MVRDV’s design for the Taipei Twin Towers, designed as part of a consortium lead by Nan Hai Development, has been selected to revitalise the central station area of Taipei. The design of the Taipei Twin Towers is characterised by a pile of blocks that create a vertical urban neighbourhood, and by the façades of those boxes – including a number of interactive media façades – that artistically communicate the diverse program contained by those blocks.
The aim of the project is to provide a vibrant and charismatic destination that re- establishes the central station area of Taipei as the city’s premier location for shopping, working, and tourism—a Times Square for Taiwan.
 

Description of project by MVRDV

The site of the Taipei Twin Towers project is currently occupied by the city’s Main Station, which serves both the city’s railway, airport lines, and metro networks, and a number of underused parks and plazas. The new buildings will be built over the top of the existing station, combining retail, offices, two cinemas, and two hotels; meanwhile the plazas will be unified and redeveloped.

The neighbourhood surrounding the building includes a mixture of small, human-scale buildings and larger towers. MVRDV’s proposal combines these two contextual scales. When experienced from up- close, the main visual impact of the buildings will be provided by the bases of the towers, comprising connected stacks of small blocks housing retail, with each proposed to house different retail outlets and thus contain different identities. Above, larger blocks complete two towers of 337 and 280 meters, providing the dominant impression of the buildings when seen from afar. These larger blocks house the offices, cinemas, and two hotels: one targeted at young, trendy travellers crowning the East tower and the other focusing on the luxury market crowning the West tower.

At ground level, the design proposes a sunken plaza, with a variety of interventions inspired by the history of the site: structures marking the former locations of the original station and plaza and some old houses will turn this plaza in the centre of Taipei into a kind of archaeological study, a vision bringing to light the city’s past. These structures will include pergolas to provide shade, tribunes to allow for public events, and a variety of other public services.


“Arriving at Taipei Central Station is currently an anti-climax. The immediate area does not reveal the metropolitan charms and exciting quality that the Taiwanese metropolis has to offer,” says MVRDV principal and co-founder Winy Maas. “The Taipei Twin Towers will turn this area into the downtown that Taipei deserves, with its vibrant mixture of activities matched only by the vibrant collection of façade treatments on the stacked neighbourhood above.”


The retail blocks are stacked in such a way that at their centres public atriums are created, which allow for a natural ventilation system. Outside, escalators and walkways connect the terraces on top of the retail blocks together, and provide alternative access to the stores, making a vertical shopping experience that rewards exploration. An elevated walkway that connects the station with the surrounding destinations will also become the spine of the area. Currently two design variations of this element are possible: one that runs straight through the site, and another that runs close to the facades of the new buildings, connecting with the larger network of escalators and walkways.


“We break down the required program into pleasant small blocks that echo the surrounding urban quarters, thus fitting the density into its surroundings,” says Maas. “People can climb over the blocks to the top—a true vertical village. And the space in between allow for social gatherings and natural ventilation.”


This vertical village approach continues MVRDV’s investigation into the future of high-rise buildings. Whereas traditional skyscraper typologies create a separation between the ground-level public realm and the elevated and isolated world of the building’s interior, the Taipei Twin Towers will allow these two conditions to intertwine. By extending exterior pedestrian routes over the bottom 20 floors of the building, the public realm of the city is expanded into three dimensions, while the interior life of the tower is allowed to spread out into its surroundings.

Thanks to the small size of the retail blocks, it makes it possible for each to contain just a small number of tenants – and in many cases just a single store. This opens up the possibility that each block could communicate its unique character through an individual façade. A number of these facades are also proposed to feature interactive media displays, making the buildings dynamic hosts for showing major cultural spectacles, sporting events, and of course advertising.

To realise the Taipei Twin Towers, MVRDV is working with co-architect CHY Architecture Urban Landscape, landscape designer Topotek 1, and consultants Envision Engineering, ARUP, RWDI, and Mercury Fire Engineering Consulting.

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Architects
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MVRDV. Principal-in-Charge.- Winy Mass. Partner.- Wenchian Shi
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Design team
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Hui Hsin Liao, Cosimo Scotucci, Yayun Liu, Chi Yi Liao, Seul Lee, Ara Gonzalez, Aleksandra Farmazon, Evgenia Zioga, Peter Chang, Matiss Groskaufmanis, Amanda Galiana Ortega, Cas Esbach, Sumio Kumagai, Antonia Durig
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Rendering
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Antonio Luca Coco, Davide Calabro, Francesco Vitale, Luca Piattelli, Kirill Emelianov, Magda Bykowska, Masoud Khodadadi
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Partners
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Co-architect.- CHY Architecture Urban Landscape. Landscape design.- Topotek 1. Consultants.- Envision Engineering, ARUP, RWDI, Mercury Fire Engineering Consulting.
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Client
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Nan Hai Development
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Dates
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2018
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Venue
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Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan
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Size and Programme
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434,000m² mixed-use (201,000m² offices; 182,000m² retail; 51,000m² hotel)
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MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The practice engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A highly collaborative, research-based design method involves clients, stakeholders and experts from a wide range of fields from early on in the creative process. The results are exemplary, outspoken projects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.

The products of MVRDV’s unique approach to design vary, ranging from buildings of all types and sizes, to urban plans and visions, numerous publications, installations and exhibitions. Built projects include the Netherlands Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hannover; the Market Hall, a combination of housing and retail in Rotterdam; the Pushed Slab, a sustainable office building in Paris’ first eco-district; Flight Forum, an innovative business park in Eindhoven; the Silodam Housing complex in Amsterdam; the Matsudai Cultural Centre in Japan; the Unterföhring office campus near Munich; the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam; the Ypenburg housing and urban plan in The Hague; the Didden Village rooftop housing extension in Rotterdam; the music centre De Effenaar in Eindhoven; the Gyre boutique shopping center in Tokyo; a public library in Spijkenisse; an international bank headquarters in Oslo, Norway; and the iconic Mirador and Celosia housing in Madrid.

Current projects include a variety of housing projects in the Netherlands, France, China, India, and other countries; a community centre in Copenhagen and a cultural complex in Roskilde, Denmark, a public art depot in Rotterdam, the transformation of a mixed use building in central Paris, an office complex in Shanghai, and a commercial centre in Beijing, and the renovation of an office building in Hong Kong. MVRDV is also working on large scale urban masterplans in Bordeaux and Caen, France and the masterplan for an eco-city in Logroño, Spain. Larger scale visions for the future of greater Paris, greater Oslo, and the doubling in size of the Dutch new town Almere are also in development.

MVRDV first published a manifesto of its work and ideas in FARMAX (1998), followed by MetaCity/Datatown (1999), Costa Iberica (2000), Regionmaker (2002), 5 Minutes City (2003), KM3 (2005), Spacefighter (2007) and Skycar City (2007), and more recently The Vertical Village (with The Why Factory, 2012) and the firm’s first monograph of built works MVRDV Buildings (2013). MVRDV deals with issues ranging from global sustainability in large scale studies such as Pig City, to small, pragmatic architectural solutions for devastated areas such as New Orleans.

The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. One hundred architects, designers and urbanists develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involves rigorous technical and creative investigation. MVRDV works with BIM and has official in-house BREEAM and LEED assessors.

Together with Delft University of Technology, MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing an agenda for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.

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Published on: January 10, 2019
Cite: "Intensify the City. Taipei Twin Towers by MVRDV" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/intensify-city-taipei-twin-towers-mvrdv> ISSN 1139-6415
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