Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Taiwan Twirl House

This is a project by JDS Architects + Aura Architects and Associates and it is located at Ao-Di, Taiwan. It was submitted to Architecture News Plus (ANP) by JDS Architects. Project's program: Housing development. There are twelve images for Taiwan Twirl House.

: © JDS Architects

Project details

Project name: Taiwan Twirl House
Location: Ao-Di, Taiwan
Program: Housing development
Area: Project area: 511 m2
Year: Design: 2007
Client: Genuine Group
Project by: JDS Architects + Aura Architects and Associates
Team: Project Team: Julien De Smedt, Andrew Griffin, Alexandra Kiszkielis, Alexandros Geroussis, Andrew Corrigan, Filip Lipinski, Felix Luong, Francisco Villeda, Gunnar Hoss, Heechan Park, Isik Keskinler, Jordi Lopez, Kristoffer Harling, Kazuma Toda, Liz Kelsey, Martin Van De Beek, Ruben Rendon, Ruxandra Stroe, Reid Lesley, Wouter Dons

Project images

Designer's statement

In the history of architecture there are few moments when a project as ambitious as this have occurred, gathering the worlds leading architects to make avant-garde yet realistic case study houses for one of the most beautiful sites in the world. The task handed to us of creating a harmonious architecture within nature in such a beautiful context in Taiwan highlights the clients true ambitions as patrons of architecture, life and culture and a will to make the inhabitants of Next Gene truly at home in Taiwan's most beautiful region. The expected clientèle for the project was busy modern individuals and families from Taipei who need an escape from the capital’s busy and chaotic settings.

When asked to make a series of houses in an Eden-like location in Ao-di, Taiwan, we first fear to disturb a place kept naturally intact for centuries. As we visited the site right after a very strong typhoon we understood that the place was, although naturally kept, in constant micro changes: the typhoons, common in that region, would remodel the crust of the earth, disturbing the soft vegetation and manipulate slightly the land… on the base of that we decided to create architecture out of nature. We designed a house that manipulates the landscape without adding anything to it. A house in symbiosis with its environment. A house that celebrates views and protects itself from being viewed.

There was a certain paradox in being located in such a beautiful location and be so many different architectural expressions all crammed next to each other. Our first house alone had 7 neighbors. Our reaction was then to make a house that’s introverted rather then looking outwards. A patio house. We started looking at it as a walled donut. We then applied the site slope to the simple shaped which allowed it to have a part poking up and viewing out to the beautiful landscape. Further more we decided to embed the donut immediately into the landscape, erasing its presence as a volume. Operating Lucio Fontana-like incisions into the topography we’ve ended with a house that is a mixture of nature and architecture, that is introverted and extroverted all at once.