Dutch architecture studio MVRDV is to replace a flooded shopping centre in the Taiwanese city Tainan with a lagoon to generate a “hip urban pool” and artificial seaside (+ slideshow).
The Rotterdam firm won a competition to transform the buying centre into a park and is operating with local studios The Urbanist Collaborative and LLJ Architects on the venture. Construction is set to commence later this 12 months.
The lagoon will stretch out towards the city’s waterfront, opening up views that were formerly blocked by the China-Town Mall. Built in 1983, the shopping centre had grow to be partially derelict and flooded in accordance to MVRDV.
The new waterway will be flanked by sand dunes and indigenous planting to create a green corridor in the city’s downtown region.
Related story: MVRDV’s plant-covered proposal wins Ravel Plaza Amsterdam competitors
“This flooded outdated mall is going to be a poetic lagoon and an hip urban pool: a symbolic act,” stated MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas. “The connection with the waterfront will be finished by a green promenade and an artificial beach along the canal so as to celebrate the re-established view to the sea and the elimination of the buying mall, which previously obscured it.”
“A massive commercial construction of small architectural high quality, it disconnected the city from its waterfront and quickly fell into decline, turning into like the rotten tooth of downtown Tainan,” he stated.
The lagoon will be sunken under street degree, occupying what was the buying centre’s underground car park. Remnants of its concrete construction, such as square-sectioned columns will protrude over the water’s surface.
Playgrounds and rows of outlets will be set along the water at the reduce level, while a steel bridge will hyperlink two street-level walkways. The perpendicular Haian Street will also be converted into parkland.
Glass-covered lifts connecting the park with street level will double as viewing towers. These structures will be illuminated at evening to give the physical appearance of giant lanterns.
New transport routes will be designed to free the spot from heavy traffic and nearby roads will be pedestrianised by night, allowing cafes to spill out onto the street.
Building is anticipated to get started in autumn 2016.
MVRDV was chosen earlier this 12 months to flip the 938-metre-lengthy Seoul Station Overpass into a public park that could grow to be South Korea’s answer to New York’s Large Line.
The firm was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. Its just lately finished tasks incorporate a flower-shaped workplace block close to Shanghai’s Hongqiao Airport and it has also unveiled plans for a plant-covered complicated in Amsterdam.
In an interview with Dezeen, Serpentine director Julia Peyton-Jones referred to MVRDV’s 2004 proposal to encase the London gallery in a mountain-shaped pavilion as a “heroic failure.”
Undertaking credits:
Architects: MVRDV, The Urbanist Collaborative, LLJ Architects
Sustainability and landscape consultant: Progressive Environmental Inc
Structural engineers: Urban Sculptor Arranging & Developing Consultants
Transport planners: THI Consultants Inc
MEP engineers: Songsing
Site strategy – click for more substantial image 
Plaza prepare – click for greater image 
Haian Road ideas – click for larger picture 
Lagoon area – click for larger image 
Haian Road part – click for larger image 
