Redesigning Landscapes for the Future--Japanese Architect Norihiko Dan

Beside tranquil Sun MoonLake, the Shuishe Waterfront Park has been transformed into a Zen-style bamboo garden, which in turn cloaks a parking lot below. As people come and go on a path nestled along the water's edge, the light from a restaurant and a hotel on the other side plays off the reflective surface of the lake.

As our view shifts to Taiwan's north coast, wondrous landscapes appear out of volcanic rock. The old food stalls are nowhere to be seen and in their place are clusters of shaded rest stops shaped like volcanoes. Throngs of tourists flock in for the local delicacies.

In the future, at Fenchihu on Mt. Ali, from which only two trains depart a day, a wooden suspension bridge will connect with the mountain area's main road and provide a platform for viewing marvelous sunsets. As for the newly redundant central section of the train station, it takes only a little imagination to think of ways to transform it into something more in keeping with the sense of wonder the area inspires.

Don't think that these new marvels appeared out of thin air. They are award-winning designs from the international competition held as part of the government's plans to boost tourism. They are already quietly underway, and in not much more than two years they should appear in their splendor for all to see.

Sun Moon Lake, the north coast and Mt. Ali were once among the most representative of Taiwan's tourist spots. As time went by, however, tired designs, lacking in ingenuity or freshness, lost their sparkle. Not only did international tourists begin to fade away, even great numbers of Taiwanese visitors disappeared.

"In fact, the beauty of Sun Moon Lake is something not found in Japan or mainland China, especially the romantic atmosphere of the fog sleeping on the water's surface in the early morning," says Norihiko Dan, winner of the first prize for his tourist path design for Sun Moon Lake and second prize for his design for another tourist spot on the northern coast. In his 20 years in the industry, he has placed great value on human appeal and environmental protection in his designs. When the Kyoto City Government wanted to construct a large swimming pool, for example, Norihiko Dan was unwilling to simply toss out the earth dug from the site. Instead, he incorporated this precious natural resource into the landscaping of the site, forming aesthetically pleasing hills with greenery.

"A good architect should have respect for nature," says Dan, "and shouldn't be cavalier about architecture's effects on nature."

Under the influence of his father, Ikuma Dan-a well-known composer of symphonic music and operas-Norihiko Dan returned to Japan right after receiving his master's in architecture from Yale to start his own practice, unlike so many architects who stay abroad to get experience with European or American architecture firms.

"The older generation of architects liked to express their foreign designs in Japanese structures," says Dan. "I prefer to start from a local perspective and develop modern architecture that belongs to Japan." Architectural structures, he says, are like urban flowers. If they can't sprout from their own soil, then they can't preserve their own roots, in which case one can only place them in a vase for others to admire, but the lovely sight will last only a few days.

For this year's design competition, Dan made use of similar concepts in his designs. In the redesign plan for Sun Moon Lake, he not only preserved the integrity of the natural environment but also requested that the new tourist center be placed on a secluded road virtually hidden in the natural landscape. When it came to the reconstruction of the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport at Taoyuan, other designers all proposed building a new structure next to the existing terminal. Dan, however, chose to preserve the existing structure and make use of a giant canopy-like roof to extend beyond the original building, greatly expanding the capacity of the terminal and flowing naturally into the parking structures to the sides. The result was a new landscape with a billowing, undulating structure. The roof could even open to reveal the sky above, transforming the terminal into a bamboo garden with all the characteristics of the Asian tropics.

"This old structure that has served well for 30 years has its merits and its value," says Dan. "We can't just get rid of it to create more space. We should preserve and treasure it." As one would expect, his attitude reflects his interest in environmentalism and conservation, as well as his creative impulse-and leaves the rest of us with a sense of wonder.

Japanese architect Norihiko Dan uses a bamboo grove to create a place for meditation while blending his designs with the natural landscape of Sun Moon Lake.

International Spaces Attracting International Attention

The aim of New Taiwan by Design is to allow experienced international designers to participate in the remaking of Taiwan's famous tourist spots, while promoting cooperation and interaction with local designers," says Lin Sheng-fong, convener of the committee responsible for the competition, which falls under the government's plan to boost tourism as part of the Six-year National Development Plan. According to Lin, the entire process was an arduous challenge from the outset, involving everything from inviting eight internationally known local and foreign designers and architecture scholars to act as judges-including participants from Japan, Germany and the United States-to arranging contracts, negotiating prices, and coordinating the efforts of various government departments.

"In the past, when friends from abroad visited Taiwan, they were often surprised that despite the high level of technological development and high salaries, people still lived in ugly, decrepit surroundings," says Lin. While public works came to be seen as fashionable structures, due to a lack of central planning and overall supervision, the public buildings that were erected often failed to capture local characteristics or possess cultural significance. Instead, the buildings tended to have a rigid, institutionalized format. As a result, a great deal of money was spent on buildings that were so unpolished even after completion that people neither dared to nor wanted to use them. Back when Yu Shyi-kun, the current premier, became chief executive of Ilan County, he continued efforts instituted by his predecessor, Chen Ding-nan, to raise the quality of public projects, and developed a holistic environmental policy that would later constitute the foundation for the Green Industries Project, the New Hometown Community Project and the plan to double tourist arrivals, all included in the Six-Year National Development Plan.

The tourism plan maps out specifications for the New Taiwan by Design competition, including a "Landform Series" and a "Gateway Series." This is Taiwan's first international competition on this scale, and it departs from the previous practice of seeking international assistance only for major public infrastructure projects. This plan moreover involves the cooperation of an extensive array of administrative agencies, including the Keelung, Taipei, Tainan and Kaohsiung City Governments, the Keelung Harbor Bureau, the Taiwan Railway Administration, the Bureau of Taiwan High Speed Rail, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, and the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau. Coordinating the work was a demanding task. With the beautiful landscapes of the competition soon to take shape, Taiwan will be able to present to the rest of the world an even more beautiful visage-and no one will be more content than the helmsman of the project, Lin Sheng-fong.

Using new architectural concepts, Taoyuan's Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (1979), the primary entry point to the country, got a whole new appearance while incorporating many of the old structures.

Everyman's Everyman's Architecture The Building-Block World of Wu Kuan-ying

If architectural structures were merely institutional-a marriage between simplicity and security-we might have lost the chance to appreciate the dome of St. Peter's in the Vatican; the shell-shaped Sydney Opera House; the towering Taipei 101, which is the world's tallest building; and other masterpieces from around the globe. These magnificent works are first subjected to precise structural planning before rising from the unique imaginations of their creators. Meanwhile, in a corner at the 2004 Architecture Exhibition, children and adults alike take off their shoes, seat themselves on tatami mats, and crowd in to play with simple wooden building blocks. They try to build shapes from their imaginations, build towers, or reproduce the shapes of giant spheres, steep triangular pyramids, and low pyramids next to them. Entranced by this pleasant diversion, they forget themselves for a while and begin to discover the relationship between a structure and its design. This is the liveliest activity space at the exhibition.

Wu Kuan-ying experimented for 40 years with building blocks, trying glue, nails, rubber bands, and other things in his quest to hold together a sphere built with blocks, but failed again and again. Later, he made use of a mathematic formula to underpin his structure, and thus in the end created a three-meter globe. By this method, he could even construct a human habitat, so long as he had sufficient funding.

"Building-block structures are simple," says Wu. "So long as you calculate precisely, it's easy to create almost any shape." In the past, however, he often failed because a single miscalculation. Ten years ago,after three years' arduous effort, he finally constructed a triangular pyramid of three cubic meters comprising more than 17,000 blocks-his first taste of the sweetness of success.

Three years ago, at the Kaohsiung International Container Arts Festival, Wu Kuan-ying created mazes of various geometric shapes by piling up containers, prompting some observers to marvel at the profound possibilities for building-block structures. Two years ago at a paper-cutting exhibition at the Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum, Wu employed a technique that applied principles similar to those used in building with Lego, to create an art object that could be curled into a circle.

At the beginning of this year, at the invitation of the Kaohsiung Children's Welfare Center, Wu, partly at his own expense, accepted the challenge of creating a large-scale outdoor playground out of building blocks. He created four cubic structures to fit in with slides, rope ladders and bridges. Together, the parts formed a play area suitable for 200 children, and it's presently the most popular of all the facilities at the center. The project, however, cost Wu a considerable sum-a kilogram of the yellow building blocks cost about NT$150, and to form a square section of 27 cubic meters required about 30 tons or about NT$400,000 worth of the blocks. He also had to rent storage facilities. In order to start construction, he scrimped and saved for several years, but he did it with a glad heart.

"Playing with building blocks is addictive," he says. "Aficionados divide the methods of building with the blocks into five levels of difficulty: easy, average, difficult, terrifying, and nightmarish. I've only arrived at 'difficult,' but I hope I can continue until I get to 'terrifying,' a level that defeats 99% of those who try it." Wu likens the structures created with building blocks to writing. It's not only necessary to be able to follow the shorter poetic passages but to be able to see the overall epic structure. But creating with building blocks has an even more intimate connection to mathematics-they are like two hearts beating to the same rhythm. Building blocks are very suitable for children to be exposed to and to study, and so Wu has devoted himself to popularizing them. He hopes that in the future he will be able to found a building-block museum to give children a place where their imaginations can run free and help them be more sensitive to the close relationship between structure and space.

"After all, we live in a three-dimensional world," says Wu. "We must not make children exhaust themselves with written tests and studying only two-dimensional things." Jolting perceptions into a three-dimensional world also opens new possibilities for the 2004 Architecture Exhibition.

Having survivied the fires of war, the National Taiwan Museum (1908) is receiving the attention of various architects competing in the Gateway Series of the New Taiwan by Design to give the building a new look.

Having survivied the fires of war, the National Taiwan Museum (1908) is receiving the attention of various architects competing in the Gateway Series of the New Taiwan by Design to give the building a new look. this picture is an architectural drawing for the building.

Wu Kuan-ying guides the public to a new understanding of the aesthetics of structures through a interactive building-block exhibit. The simple act of piling the blocks up into different shapes opens endless creative possibilities.

Through trial and error, children playing with building blocks unconsciously experience the profound mystery of the formation of the universe.