NEXT-GENE20 - Projects of the 20 Participating Architects Are now Defined

Following an intense program of site visits with each of the 20 architects who have been invited to design a villa in the beautiful Northeast Coast National Scenic Area, the projects are now ready. The architects presented their ideas in the course of a meeting that was held recently in Taipei. The projects testify a variety of tendencies and approaches. And it’s the very energy that derives from this linguistic heterogeneity that will define the distinctive character of NEXT-GENE20.

Now it’s time for a dialogue. The western model explores the eastern one, and vice versa. The 10 Taiwanese architects - Shu-Chang Kung, David Chun-Tei Tseng, Kris Yao, Jay Wen-Chieh Chiu, Kyle Chia-Kai Yang, Hsueh-Yi Chien, Irving Hung-Hui Huang, Ray Chen, Sheng-Yuan Huang, Yu-Tung Liu - and the 10 architects coming from outside Taiwan - Yung Ho Chang (China/USA), Julien De Smedt (Denmark/Belgium), GRAFT (Germany/USA/China), Akihisa Hirata (Japan), IaN+ (Italy), Kengo Kuma (Japan), Fernando Menis (Spain),Toshiko Mori (Japan/USA), MVRDV (The Netherlands), Hailim Suh (Korea) - mix their ideas together, have a dialogue, question each other. These are the premises for a true intercultural project.

The relationship with the natural surroundings has been interpreted by Yu-Tung Liu, coordinator for the project, as a field where the single architects could develop a series of antinomies: built/natural environment, architecture/landscape, vertical/horizontal, modified/intact. Integration between landscape and architecture, low density, design quality are the first interpretive keys for a design laboratory that aims at describing a sustainable scenario, one which ensures an equilibrium between man’s work and nature.

The NEXT-GENE20 project, initiated by Tai-Nien Lu (Chairman of Genuine Development Asset Management Co. Ltd.) and coordinated by Yu-Tung Liu (Professor at the Graduate Institute of Architecture of National Chiao Tung University), aims at the definition of a body of projects that match the several voices of Taiwanese and international architectural experimentation.

Some selected projects out of the twenty projects proposed for NEXT-GENE20:

bei-lin = shell under copious rain, Graft, Germany

Chromosome-H, Hsueh-Yi Chien, Taiwan

Villa Palladio, IaN+, Italy

Floating Courtyard, Ray Chen, Taiwan

The Elf on the hilltop, Wen-Chieh Chiu, Taiwan

The Twirl House, Julien De Smedt, Denmark

Radix House, Shu-Chang Kung, Taiwan

Calligraphic House, Yu-Tung Liu, Taiwan

See all projects here.