Location

Taichung City, Taiwan

Program

Observation Tower

Dates

2011

Key Staff

Eric McNevin, Jose Herrasti

The Taiwan Tower is located in a former airport site, and is part of the Taichung Gateway City Project. The Tower is located at the southern end of a new ‘central park’ which links new research and development facilities to a local university campus.

The new observation tower is intended to be a landmark for both Taichung and Taiwan, and will commemorate the centennial anniversary of the founding of Taiwan, R.O.C.

At the base, the project begins with a lowered main floor and an undulating landscape that funnels visitors into the main lobby of the tower. From this point, stair and elevator cores lead to the upper levels of the project. The lower levels of the tower contain a museum of urban design, and offer large flexible galleries for exhibition, projects, and various types of public displays. Directly above the exhibition area is an outdoor amphitheater for multi-media presentation, concerts, lectures, and public events.

The outer ring of the amphitheater anchors a cable net structure that runs the height of the tower and supports the intermediate floors of the tower and the vertical circulation cores. Structural fins wrap the exterior of the cable net to provide lateral support. In select areas, the fins are wrapped with glazing and the floors extend outward into a glass promenade that wraps the tower structure.