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Location: Taichung, Taiwan Firm: Platform for Architecture + Research, Los Angeles and New York
Team: Jennifer Marmon with David Burpee, Ross Ferrari, Angus Goble, Youree Hong, Josshuae Matias, Ruben Rodela, Matthew Young and Leandro Yuang

In 2013, the Taichung city government invited architects to put forth their most daring visions for an expansive new cultural centre. The tilted loop structure by Platform for Architecture + Research sought to integrate the programmed elements of a library and a museum with an outdoor gallery and an open urban plaza. The structure’s form, replete with ramps and stairs that create connections throughout its stacked diagonal orientation, produces a dynamic space meant to attract curious passers-by who drift into the central plaza. Clad in a translucent skin of fritted ETFE and high-performance glazing that encompasses roof, ceiling, wall and terrace, the cultural centre is oriented to optimize natural light and frame views of the nearby Taiwan Tower. p‑ar.com

Ring House
Location:
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Firm: MZ Architects, Kaslik, Lebanon
Architect: Marwan Zgheib

A perfect circle, this live-work concept for a Saudi Arabian jewellery artist sits within the artist’s family estate, offering privacy and sanctuary through its elemental shape. A ring wall punctuated by a single narrow opening creates a cocoon, bisected within by a glass-enclosed level that contains the residence’s functional spaces: kitchen, atelier, bedroom. The concrete structure includes a secluded rear patio with a solitary planted tree, and a water feature carved into the floor, evoking the placid surface of a lake disrupted by a drop of rain. mz‑architects.com

Meditation house
Location:
Jebaa, Lebanon
Firm: MZ Architects, Kaslik, Lebanon
Architect: Marwan Zgheib

Like a giant rock nestled into the hillside above Jebaa, Lebanon, this proposed weekend retreat for a travelling businessman feels both futuristic and primitive. An isolated place for contemplation, the two-level house has venting at front and rear, rainwater collection, and an open terrace oriented west toward the Mediterranean. A stone staircase leads through the cracked roof and up the hill to the prayer hall, a diagonal shaft oriented toward Mecca, carved into the hill to offer an unadorned, light-filled vertical space for solitary religious
communion. mz-architects.com

Luminous moon-gate
Location:
Taichung, Taiwan
Firm: Form4 Architecture, San Francisco
Team: John Marx with Felix Lin and Pierluigi Serraino

Also rising to the challenge set forth by the Taichung city government for a new cultural centre, Form4 proposed a series of rounded volumes – chiefly a 10-storey library, ascended via a grand staircase, and a horizontal museum – in conversation with each other. Together, they resemble giant eggs rolling along the landscape, their curved building envelopes encased in a metre-thick cavity wall fitted with movable louvres, providing passive ventilation and ample surface area for solar panels. For the architects, the iconic shapes symbolize “a portal into heightened consciousness, a lantern of knowledge, a cultural lung for the city.” form4inc.com

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