Taiwan Port Service Center

The winning project - Main view

Five hectars awaited the winning project, and the announcement has arrived. Close to the south docks of Shueitou you may find the intervention area for the Passenger Service Center for the Port of Kinmen in Taiwan. 

This terminal was the objective of a competition that seeked the ideal design for the five million passengers for this port.

The program included domestic arrival spaces, departure and arrival spaces for ferries, offices for the port's services, commercial spaces, maintenence rooms and the administrative offices. 

This multifunctional project divided itself in two phases: a 36 thousand square meter wide first phase and a 6 thousand square meter second intervention, for a total of 42.000 square meters, with construction completion and quality assessment of construction on December 2017.

The competition for the 62 million dollar project was opened to local and international professionals. Five finalists surfaced, three winners and two honorable mentions. 

Kinmen's county government set the deadline for the 20th of January for project submissions, revealing these finalists in the 24th of the same month.
In the 22nd of April the final submission for those five was delivered, and here are the results:

The winning project was done by Junya Ishigami + Associates from Japan in partnership with the local Taiwanese Bio Architecture Formosana.

The second place entry was from Tom Wiscombe Architecture, Inc from the USA and Fei & Cheng Associates from Taiwan.

The remaining winners were Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects and the local EDS International Inc.

Spain dominated the two honorable mentions with joint partnerships between Spanish and Taiwanese companies to form these two entries. The pairings are Miralles Tagliabue e Bendetta Tagliabue with Shou Dong-Gang and Su Mao-Pin and Mias Engineering Limited with Tai Architect & Associates.


The winning project - Facade as seen from the sea

Kinmen had it's origin as a cultural and commercial trading city.It had a peaceful existence up until it's occupation by the Japanese in WWII and, afterwards by the nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek.

These occupations transformed the island into a war front filled with trenches, bomb shelters and sea tunnels to protect it's citizens and ships. On the other hand, the island's inhabitants always understood the surrounding nations and shared their culture and history for generations, giving it it's identity.

It's this understanding that allows this peace time to become a time of rennovation and innovation for the area. There is a new language and openess that shall have a paralel in this new port.

The winning project - Interiors

Junya Isigami, the main protagonist for the winning project for the Service Center is a Tokyo-born architect. He's worked for 4 years with Kazuyo Sojima until he founded his own firm.

This is an architect that likes to question architecture's basic tennants. This chronic rethinking of the common rationale allows him to create beyond trends and the usual principles to develop original spaces and structures. Junya dreams of chaning the architectural world with his alternative values!

The project itself is about a ferry terminal of utmost quality. It includes turist and leisure activities beyond working as a port for international ships.

The building also serves as a new landmark for the region, atracting investors and improving the local economy. Sustainable and energetically efficient solutions were implemented in the finished design, serving as a model for future port service centers in the future.

Second place - The facade and the interiors, respectively

The second place winner did not fall far behind since it was an impressive work inspired in the new communication era in which we find ourselves in. It doesn't present itself as an infrastructure but as a cultural intervention and a focal point for community interaction. 

It's surface was designed in three different patterns that overlap each other - free-form joints, maze-like projections and curved pannels. The imposing presence of these juxtapositions create a rather unconventional effect of varying scale and orientations that is reminiscent of the volumetric relationships of the island itself.

In this search for a paralel with the island, the building's furniture emanates vibrant colors in warm tones that were found in Kinmen.
This furniture shines across the sea in the darkness of the night, reflecting itself in the waters, presenting the island itself to new arrivals.

Third place - Main view

The remainder of projects mentioned in these final entries created grand entrances to Kinmen and Taiwan itself that reflect their surrounding topography as a tribute to local nature in it's form and manners.

Honorable mentions - Main views

After finishing the analisis of these projects we were reminded of the importance of the sea as a means of communication and as a portal for respect and connection between countries.

There is much work to be done in coastal regions across the world, a world that is ready to connect even further.