San Francisco-based Form4 Architecture won first place in the "Future Schemes" category of the 2013 WAN Civic Buildings Competition with a design that looks straight out of an interplanetary colonization effort. Aptly titled Luminous Moon-Gate, this plan for a cultural center aims to replace several abandoned military camps surrounded by parkland in the Taiwanese city of Taichung. With two huge cylinders, a glass-clad slope that rises out of the ground, and a number of undulating structures half-buried into the surrounding landscape, this combined library and museum promises to turn the site into "a catalyst for metropolitan living."
But despite the plan's sci-fi overtones, Form4 hopes to characterize its monolithic elevated cylinders as inviting and warm "lanterns of knowledge" by covering them in aluminum louvers to diffuse daylight within, and giving the vertically oriented one street access via a "grand stair." The differing orientation of the volumes was planned so that "each building axis points to pivotal parts of the park and city." In a broader sense, the firm wants the project to serve as "a gate toward a responsible future, a center regenerative of community life, a landmark for orientation."
Say it again now: "Luminous Moon-Gate." Doesn't that just roll right off the tongue? No word yet on whether the project will ever see the light of day, but that there is the name of a winner.
· Form4 Architecture Wins WAN Civic Buildings Future Schemes Award for Cultural Center in Taiwan [ArchDaily]