Wulai Parking Structure | The Wulai Parking Structure is located at a popular tourist attraction site, Wulai, in the mountains of New Taipei City, Taiwan. The project calls for an addition of three floors slabs to be stacked on top of the existing one-story parking structure which was built some twenty years ago with reinforced concrete. The program requires a total of 350 parking spaces to be added upon completion. The design for this Wulai Parking Structure begins with the idea of creating a form that would speak to the silhouette of the mountains behind and the flow of river in front. The building aims to present a confluence of nature and architecture with a simple gesture that would capture the very essence of such concept.
The technique of parametric design was deployed to generate a gentle curve that moves three dimensionally in space for the exterior of the parking structure. With this simple gesture, we hope to capture the beauty of surrounding with the least amount of architectural manipulation. The final form requires 3000 pieces of aluminum extrusion that were prefabricated in shop, shipped and assembled on site. This louver façade also help block the western sun from tropical summer heat in Taiwan. On a given hot day, the temperature difference between inside and outside could be as much as 5 degrees Celsius.
Programmatically, we believe that this building could be a cultural destination and a parking structure at the same time when situated at such a prominent location. Therefore we asked the local artists to participate in the first exhibition we curated for this building, and hope that this kind of cultural events will continue to foster in the future.
