu  and his Arcadian design group just unveiled an interest place near Taipei. The site located at a corner along city boulevard and is surrounded by the residential complex. The shape of the site is irregular polygon, and the overall design strategy applies the concept of “urban infill”. After fulfilling the building setbacks required by the local building code, the building plan was conformed to the existing terrain and shaped a polygon volume with diverse angles.

The client named the building as the “Sharing Space”, which is a three-floor building that advocated the idea of sharing its space as a cultural domain for the public to participate and experience. The functions of the building consist of a catering and recreation area on the ground floor, an artwork gallery on the first floor, and an exhibition area for life style on the second floor.

Drawing © Arcadian

Drawing © Arcadian

Drawing © Arcadian

The Site

Facing the main road, the building facade toward the southeast is a solid thick wall with no openings; except for a low-profile entrance at the southwest corner where the building volume was raised by a single column. The illumination and ventilation in the main concern of the building which are gained by cutting out a void space to form a trapezoid courtyard connecting the first and the second floors. On the first floor, the courtyard is surrounded by the interior of the artwork gallery. Furthermore, the courtyard is also extended upwards to the outdoor space on the second floor, allowing the sunlight to pour into the courtyard from the top of the building.

Image © Jeffrey Cheng

Image © Jeffrey Cheng

The Building

Due to the different circumstances of the building bordering its front and back, the former is the busy main street while the latter is a garden with abundant greenery; therefore, the design of the façade openings implemented the strategy of “solid front vs. void back”. In other words, by creating a clean and solid wall at the front side to maintain the continuity of the urban context as well as by rising the height of interior space at the backside to enhance the interaction with the rear garden. The large open frame of the rear façade implies the Chinese landscape idea of “borrowed scenery”.

Image © Jeffrey Cheng

Image © Huilang Photography

Image © Huilang Photography

By means of the void space in the core of the building, not only the abundant sunlight was allowed to penetrate into the building but the void space between the first and the second floors was connected together. Through the integration of the vertical and horizontal circulations, the interrelationship between the first and the second floors was accomplished.

Image © Huilang Photography

Image © Huilang Photography

Image © Huilang Photography

Image © Huilang Photography 

Image © Jeffrey Cheng   

The visitors are induced to experience “the correlation of changing views with each move” by encircling, crossing, and interacting with the interior and exterior spaces alternatively. At first, one can enter the building from the low-profile entrance and view the rear greenery through the high-ceiling lounge space. After walking up to the first floor, one will enter the gallery with different heights with the courtyard in the middle. By looking upwards, one can have a vague glimpse of the water garden on the second floor. Via a sunny outdoor stairway, one can reach to the water courtyard then walk into another indoor exhibition room. During the entire walking process, one can fully experience multilayered spaces with various illumination, heights and scales in limited dimension.

Image © Huilang Photography

The Construction

The main construction material of the building is concrete with wooden texture. Besides, the front facade utilized indigenous bamboo coming from the middle part of Taiwan as the construction templates. As a result, the particular concrete appearance with indented bamboo joint and undulated texture was achieved. This bamboo texture delicately intensifies the contrast of light and shadow on the front facade. The masculine architectural concrete and the delicate metal meshes on the top of the entrance were integrated together to weave a contrary yet harmonic poetic architecture.

Image © Huilang Photography

Image © Huilang Photography

Image © Huilang Photography

Image © Huilang Photography

Reducing the personal egoism and finding out the most appropriate approach and formation for a building in the complicated urban contexts are the main concerns in the design process of this project. The “Sharing Space”, by expressing construction sensation and façade composition via the essence of the natural materials as well as performing the rhythm of the space with natural light and shadow, is hopefully expected to become an influential building to environmental sustainability regarding not only the architecture itself but also the creation of living mobility, group value, and cultural style. 

The Sharing 

After carefully observing local lifestyles for many years, the owner tries to establish the "living aesthetics”, “neighborhood culture” and “placeness” as the core values for this building in order to initiate brand-new living charms and cultural vitality in this satellite city.

Image © Jeffrey Cheng

Project facts

Project Name: Sharing Space

Architect: Arcadian Architecture＋Design

Location: No. 30-1, Sec. 1, Zhonghua Rd. Tucheng Dist., New Taipei City, Taiwan

Design Principal: Alex Yu

Project Team: Yu-Hsien Lin, Jerry Chang, Ping-Jui Chiang, Man-Wei Ke, Cheng-Hui Lu, Yu-Shan Huang, Kuan-Chen Lin, Hau-Yuan Chiang, Yu-Han Weng

Design Period: 2016-18

Construction Period: 2018-19

General Contractor: Chang Qun Group, Taipei

Building System: reinforced concrete structure

Site Area: 451.53m2

Building Floor Area: 417.04m2

Client: Chang Qun Group

Photographs © Huilang Photography + © Jeffrey Cheng

All images and drawings courtesy of Arcadian Architecture＋Design

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