Our friends from San Juan/New York based RSVP architects shared with us their proposal for the competition to design the Taiwan Center for Disease Control Complex. Architect’s proposal and more images, as follow.
The main strategy ,at the larger scale, was to allow the park to penetrate the site. The project becomes an extension of the green corridor to the southwest while a larger plaza recognizes the presence of the city to the northeast. Within the site itself, we tried to create a balance between built and open space that carries over to the relationship between work spaces and a series of courtyards and gardens that facilitate spontaneous interaction among the scientists and researchers.
We carefully calibrated the building mass so the different pieces became smaller objects on a larger landscape of undulating green roofs. Even the exhibition program is thought as a garden folly or pavilion accessible by the public from both the park and the plaza.
The site is bisected by a double-height spine or gallery that ties in the various laboratories and the rest of the programmatic elements. The underground parking has direct access to this circulation area on various points, creating an easy access to the different parts of the Center. Along the two side streets, a pair of service corridors provide for easy access for loading and waste management. The project takes into consideration the complexity of the various types of circulation, including public, private, service, vehicular and pedestrian and proposes a simple solution for each one.
The building imagery also responds to the two different site conditions. On the “city side” a large cantilevered building housing the administration and the conference rooms reaches out to welcome visitors to the Center, while on the “park side” a more organic building grows from the landscape to cap the sequence with a café and dining facility that can serve the larger complex and become a formal attraction along the park.
The space planning is faithful to the programmatic requirements in terms of adjacencies and sub-divisions, but a significant amount of time was dedicated to balance privacy and individuality with collective possibilities and sustainable strategies.
