Text by Françoise Crémel

Overall here is strength, the boards resist; met the lure of the project, they lie in bed with each stride. Never so firm, the promise remains fleeting; take the path, light the way, contain the overflow, the hazards in disarray shatter over and over. Organize the clutter. Traversing the mountains, crossing the ditches, leveling the flux, all this is to invent an open wound over a patches of uneven ground, what a trap!
Detached island, a place that grounds a floating offering.
Taiwan looks down at its green hills, whispers into its deep gorges, a landscape that the inhabitants color with buildings, symbols, and shrill banners. By intercepting the scenery, it is a way to insert oneself into the memories of all scenes. It is wild. The project manifests an ambition; an iron infrastructure is emerging. A scratch in the landscape, an anthropomorphic beast at the scale of streams and mountains. This earthiness reverberates throughout the figures transmitted by agile fingers in glove puppets of ancient times.

The space here is poetic, with rhythms that fragment the kinetics of the enclosed volume.


The Dark Line by Michèle & Miquel and dA VISION DESIGN. Photograph by LU Yu-Jui, Michèle & Miquel.

The transitions offer a simultaneous sense of excitement and terror for what’s to come: spiritualizing removed passages, long deployments exuding a slight fright, and short moments of trajectory dislocation.

No horizon, no boredom, just a ring road and a loose call.

The line is struck by the hammering of the material, no guardrail, just peering over the border towards an expectant discovery. Moving then still the body seizes a visual vibration that causes the pedestrian to be suspended in the surrounding environment. Rich, it drips with plants, fertile and luxurious vegetation. Speed is mitigated. The lateral world can slip, crumble, collapse: standing there, I'm vigilant, whatever it may do and who passes by.  I visit the place stunned by the matter suddenly alive.



The Dark Line by Michèle & Miquel and dA VISION DESIGN. Photograph by LU Yu-Jui, Michèle & Miquel.

This path is an orthosis, for the body of some and for the range of groups of people that this development involves between construction and erosion. Metaphorically a journey, it is the immobility that garners the gaze towards the unfinished. Steps are gradually revealed in the light at the beginning of the tunnel, or further on, around a curve. Reaching out, without grasping anything, exposes the accident and the derailment of the railroad. The railroad is still a railroad. Iron, a solid element, pugnacious - a bark that sounds metallic - like footsteps that drum and resonate, the lightness of a tire squeaking on the edge of the rail, attention.  Nevertheless, it's the bearer of all our fragilities. Catching a glimpse of the flower cluster during a loss of control, light, sublime before the fall; that, rough, on this faceless ground.


The Dark Line by Michèle & Miquel and dA VISION DESIGN. Photograph by LU Yu-Jui, Michèle & Miquel.

In the night, some will reassure themselves, throwing stones to try the echo from below. The sound, a great companion of shadow and depth, will give the exchanged words the appearance of a pledge. Something other than a support for stumbling steps, this great footbridge puts a garment on the nakedness of the hill. From below, humidity competes with mist through intestinal movements that break with temperatures and climate. No more distant landscapes, just a pungent smell of the earth, permeated by water and falling pebbles. With an abundance of scents, unconsciousness ensues in the rhythms of the sequences. The actual distance commands respect from the plant elements, which, too green, singe the lungs of the passerby.


The Dark Line by Michèle & Miquel and dA VISION DESIGN. Photograph by LU Yu-Jui, Michèle & Miquel.

No one anticipated this post-industrial.

A few images caught on the internet, a few words from the landscapists after an expedition, my body was never exposed to that wind, and I did not touch anything of this place.

My sentences here and there just convey the ability of the lines to make promises.

May the rain bring children like me to rest on the ground; as a result of this invitation to explore.
 
Text by Françoise Crémel

More information

Label
Architects
Text
Michèle & Miquel. Lead architects.-  Michèle Orliac, Miquel Batlle.
Landscape architect.- Da Vision Design. Chung-Hsun Wu.
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Label
Location
Text
Taiwan, Sandiaoling - Ruifang District, New Taipei City. Republic of China.
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Label
Photography
Text
LU Yu-Jui, Michèle & Miquel.
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Françoise Crémel cultivates a discipline of the body that supports the need of bodies for the vitality of the world landscape. She is a DPLG-trained landscape designer, a research engineer at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Landscape de Versailles-Marseille, and a member of the Landscape Projects Research Laboratory (Larep). Doctor of Landscape, her thesis "Being landscape, a plural exercise" deals with the variety of possible and probable postures of the body inhabited by a thousand panoramas. The latter, unable to abandon the landscape, commits its mobility and its needs to the communal production of spaces built for a meaningful life. She is interested in the implication of the body and perception as negotiation mechanisms between the field and design.

She teaches how to carefully read a site through engagement, both physical and intellectual, to support the designer's virtue in their project choices. Involved in the sharing of work, she runs Full Contact, a landscaping company, is a member of Paris.U architecture SARL and today, with people of good will, creates Ambre (Bioregional and Ecological Domestic Workshop), a SCIC antidote against the devastation of the garden world. In contact with all movements, she keeps her feet on the ground with a practice, unwritten or described, organized by neighborhood and presence; she theorizes the permanent singularization of investigative frameworks before the last soul tells the others what happened.
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Michèle & Miquel is an architecture urbanism and landscape atelier, based in Barcelona, Spain and Toulouse, Francia. It was founded in 1996 by Michèle Orliac and Miquel Batlle.

The team take part in the development of public spaces, urban facilities, strategic points, urban peculiar situations…etc. The philosophy of their work lies in the relationship between the city, architecture and nature, urban planning and landscape architecture and the articulation of different scales: from territorial scale to detail.

Throughout the professional life of the study, many projects have been developed in different topics such as Public spaces and urban facilities (Hortus wineries in Valflaunes, Wallon Marcadau refuge in the National Park of Pyrenees, or the canopies in Vieux Boucau); Director plan of public spaces (Director plan beach in VIEUX BOUCAU in the Atlantic Ocean).

Many projects have been recognized in national and international awards including:

By The Dark Line: AFEX Award 2023 (FR), BEAU XVI Award (ESP), Landezine International Landscape Award 2023, Arquin fad 2023 (ESP), IFLA ASIA PAC Excellence Award 2023, Architettura LOVERS il Premio 2023 (ITA), INT. design Grand Prix du Design paysage & territoires 2023, (CAN), WLA Merit Award Winner 2023, Taiwan Environment Lighting 2023, Building of the Year METALOCUS 2023 (ESP).
 
Award, The 7th Taiwan Landscape 2019.
First prize in the FAD 2017 award. International category with the project Le Jardin NIEL in TOULOUSE, France.
Selected in the international Mies van der Rohe 2017 award with the project Winery in Montpellier, France.
First prize in the FAD 2011 award, landscape and city category, with de project Aigües Park in Figueres, Spain.
First prize in the Trophées de l’aménagement Urbain award three times: at Pams Port Street in Vendres, France; at the ARLES SUR TECH square, France; and at the fairground in Treffort, France.
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dA VISION DESIGN is an architecture studio founded by Chung-Hsun Wu that offers comprehensive consulting services in urban design and landscape architecture. The team combines experiences in landscape architecture, architecture, urban design and urban planning. Passion for space, environment and people resonates within the team, influencing their work, values and professional approaches. With a reserve of optimism and professional skills, they skillfully tailor their services to precisely meet client needs.

​The core value of dA VISION DESIGN is to systematically apply site analysis, sensitively coordinate spatial and functional elements, and then seamlessly integrate them with construction knowledge to formulate holistic design alternatives. Their unwavering commitment includes providing meticulous attention and engaging in innovative problem solving, infusing each project with unique aspects and motivations.
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Published on: March 19, 2024
Cite: "Dark Line. Mind the gap by Françoise Crémel" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/dark-line-mind-gap-francoise-cremel> ISSN 1139-6415
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