YS114 House in Taipei, Taiwan by Preposition Architecture

Article source: Preposition Architecture

This single family house is located in a gated community on a hill near Taipei. Ever since the beginning of the design, a portion of the land property right was not clearly defined (the issue had been resolved later) hence the structure is limited to be in the North-West of the site. The result is that only 98 sqm of the land is permitted to be developed on this 280 sqm site and the building has to grow vertically with each interior floor area varies from 46 sqm to 76 sqm only (including stair case & elevator shaft).

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

• Architects: Preposition Architecture (Chia-hua Liu)
• Project: YS114 House
• Location: Taipei, Taiwan
• Year of completion: 2013
• Collaborators: Chia-hua Liu, Wen-bin Zhou, Chia-xiong Wu
• Area: 350sqm
• Photographs: KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

One main challenge is to satisfy the needs of a multi-generational life style (grandparents, parents, and kids living together) consists of 6 family members in such a limited space. Another main challenge is to respond the local climate which is characterized by intensive heat & sunlight, frequent rain, and high humidity.

One Identity, Multiple Fronts
The House is at a corner between a 6M wide community major rout and a 4M wide lane. The neighboring houses are all facing the 4M lane on the South-West side. The design follows this pattern making its South-West facade to be perceived as a building front from exterior. This is the first “front” of the house.
Only few limited openings are created on this first front due to privacy requirements and western exposure to direct sunlight. All the major openings are facing South-East allowing natural light from this direction. Therefore, from the interior, the “front” of the house would be perceived as the one facing the garden instead of the one facing the lane – the “front” turns 90 degrees from outside to inside. The garden keeps the major route in a distance to provide adequate privacy. This is the second “front” of the house.

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Right by the site, the major community route makes a big turn and directs all uphill views toward this house. To address this significant direction, a volume is created on the East wing and angled towards this specific direction. When approaching the house uphill, this angled facade becomes the “front” of the house. This third front also connects the other two and completes the totality and identity of the house.

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Exploring the Characters & Possibilities of Suburb Taipei
The area has the distinct characters of suburb Taipei: high density development within natural surroundings. They are small urban blocks between mountains. Most land lots are very small with very limited open space. We concentrate the volumes on one side of the site leaving nearly half of the site being a garden – a sufficient open space to itself. Shortly after the project completion, birds, bees, frogs… quickly settled in the garden. The solid and the void play equally important roles in the project; they counter weight each other and being a backdrop for each other. Multiple levels of outdoor space were created allowing open space extends from ground level up.

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Micro-climate Control via Design Strategies
Located in sub-tropical zone, Taiwan has long and intensive summer hence reducing heat absorption is an issue needed to be addressed carefully.

The building is a RC structure which stores large amount of thermal energy and affect physical environment. Rather than relying on mechanical equipments, this project responds the heat attack through design strategies. The volumetric arrangement plays a role as the first defense at a larger scale. The West rectangular volume is substantially larger and taller than the East triangular volume, and the East volume has more setback distance than the West volume has. This arrangement makes the West volume being a sun-shelter to the East which will be completely under the shadow of the West volume after 2PM in summer hence reduces the radiant heat absorption. The West volume is covered with louvers blocking direct sunlight from the West and South. The laundry room and bathrooms inside the West volume are placed at the very West corner and protrude outside to further block direct West sunlight to bedroom exterior wall and help reducing the humidity in the laundry room and bathrooms.

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

The second defense is the louver system outskirts RC exterior walls. It provides shading to the West direct sunlight for the West volume and reduces radiant heat absorption and penetration on south facade. The density, depth, and angle of the louvers are designed with consideration of sheltering sunlight from different directions. In general, vertical louvers on the South-West facade blocks West sunlight from low angle; horizontal louvers on the South facade blocks South sunlight at noon from high above. The purpose of the louver system is to reduce the amount of radiant heat absorbed by RC structure rather than blocking sunlight through openings because it would also block natural light and views. The reduction of direct sunlight through openings is carried out by carefully laying out the openings with consideration of directions, geometry, eaves, and balcony depth. When none of the above options is suitable, XIR film was applied in the laminated glass to reduce radiant transmittance. This is a set of strategies aiming to reduce radiant heat absorption without sacrificing natural light to interior and views to exterior. As for the roof, the most radiant-attacked area, extruded polystyrene boards are embedded in the roof concrete slab.

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Besides reducing heat absorption, the design also emphasizes passive ventilation. The elevator shaft is also a vertical nature light shaft and ventilation shaft. Hot air from each floor can flow into the elevator shaft and exhaust to outside through a pair of electrically controlled rain/wind-resistant louvers at the top. The staircase adjacent to the elevator shaft is brightened through the skylight on the top of the elevator shaft and through the glazed shaft wall. All wet area – the laundry room and all bathrooms – have large exterior windows for better natural light and making these wet area being all time care-free ventilation openings even during the rain-season which is quite long in this area of Taiwan.

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Image Courtesy © KyleYu Photo Studio, Preposition Architecture, Zheng-yi Wang, Dai-ling Lin

Tags: Taipei, Taiwan

Category: House

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