taipei performing arts centre | taiwan
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The Taipei Performing Arts Centre proposal engages operative design techniques drawn from the geological and cultural context of Taipei to generate a vibrant space of performance and social interaction.
The 19th century watercourse of the Keelung River once carved out the terrain of the site through a process of erosion. This event is reinstated on the site through a monolithic base that is partially eroded to provide a public space carved between the building’s auditoriums. This incision creates a gradient of enclosure that incorporates public access in addition to weaving together a public plaza and theater foyers.
The monolithic base houses most of the buildings back-of-house program and is locally dissolved through fractal subdivision. The block is broken in to smaller elements that are either subdivided or removed, creating a resonance with the nature and scale of the adjacent night market by reducing the base geometry to locally varied scales of elements. This fractal technique is again employed in the auditoriums in the generation of emergent forms of ornamentation and articulation. Simultaneously responding to acoustic requirements while aspiring to generate a richness of texture and detail. The roof stretches across the greater part of the site enclosing the auditorium volumes and begins to unravel as the public plaza intensifies below, creating a complex relationship of structure, surface, and circulation.
project directors: Robert Stuart-Smith, Roland Snooks (kokkugia)
project team: Brad Rothenberg, Elliet White, Matt Howard