Kaohsiung VORTEX

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Kaohsiung VORTEX

Firm

AETRANGERE

Type

Commercial › Office Retail Exhibition Center
Hospitality + Sport › Restaurant Bar/Nightclub
Cultural › Gallery Hall/Theater
Landscape + Planning › Public Park
Transport + Infrastructure › Marina and Ports Parking

KAOHSIUNG VORTEX
At the time of the competition, The Vortex proposal, was submitted taking
two big risks: For reasons that we'll explain later, we didn't respect two of
guidelines of the competition's brief, and we think that our proposal was surely
penalized by that.
First, we don't only take in charge the plot site, but
we considered the project's impact in a comprehensive area of the city
waterfront, designing an integrated urban piece, connecting several urban open
spaces, but not respecting the intervention boundary limits.
Second, we don't propose a vertical landmark (100 M high) as demanded by
the rules, we preferred to create a horizontal "googable" landmark that
embraces the whole port and waterfront of Kaohsiung,
creating a more vibrating and exiting building-landscape!
That's why we're coming for a second chance!
A great opportunityPop music
industry is in the midst of a revolution taking place all around the
world. Taiwanese Pop will take a strong
place in Asian scene thanks to a visionary national strategy. Many majors performing and productive pop infrastructures are being planned and constructed
in Taiwan's
capitals cities. That phenomenon will foster Taiwanese Pop music as an
international attraction, and it also could have the strength to create a
critical enhancement of the urban tissues that hosted them.
Those Pop music
infrastructures are evolving in a global economy. More urban and more dynamic their hybrids
programs are connecting people and connecting tissues into the urban fabric.
The key issue for The Kaohsiung Marine Culture and PopMusicCenter
is how allow that major piece of Kaohsiung,
to be open to the whole city beyond the performance day? How to become a real
urban gateway to City's waterfront and not a closed thematic cluster?

An horizontal
landmark: The Vortex
Our proposal
introduces an integrated cultural and ecological vision for the
KMC&PMC. This project is calling to
be one of the the most powerful icons of Kaohsiung,
embodying the dynamic character and the new sustainable identity of the city.
The project focuses symbolically on this synergetic relationship to create a
flow of energy, in that sense, Kaohsiung is full of vivid lights, sounds and
colors and the KMC&PMC will reflects the dynamism already existent in the
city. This proposal transforms the Kaohsiung's
life energy into an architectural Vortex. The roof waves generated by the
vortex's eye display an amazing new waterfront landscape, sending waves of
energy back to the city.
The wave-shaped
roof emerging from the central vortex eye, introduce an architectural element
that becomes an ecological device and iconic horizontal landmark. Like a tide,
the undulations of the roof, embrace and connect various buildings masses
creating at the same time an exiting pedestrian experience under the visually
unique roof continuity, embracing the waterfront and transforming it into a
world-class cultural entertainment destination.

Moreover this
strategy privilege a large scale landmark that enhance the whole waterfront,
more powerful in the "Google Hearth culture", rather than e single vertical
point, that in any case could not challenge the existing skyscrapers.

Connecting Kaohsiung to his
waterfront
The project
focuses on the enhancement of the interface between main public areas, nowadays
disconnected from each other. KMC&PMC becomes a shared interface that
encompasses new forms of accessibility to the complex. The project allow the
extension and culmination of the Love's riverfront promenade, actually
interrupted, creating a new pedestrian pathway that embraces both side of the
waterfront. The project will integrate the big urban park at the west of the
site to the waterfront, sewing the urban cut created by the existing railway
paths, evolving into a converging point open to the whole city. This openness
and multiple directionality attract people from all directions to make an
open place where a very wider public can
visit and have fun and greats music & sea experiences any time.
A New Place for Kaohsiung : Maritime
Terrace Walkway
Like a
horizontal landmark, the roof of KMC&PMC will become a part of the marine
landscape; it is designed as a raised continuation of the sea waves. This new
artificial wave creates cross connections and cross functional relations
between the two pedestrian pathways structuring KMC&PMC facilities. It host
a primarily pedestrian elevated platform, (the waterfront terrace) for new
mixed-use developments, including retail, leisure, outdoors performances etc.,
providing connections between the new waterfront and Kaohsiung's downtown,
repairing the fracture created by the existing railway paths.
Our proposition
consists in re-assembling the program units in terms of keeping a permanent
living "vertebral column" walkway,
irrigating a constellation of shops, bookstores, gift shops, markets,
cafes, and restaurants, living music pubs, etc, into a living 24-hour open
complex. That strategy fulfills the permanent display of new urban practices,
encouraging visitors and citizens to rediscover the "next great place in Kaohsiung" between the
river and the sea.
Moreover, the
promenade display a permanent level connecting both sides of the waterfront,
animated by festive sequences of spaces and commercial programs, that bring the
city back to the water and the open music venues are the linking interface to
accomplish that.
The roof wave:
Solar Media Screen The design of the KMC&PMC must become a
new icon for the city. The architecture takes its inspiration from the simple
concept of wave, which characterizes both sea and sound. Both images are deep symbolically
related to Kaohsiung'
historical and future development. This new terrace will provide several
informal places to feature improvised live concerts, allowing a wide range of
participation and Kaohsiung's
people involvement.
The wave roof
provides shelter and shadow for the visitors, its undulated forms, reflects and
absorbs sunlight. Also conceived like as a media device, this giant media
screen ribbon, displaying videos, information, publicity and communication and
global entertainment, before, during and after the performances.
During the day,
the roof works as an energy harvesting system (solar pv) providing electrical
energy to whole complex. At the evening, the roof becomes a media device, not
like a conventional giant screen, but like a permanent fluid motion flux of
images and sound.

Architects:                   INFLUX_STUDIO
Location:                    Kaohsiung , Taiwan,
R.O.C.
Collaborators:            Ana Pinto, Linda
Ait Belkacem, Carlos Moraga, Yun Guo, Daniella TrolloEngineering:                ARUP
Client:                          Construction
Office, Public Works Bureau, KaohsiungCity Government
Site Area:                    12 ha
Project Area:               70,900 sqm
Project Year:               2010Influx_Studio
7 rue du Gal Blaise 75011 PARIS
www.influx-studio.com