WANG CHING AN
PORTFOLIO
Landscape Architecture Work & Study
Aerial view of orchards in Madou
Orchard in Madou
Link
With increasing technology improvements, it looks like nature is losing its mystery. When we systematically analyze the topography and geographical information, for example with GIS, personal experience seems to be pushed aside in the results. However, we fundamentally experience landscapes with our senses. There is a difficult challenge in how to transform largescale landscape concept planning into human-scale experience, or oppositely, how to translate intended human experience such that large-scale landscape planning reflects these goals in the results. I believe there are some missing fragments among the transformation. The link between precision and mystery is what I always wonder.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SCHOOL WORKS • War Memorial • Forest of Metaphor
PROFESSIONAL WORKS Public constructions---------------• Dazuan Park • Nangang Park Public Toilets Exhibitions--------------------------• Huzi Mountain Village • Air Force Headquarters • Orchards in Madou • Texture Study • Bombing History & Landscape
PERSONAL STUDIES • Intercolumniation of Trees • Temple of Modern Virtue • Statue
Other Works
WAR MEMORIAL School work
A memorial for a small combat event consisting of Taiwanese against the Japanese colonial goverment. It is relatively unknown history; even most local residents don't know about it. The concept of the memorial is hidden fear and sorrow. Lives ended as abruptly as the nonsense stairs.
Site plan
FOREST of METAPHOR School work
Forest of Metaphor Forest of Metaphor is an embodiment of a Platonic Academy, a hermitage mainly for landscape designers. Another ambition here is to create a great garden that conforms with the modern age. Like its ancestors, a microcosm of the world is one of the basic concepts of Forest of Metaphor, but it has a modern view which focuses on speed and time.
Facade of Centr
Site location
Mountains The facades of mountains clearly show the relationship of mountains and the site. We can see the site that is between two mountain ranges. And its axis points to a big valley of the Central Mountains Range. So we regarded the valley as a spiritual sign of the site. Forest clearing in the middle of the site to give a view of the mountains is also a way to show our respect. Alluvial area and site positioin
Farmland The site is a 300*200m rectangular farmland located on a flat between Central Mountains Range and Coastal Mountains Range. The site's direction corresponds to a massive valley in the Central Mountains Range.
Stones The river from the valley brings a lot of pebbles down to the flat. You can find plenty of them just by digging a small hole. Local people use these pebbles to build walls or terrace as their farmland's boundary.
Facade of Centr
Road system and site position
Average 1.5% slope
Pebbles that w
ral Mountains Range
ral Mountains Range
were dug out from the site & valley
Period The process of construction begins with a Formosan Alder forest. It is a pioneer species which has a rapid growing speed and the ability to fertilize the soil. After 5 to 10 years, we clear the center of the forest for cultivating the plants that we need in the future. At this stage, the earth is fertile and the outside forest can protect the young plants from strong winds. When the plants are big enough then the garden is completed. This agrarian model could be extended to the whole area. Everyone farms in their walled gardens. The cloisters of Formosan Alder provide enjoyable shade for walking, and the central clearing leads their view to the nearby mountains and valley. Everyone is separated but also linked at the same time. A contemplative limited life will be presented.
Formosan Alder
1st - 3rd year Formosan Alder forest
Formosan Alder corridor
3rd - 6th year Farmhouse setting
6th - 15th year Farming in the central clearing
After 15th year Garden completed and model extension
Final stage Cultivating in cloisters, everyone is separated yet linked by the valley at the same time.
Process thinking
Site
Valley
Pebbles
Grid
Mountains
Cycling fire of agriculture
Hortus Conclusus
Cloister
Grotto
Temple
Pergola
Terrace
Concept
Forest
Tree farm
Green architecture
Design elements
Colonnade
Water garden
Statue
Terrace
Avenue
Tree volume
Top view of Forest of Metaphor Concept A wooden cathedral standing between two mountains ranges and pointing out the valley is the initial idea of the design.
Dynamic
"Into the same river we step and do not step. We exist and we do not exist." - Heraclitus
Structure Corridors and Forests form the basic structure of Forest of Metaphor. As an application of intercolumniation, different corridors symbolize different speeds of walking, and the forests are the chambers for use or monument. We consider the garden as architecture. Corridors and forests connect with each other in an inseparable way. Overlapping corridors cause changes in the experience of time. Through this way, pedestrians experience the same space with another aspect. Here, garden is a machine of thinking and connecting. Treillage An inspiration from Le Notre's gardens, treillage is decoration for woodland. Additionally, it provides clear space for human activities in a forest. It is a practical tool for approaching nature. In Forest of Metaphor, I applied treillage as the boundary of enclosed untrimmed woodland and meditation forest. The treillage used for the meditation forest is twice as dense. That is because the meditation forest is an accessible area, and it needs more privacy. Untrimmed enclosed woodland Untrimmed enclosed woodlands are groups of trees which are planted in 5*5m grid. They are bounded by wooden trelliage and would never be trimmed from the inside. Even the weeds or wild trees would not be cleaned in these areas.
a. a. c. d.
e.
b.
f. Forest arrangement
a. b. c. d. e. f.
untrimmed enclosed woodlands meditation forest vestibule hypostyle hall Moonlight Grove of Man
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
drive inner corridor terrace library Avenue of Faith temple portico pergola passage
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Corridor & construction arrangement
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10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
little cloister residence octogonal folly outer corridor square folly dark trail pyramid
Plan of Forest of Metaphor
Treillage Treillage for enclosed untrimmed woodland(left) & meditation forest(right).
Tree Arrangement and Study
Form of brenches, tree bark & leaves Trees' textures and forms affect space a lot. To present this notion, we study trees' growing situations at different distances, and applied them in different spaces.
Chinese Jujube
Formosan Sweet Gum
Chinese Wisteria
Taiwan Incense Cedar
Madras Thorn
Silver Oak
Lemon Eucaly
Formosan Sweet Gum
Beakpod Eucalyptus
Beef Wood
Madras Thorn
Punk Tree
Silver Oak
Palimara Alstonia
Lemon Eucaly
Taiwan Incense Cedar
Chinese Jujube
Dammar Pine
Dammar Pine
Landform
Terrace From the model, you can see that the library is situated on a terrace while the temple is sunk into the earth. I used the same scale and some similar elements on these two buildings. Visitors will feel nostalgic while they visit.
Four areas We divided the site into four pieces. The largest peice follows the original 1.5% slope, while the others are flat. Each area's altitude is different. I use follies as joints to connect them. From the model, we also can see the gaps of the long pool and the Avenue of Faith. The Avenue of Faith lies along the 1.5% slope, and long pool does not.
Terrace of library Sunken temple
+4.35
+0
+3.3 1.5%
Octogonal folly It is a joint that leads to four areas.
Octogonal folly
+3.3
Sunken temple The temple is a reversal version of Temple of Vesta which is for my personal hobby.
+1.5
Terrace of library
Model At the beginning, the bottom right area is higher than top right area, but it is surmounted by 1.5% slope at the middle.
Moonlight garden
Guiding moonlight, my true mentor...
The setting of the moonlight garden is to encourage people enjoying solitude and discovering those tiny things that hide amon 10*10m cubes in the courtyard are stone paving which are made from pebbles that collected from the site. Below the cubes, th dense lemon eucaly forest. Drainages, tree nursery, dry creek and pebbles; the moonlight garden is a metaphor of local landsca
14.
15.
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13. 12.
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ng the darkness. Six he irrigation canals link the ape and agrarian culture.
0.
1.
0. portico 1. balustrade-shaped statue 2. balcony 3. pergola 4. Grove of Man 5. folly 3.
6. 10*10m pebble pavement
2.
7. rectangular stone benches 8. drainage 9. water tank 10. outer cloister 11. flower bed and pots 12. movable wrought iron work 1.
5.
4.
13. residence 14. the passage to the library 15. driveway
Rhythm
"I call architecture as frozen music" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
According to intercolumination of trees, we know that the distance of columns or tree trunks affect our feelings about walking. I put this into practice in the moonlight garden. All the distances in the moonlight garden are derived from 1.8m, a standard height of a man. I believe this is the minimum distance for a colonnade. People perceive that they are moving while they have passed a distance of a man.
Display Different distances are subtly joined or overlaid. Taking pergola as an example, the pillers of pergola is derived from a single mode "1.35-1.35-1.35". Repeat this mode, then a new order "4.35" would appear. By adding two rows of "4.35", "4.35" becomes to the main melody, while "1.35" is the chord that riches the tune. With these different aspects, connecting other rhythms at the same time becomes possible. Portico and forest now join the playing.
Statue A group of small statues imitating balustrade under a real balustrade. Statues have always played an important role in classic gardens. They are more like components rather than individual art works. Besides helping people getting into the atmosphere or playing as a ornament, a statue can form space by its own volume. The statue in moonlight garden plays as a viewpoint but also as a boundary. The balustrade shape insinuates the tempo of steps, corresponding to the "rhythm".
Balustrade-shaped statues
1.35 mode
1,35
1,35
1.35 mode repeat =4.35
1,35
4,35
1,35
4,35
4.35 mix 1.35
4,35
4,35
1,35 4,35 1,35 4,35
Section of pergola & balustrade statue
Section & facade of pergola
Architecture
Residence
Residence It is a place for personal study. Each cube represents a unit of a person. The four facades of building correspond to the four orientations, and the flat roof is set for astronomical observation. The whole building is enclosed by wrought iron. It is an imitation of Villa Gamberaia, aiming at reducing the dominance of the building and heightening the position of the garden. Architecture here is an significant object but not in a leading role. As Christopher Tunnard said, "to co-ordinate is all."
Roof
Facade Second & third floors
First floor
Section Basement
Library The library's design is according to Jorge Luis Borges' "The Library of Babel". The article describes a library which is composed by countless hexagonal rooms. Each room connects to another six rooms, while the floors are linked by endless spiral stairs. First floor contains a toilet and a niche for sleep. Second and third floor are places for storing books, and the basement is a passage to Avenue of Faith. The change of geometry implies the time, from past to the future.
Horror Triangle Triangles commonly feature in ritual. I used them a lot in my design as a symbol of hidden fear. Like the unspeakable monster that hides under children's beds, they are an ordinary but noticeable existence. You can find them in the end of Avenue of Faith and the pyramid at the corner.
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." - Howard Phillips Lovecraft A real serious garden art should contain both a bright side and a dark side. Only when people fear, do they respect.
Dark forest Unknown destination and direction disturb people. Hypostyle hall and meditation forest would have similar effects. They are giant in scale, and look infinite at glance.
Pyramid The pyramid at the northwest corner.
Vestibule Vestibule, the grove of the entrance of Avenue of Faith, We included the upper one in the final plan. People enter here by passing through the basement of library.
Hypostyle hall is a metaphor of masjestic dark forest. Fear the nature is our warning.
Avenue of Faith Looking at the dark meditation forest from the end of Avenue of Faith.
The little pool on the top stair
DAZUAN PARK Professional work
A small park in Xiangshan, Hsinchu. I participated this project in teacher's studio "++". There is a kndergarden beside the park. So the visiter composition is mainly children, parents and elderly. All the trees are origin. We redesigned the pavement and add some herbs to clear the boundary. A terrazzo slide was added at the north side and the slide connects the passage that around the park, which is a small cloister for elderly.
Plan of Dazuan Park
Section of Dazuan Park
NANGANG PARK PUBLIC TOILETS Professional work - exhibition
Plan of toilets
Nangang Park public toilets It's a group of five restrooms in a big park. I participated in this project starting in 2017 through completion in 2019. Each toilet is for different groups, including disabled, male, female, parent-child and transgender. We use black terrazzo as each restroom's skin, and the round holes on their backs are vents and fans.
Waterstand Washstand in the middle, which is also coverd by black terrazzo.
AIR FORCE HEADQUARTER Professional work - exhibition
An exhibition in a historical building, an abandoned air force headquarters. Our goal is to record the current situation of the inside building with photographs. Standard of photograph We chose 3 rooms which have different luminance levels and filmed them with different exposure times. Then we selected 1/2 as our standard to ensure most of rooms could be presented and compared.
Exhibition result
Floor plan of the building
The lu
Nikon FM PC-NIKKOR 28mm 1:3.5 Kentmere 400
Bright
Medium
Dark
1/500
1/250
1/125
1/60
1/30
1/15
1/8
1/4
1/2
1/1
2/1
4/1
8/1
uminance of each room is obious.
Exposure experiment
16/1
HUZI MOUNTAIN VILLAGE Professional work - exhibition
It is an exhibition held in Taiping Elementary School, at the middle of Huzi Mountain, nearby Keelung harbor. The exhibition has four parts: bird view, terrain, architecture, and texture. They are series of local landscape studies from largescale to small-scale. As you can see from the exhibition photo, each row of chairs, tables and high tower represents a part of the exhibition.
The facade of Huzi mountain The long building at the middle is Taiping Elementary School. It divides Huzi mountain into half.
Walking trace figure ground I redorded my walking trace. This recording contents every passage that a human can pass, including fire lanes and abandoned house. The circle is the playground of elementary school.
Architecture of Huzi Mountain Village Huzi Mountain Village is a result of overlaying and terrain. You can easily observe the trail of construction's evolution on the streets. These constructions have bizarre shapes that accord to the limitations of complex terrain, old buildings and limited budget. I chose two areas, then surveyed and recorded their facade and section to highlight the interesting complex.
A building's first floo is submerged by a new concrete path, so a door and stairs were added in.
A threshold for preventing water from flowing into the house.
Building section of Huzi Mountain Village
Building facade of Huzi Mountain Village
MADOU ORCHARDS STUDY Professional work - exhibition
This orchards study is a part of Madou Exhibition. Madou is a small town which is quite famous for high quality pomelo fruit. The biggest difference between Madou and the other towns is the large number of pomelo orchards. In the early years of Madou, planting pomelo trees was common, and almost everyone's yard has few trees, thus creating a unique landscape of a city in orchards or orchards in a city. Nameless gardens The orchard occupies an important position in Madou, but it is hidden in space and not easily experienced. This is mainly because of the closure and private characteristics of the orchards. It is a pity that the main space structure of Madou was neglected for a long time. To this end, this chapter records the orchards of Madou and reveals its relevance as gardens. Madou's orchards have three main elements: the pomelo tree, the wall, the entrance, and we can easily associate them to the ancient gardens of West Asia. Eden, known as the first garden in the history of mankind, has walls and rivers, the garden is full of all kinds of fruit trees, and the gate of the garden was guarded by angels. But we have to go back to an earlier age, even to the origin of the word "garden"; "garden" was originally used to represent an enclosed land. After a long evolution, its meaning changed from agricultural land into an ornamental, entertainment garden, and later even paradise. The Madou's orchards reflect the most primitive garden type. They are closed, economical, and nameless, but they reflect the purest joy of mankind. The activities that possibly happened in these primitive gardens can be furthered by imagining the Islamic gardens, people strolling under neat orange gardens, chatting and enjoying the fragrance of orange and the cool feeling from drains...
Ochards arrangement Orchards suround Madou town.
Ochards recording We selected and recorded 10 orchards by drawing plans and photographing.
23 11'57"N 120 16'49"E
23 11'44.7"N 120 16'58.2"E
23 11'09.0"N 120 15'32.1"E
23 10'27.0"N 120 14'36.7"E
23 11'28.3"N 120 16'02.3"E
23 10'43.9"N 120 15'06.2"E
23 11'19.1"N 120 16'38.1"E
23 10'14.9"N 120 14'21.6"E
23 11'44.6"N 120 16'57.4"E
23 11'00.9"N 120 15'56.5"E
TEXTURE STUDY
Professional work - exhibition
Texture Texture collecting is a studio activity among the exhibitions. People copy the surface of local objects using simple tools, including carbon paper, stick and phone camera. This activity was lead by my teacher.
Standardized texture collecting The stick is to make sure the focal distance of the photographs are the same.
Early version for ++ personnel Early version of texture collecting in Madou, by using paper and monocular camera.
Standardized texture collecting Studio participant collecting a texture at Huzi Mountain Village.
BOMBING HISTORY & LANDSCAPE Professional work - exhibition
History The Bombing of Formosa in 1945 is part of a forgotten history of Taiwan. During this period, cities in Taiwan were bombed to varying degrees. However, the pilots of the US Air Force also left plenty of geographical data. These data have become the best way to understand the past Taiwanese landscape. In the exhibitions, we presented locally related mission reports and the current status for comparation.
Using mission diaries and aerial photos to compare with current landscape. (Keelung harbor)
Madou aircraft shelter The aircraft shelters scattered in the Madou Airfield were used to park the aircraft, and these unique landscapes were considered bombing targets at the time. Typically shelters' corners are usually right angles, but the shelters' corners of Madou are round. These shelter's scale is large. They are about 5 meters high, and both longer and wider than 30 meters. You can easily find them on aerial maps. Even today, such space is still shocking and interesting.
Aerial photo of Madou Airfield by US Air Force in 1947
INTERCOLUMNIATION of TREES Personal study
A study about the distance of trees and the interdependent relationship of tempo and proportion. Besides distance and height, the thickness of tree trunks is also important here. The following graphs are Araeostyle, Diastyle and Eustyle, referenced from Roman architect Vitruvius.
Araeostyle Four or more diameters
Diastyle Three diameters
Eustyle Two and a quarter diameters
TEMPLE of MODERN VIRTUE Personal study
Light beams and shade should be considered in landscape design. They are the most common and dramatic things that we experience in a forest. We should consider them deeply, from arrangement to detail, function to ornament. Temple of Modern Virtue is a demonstration that views landscape design as serious architecture. Space forming can be done by plants in a precise way. The joint of the branches and trunk is like capital of pillars, where the real decoration of space is.
Photo by Josef Sudek
STATUE of SOUND Personal study
From Italian Renaissance to English picturesques, statues always played a significant role in gardens. However, a classic Roman statue may not be suited for a modern garden. So I designed one myself. This statue is an imitation of the cartilage of a human ear. It would stand at a wall's corner and in a place about listening.
Ear cartilage The idea of bone mimicry is inspired by modern sculptor Henry Moore.
OTHER WORKS School courtyard practice
He Ping Park public works bid
Wuri 8th Cemetery Park public works bid