The Sin-Jia-Po Community Housing in Yang-Mei, about 40 minutes driving from Taipei City, was a project located on a hillside with 10%~12% slope. The drainage system and the soil conservation have been carefully dealt with.

Community Housing in Yang-Mei, Taiwan. Designed in '94~95 and built in '95~96.

The site was altered from a previously abandoned industrial site into residential use through complicated urban planning applications and procedures. In short, the loop-like road on the site, together with a green park delimitated on site, was made and contributed to the local government in exchange for the change of the site use, according to regulations.

There are totally around 1100 units (flats) as well as a community kindergarten in the whole project. In order to maximise the buildable areas under building regulations, the project was devided into ten building sites as well as licenses, including one for kindergarten and the others for housing. The total areas of the nine building sites sum up to about 50,000 square meters.

The residential units are mainly composed of two typical plans, 2-bedroom flat and 3-bedroom flat. There are forty two ground floor units along the main road of the community entrance designed for shop's use. The whole community is monitored by security guards as well as a control point at the entry. Please refer to the following images by clicking on each hyperlink:

The Tao-Yuan-Sin-Du is a high-rise community housing in Tao-Yuan, about 30 minutes driving from Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan.

Community Housing in Yang-Mei, Taiwan. Designed in '94~95 and built in '95~96.

At the beginning, two types of cases were proposed: one is lower rise and higher density development for the purpose of responding to and according with the other two previously built phases nearby; while the other one is of higher rise and lower density in order to gain more open spaces, through which the greenery can be introduced as visual continuity from the large green parks located to the north and west of the site. The latter was then picked by the client for further development and was built up in 1996.

The linkage of the open spaces between the three 14-story buildings are elaborately intensified by means of spatial axes, pavement and landscape design at ground floor level in an attempt to form a diversified and interesting transition for access.

In the covered ground floor level `open space` of the central building there is an open and wide staircase leading to the public community centre located at basement floor, where activities and natural lights could be extended and introduced downwards.

There are totally around 250 units (flats/ apartments) in this project, including nine shop units at ground floor, facing the main road.

The residential units are basically composed of two typical plans, 2-bedroom flat and 3-bedroom flat. Please refer to the following images by clicking on each hyperlink:

The Villa Housing project was located at Tai-Dong, a rural area in southeast Taiwan.

The Villa Housing in Tai-dong, Taiwan. Designed in '94 and built in '96.

The site is very long and narrow in shape and has got only one connection to the main road outside through its narrow end at the west side.

There are totally 70 units (houses) in the project, including six commercial use units located at the entry area of the site and facing the main road outside.

The other 64 residential units are mainly composed of two typical plans and linked by a curving internal pathway, ascending through the long axis of the community towards the east end of the site. The ascending is one of the Feng-Shui rules adopted in this project, which also benefits the drainage system in the building site.

The following are a selection of photos or drawings done by autoCAD R11~R12 in 1993~94, please click on each of the following links to see the pop-up image! Also please ensure that the javascript in your browser is enabled!

Over a period of time, I've got many cases working on office buildings when I was in Wu's Architects Firm. They are mostly located at corners/ junctions in commercial areas owned by the biggest life insurrance company, who also owns most golden areas throughout Taiwan.

Community Housing in Yang-Mei, Taiwan. Designed in '94~95 and built in '95~96.

There is a very common rule in terms of the plan layout for these office buildings: how to properly locate the "core" in its plan.

For ground floor, the "core" has to be linked directly to the main entrance and, at the same time, the ground floor office area (generally let out for shop use) has to gain the most space as well as the "front" impression.

For typical plans, the location of the "core" cannot make corridor spaces too long to access, which is related to the conveniency to users, rental costs, fire regulations etc. As for the basement parking spaces, the "core" cannot conflict with the demands or behaviour of car parking.

Apart from the above mentioned offices, there was a unique project in north Taiwan constructed by pre-cast reinforced concrete to save time and costs. The external walls, beans, slabs are pre-cast components made in the factory, where the gridients and process are strictly under control and calculations via computers.

Please refer to the following images by clicking on each hyperlink: (also please ensure that the javascript is enabled in your browser!)

There was a special regulation by the government for the purpose of encouraging investments on car parking buildings within the urbanised areas, because of the serious shortage of car parking spaces resulted from the booming cars in Taiwan.

Combination of car parking building with commercial spaces/ shops under special regulation in urbanised areas, designed in Taipei, Taiwan 1992.

Under such special regulation, the investors can enjoy certain portion of commercial spaces within their car parking buildings as a feedback, which is believed to be a very good target or alternative of investment in that the investors can benefit from both the parking and commercial spaces with ease.

There were five projects at that time, ranging from as tiny as one available for merely 28 car parking spaces to as big as one available for some 400 plus parking capacity in total.

Here are the selected drawings of the smallest (Case-A) and the biggest (Case-B) special car parking projects. Please refer to the following images by clicking on each hyperlink: (also please ensure that the javascript is enabled in your browser!)

The commercial spaces that I ever completed are: offices, showrooms for housing (sale) projects, shops, thematic coffee shops, restaurants and tea rooms.

Tearoom in Tainan, Taiwan. In this case some characterised vernacular materials are utilised.

Here I would like to concentrate on the Tearoom design because I've only got photos or drawings of this kind with me now.

The location of the tearoom is in Taiwan's old city - Tainan, whose adjacent town Guan-Miao is famous for rattan cane products, so I made use of the rattan into details or components that was transformed from traditional elements.

The mirrors, sanded with patterns, were placed between the white walls and the dark brown beans or columns for the purpose of "borrowing views" within this tiny space and also forming interesting ambience.

Please refer to the following images by clicking on each hyperlink: (also please ensure that the javascript is enabled in your browser!)

Designing landscape or garden, in my view point, is a way of creating more interactiveness between indoor and outdoor spaces in a building site, Or, a way of manipulation with the form and shape of a land mass to exploit its potential to the utmost.

Site plan of the landscape design for Guo- Tai Training Centre in Sin-Jhu, Taiwan.

The landscape design cases I had completed are generally for (1) community housing sites - for the purpose of attracting more buyers and boosting sales; or for (2) office building sites - for the purpose of glamorising the visual environment of the outdoor spaces or beautifying the "face" of an enterprise body.

Please refer to the following images with the respective introductions by clicking on each hyperlink: (also please ensure that the javascript is enabled in your browser!)