Corner 60’s / Soar Design Studio

Architects: Soar Design Studio
Location: No.20, Ln. 503, Sec. 2, Zhongzheng Rd., Changhua City, Changhua County 50048, Taiwan
Lead Architect: Yu-Jui Chang
Area: 178.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Hey!Cheese

Text description provided by the architects. This is a renewal project bearing the aesthetics of the old Taiwanese era, in the form of a corner building in a quiet community. We did our best in preserving the old tiles, fine stone finishing and window grille that have marked the era this building has been through.

The owner, a teacher with enthusiasm on education and love of old buildings, hopes to create a learning environment for students, so we proposed a renewal idea that bestows experimental opportunities for students, as well as becoming a café space for cultivating neighborhood interaction.

We envisaged a home that houses a lab space for kids to conduct scientific experiments, a gathering place for neighbors over coffee.

From the viewpoint of the dwelling characteristics, this design seeks to capture the local architectural aesthetics and the good old corridor social fabric in the old buildings, which are too often on the demise in the contemporary urban environment.

The overall environment needs to tackle the issues of poor natural illumination and ventilation. So by using materials such as glass tiles and grille, etc., as well as opening up flooring slab, we created double-height ceiling that allows the ground-floor space to become well-lit. Furthermore, by planting a large rainforest-type tree traversing the ground and the first floors, surrounding by open-planning spaces and a mini sky-walk cladded in grille, we successfully rectified the usual ill effect of sub-tropical climate normally would have on urban interior spaces.