Wender Police Station / Studiobase Architects

Architect: Studiobase Architects | Ming-Wei Huang
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
Project team: Hao-Min Hsu, Nelson Lin, Chao-Yu Chen,Yin-Yin Cheng, Chien-Nun Sun, Chih-Jen Wang, Can Ho
Site area: 3,270 sqm
Total floor area: 2,943 sqm
Budget: USD $1.41 million
Project year: 2009
Photographs: Wei-Ming Yuan, Jeffrey Hsu

A Dislocated Spiral

Police Station is never recognized as a legitimate building type, yet it has been built everywhere. Our task of W Police Station is to create a distinct form for this everyday institution, also to respond to its functional interior and perplexed urban environment.

site plan

Site

The site for W Police Station lies in the heart of Taipei’s new Technology Park. Located at the junction of two heavily trafficked arteries, the W Police Station poses like a stone standing in torrents. The sculptural and dynamic form results largely from set-back regulations, thus the hovering part at the end of spiral volume creates a shady resting corner for pedestrian.

diagram

Strategy

The donut-like building plans are read as a parti which we call “core & loop”. On the ground floor, the central core is occupied by armory/equipment room and superintendents’ offices, surrounded by a wide loop of open working areas. On the second floor, the core turns into a courtyard, surrounded by a loop of officers’ bedrooms. The courtyard does not only serve the bedrooms as a common green, the lawn also cools down the armory below. The opening gap between the courtyard and the corridor allows stairs to penetrate, also improves the interior ventilation and illumination.