first home completed at BIG's hualien residences in taiwan

first home completed at BIG’s hualien residences in taiwan
image by jinho lee

the first home at taiwan’s bjarke ingels-designed ‘hualien residences’ has been completed, featuring a bespoke furniture line by KiBiSi. the 1,000 square meter show-home has been completed to offer prospective inhabitants a look into the lifestyle and amenities of the development.

located 5 kilometers south of hualien city, the residences are being developed by taiwan land development corporation. the project seeks to preserve and enhance the beauty of the surrounding nature, while creating a dense neighborhood of holiday homes that offer future residents an active and social lifestyle outside of the city. the next phase of the project is expected to begin in 2016, with construction scheduled to be complete by 2018.

the project is located 5 kilometers south of hualien city
image by BIG

BIG’s design evokes taiwan’s mountainous terrain, appearing as a stylized landscape of hills, valleys, and canyons. the floor plates are broken down into slim landscaped stripes, covered with green vegetation. the volumes are shifted to ensure that daylight and views reach deep into the residences, while dipping down to form lush pedestrian canyons and shortcuts between the buildings.

‘the hualien hills are a pragmatic utopian attempt at rural densification where the ecological qualities of nature aren’t consumed by the urban development, but rather extended and amplified,’ explains bjarke ingels, founding partner of BIG. ‘where the spaniards found ways to drill homes and cities into the porous rocks of the local mountains in guadix, the taiwanese are now building cityscapes of inhabited hillsides in hualien.’

vegetation covers each of the sloping planes
image by jinho lee

KiBiSi’s furniture series features eight different typologies that reference both scandinavian design, and the scheme’s folding hill structure. the collection includes lounge seating and sunbeds with corded welt edging that seeks to combine craft with comfort. this is accompanied by a wooden dining table, LED lamp, drawer unit, coffee table and technical shelf system with a flexible parallelogram construction that adapts to the building’s tilting wall angles.

see designboom’s previous coverage of the project here.

the design evokes taiwan’s mountainous terrain, appearing as a stylized landscape of hills
image by jinho lee

the show-home offers prospective inhabitants a look into the lifestyle and amenities of the development
image by jinho lee

the interiors feature a bespoke furniture line by KiBiSi
image by jinho lee

the pieces reference both scandinavian design, and the scheme’s folding hill structure
image by jinho lee

the project has a scheduled completion date of 2018
image by jinho lee

floor plates are broken down into slim landscaped stripes
image by KILO

rendering illustrating the scale of the development
image by BIG

project info:

name: hualien residences
client: taiwan land development corporation
location: hualien, taiwan
size: 120,000 sqm
collaborators: RJW, ARUP, treegarden, ken sakamura
partners-in-charge: bjarke ingels, jakob lange, finn nørkjær
project manager: andrew lo
design architect: cat huang
showroom team: eric li, anu marjanna leinonen, jinho lee, kekoa charlot, alberto herzog, jaime oliver galienne, horia spirescu, min ter lim, junjie yan, dominic black, angelos siampakoulis, qianqian ye, emily king, lucas carriere, miao zhang, ren yang tan, andre schmidt