Sponge Territory

Essay, expanding design practices, José Aragüez, No Density, Spatial Infrastructure, Technology and fabrication, Urban Paradigms.

Analysis, Architect's challenge, Architectural explorations, Architectural theory, Architecture, Building, Building Technology, Built environment, Cultural Facility, Essay, Form, Geometry, Parametric design, Program designers, Shaping environments, Taiwan.

Essay excerpted from Spatial Infrastructure by José Aragüez, published by Actar Publishers.

The Taichung Metropolitan Opera House finally opened in September 2016. A winning competition entry from 2005, designed by Toyo Ito with Cecil Balmond as engineer, Taichung is the first of its kind. There is no precedent for a building like this in the history of architecture other than Ito’s own 2004 runner-up submission for the Forum for Music, Dance, and Visual Culture in Ghent, Belgium (fig. 4.1).[1] Both projects proposed a double-curved surface that gives rise to two out-of-phase series of coupled spaces, each of which are vertically and horizontally continuous. While Taichung, which houses three theaters and a shopping mall, is larger than Ghent would have been (one auditorium and a number of rehearsal rooms, foyers, and workshops), they are similar enough in scale that the results lend themselves to valid comparison. Moreover, both are proposals for the heart of the city.[2]