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Architects: Soar Design Studio
- Area: 119 m²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Hey! cheese
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Lead Architect: Ray Chang
Text description provided by the architects. Located in a quiet alley near the Zhongshan MRT station, occupying the first floor of an old 4-story duplex apartment building, the site captures a typical view of nostalgic Taipei. Right opposite the site, a traditional temple called "You-chou", meaning “in need”, further enriches the local scene and style of Taiwan. For the past 4 decades, the house served as a general office. We opened up the kitchenette and turned it into part of the gallery space, while the original red embossed floor tiles still show traces of the old house. The backyard, once an extended warehouse, is transformed into an outdoor garden. In addition, the entrance wall was pushed back for an interior courtyard "between" in and out, introducing the view from the front yard to blur the old boundaries of space and bring in a sense of intrigue.
Spirit for design, features, and inspirations. We want to disrupt the stereotypes of an exhibition hall by presenting it in a way that is closer to a gallery and an exhibition space. We want to change the idea of lighting for the visitors.
Immersion in nature. Speaking of the moments or spaces for people to appreciate the beauty of lighting, I think it’s in nature, in the mountains, somewhere in the ethereal. They come from the time I spent as a child among the trees and even as an adult in the forest. When in the wilderness or forest, people would use a lamp or make-up fire to surround themselves with warmth. Such natural but warm imagery is the atmosphere I want to create for this gallery. When I approach the project BTC lighting device, the natural view of the mountain and the forest comes into mind as the key. I want to present a beautiful picture of the lighting through the metaphor of the mountains, using the organic arrangement of yakisugi as a hint for the "backlit" forest, creating a déjà vu of natural surroundings. The circular routes also would remind the visitors of meandering in the mountains, anchoring their senses and subconsciousness back into nature. It would bring up a more "immersive" experience and imagination for the viewers as they move around and look at the lighting devices on display.
The free and circular routes also make it more fun to look at the exhibits, as the views continue to change and create a greater variety of impressions for the space. People might just forget they are actually indoors. The "borrowed scenery" of the front and back yard not only blurs the boundary between the interior and exterior but also adds a sense of nature and ambiguity to the space. The gallery is designed with and without the light, either way, featuring a beautiful view. It is our hope that viewers would discover lighting devices to be of aesthetic use, not just functional. The immersive approach encourages viewers to feel the space and the lighting devices, shedding light on deeper reflection and contemplation.
Eastern Imagery. Aside from nature, the rich local imagery of Taiwan in the neighborhood also inspires us to combine oriental impressions and textures with western lighting craftsmanship for the new exhibition space early in the design process. After careful thought, we decide to leverage eastern painting skills to present a sense of nature. The "scattered perspective", a common technique in eastern paintings, is the main design approach. All the scenery is stacked in one space: the picture of the forest and the traditional brick house in Taiwan; the newly planted trees and pots in the front and back yards are also part of the scenery so that people can feel nature and the seasons in the space; the plants and rocks extending from the outside into the house correspond to the periodic materials; the red lanterns (oriental lights) lit up in the palace across the alley at nightfall and the western lights in the exhibition hall are reflected through the glass in a continuous visual sense, all of which are designed to overlap in the space using the concept of scattered perspective.
At the same time, thinking about the impression of nature in the whole project, we hope to present the natural "chi" atmosphere and again transform the techniques of eastern painting (landscape painting and ukiyo-e/ floating world) into the space: the theme of the three forms of water in nature (solid, liquid, and gas), the white spots on the ceiling and walls allude to snow (solid state), and in ukiyo-e painting. In Ukiyo-e paintings, snow or waterfalls are often depicted in pointillism. The white flowers in the forest of lights and the countertop are clouds (gas state), which are intended to bring the viewer into the figurative world of eastern paintings. The main purpose is to introduce a sense of cloud and fog in the forest and to present a sense of flow in the space in a dynamic composition. The clouds are also used as chandelier locks, while the fog is generally used to separate product categories and painting lines. Under certain conditions, the fog countertop may be transformed into a booth or tabletop.
Finally, we use a transparent wave board, a common material in local communities, to express the texture of rain and explore its essence. It is a transparent element that mediates between objects, as in eastern paintings, figurative diagonal lines are often used to express rain (see the famous Ukiyo-e painting: Ohashi Atake Yutachi). We also hope to add a touch of atmosphere to the space with this experimental approach and to create a special local feeling by using common materials available to ordinary households in Taiwan. These natural elements, transformed between abstract and figurative through the concept and technique of eastern painting, are stacked on top of each other, telling the various experiences and visions of the designer for nature and the imagination of the fusion of things with the British handmade lighting display.
We hope that visitors will immerse themselves in this natural and East-meets-West space, step by step seeing the whole picture in the flow, looking at different landscapes as they move. Finally, by looking back at the end of the hall, they will see the whole picture of a forest, as if they were captured in the imagery of nature and the mountains. To create mottled, the natural coating with pores and the local feeling of the oyster shell can also be matched with the natural elements in the whole room.
