The proposal for the New Taipei City Museum of Art - NTCArt- creates a landmark museum for the region and beyond, which is characterized by both its fluid transition between landscape and architecture, and by its formal and structural elegance. Aligning with Yingge’s graduate shift in industries from ceramic manufacturing to tourism and recreation the NTCArt caters to these new developments by creating not only a visually stunning architectural attraction but by redefining the museum typology from an exclusive territory for artist, patrons and experts to a place that promotes art as a lifestyle.
Art as Lifestyle – Concept for a New Art Museum
The project embraces the concept of “Art as a lifestyle” by creating a covered but open groundfloor level and lobby space that is directly connected with the park and lined with shops, restaurants, art book stores and information centers. Its design is intended to create an atmosphere in which the public can experience a seamless fusion of art and lifestyle. This is achieved by softening and removing traditional and spatial boundaries between the museum and the surrounding public park and is continued throughout the museum by creating bright relaxed exhibition spaces with natural daylight and vast views into the surroundings.
The building’s main entrance from the south has a large entrance plaza with drop off areas for busses and cars. The pedestrian bridge, which spans over the creek and Huan-He road connects the entrance plaza with the city center. However the museum was designed with multiple access points from the park to encourage the public to enter and participate. The landscape smoothly transitions upwards into the building while transforming into green roofs for the public service spaces below and creating continuous pathways from the park to the raised lobby space in the center. As one enters up into the lobby space via escalators you bridge over the Special exhibition space below that is framed with large skylights to allow for visual connections with the park and the surrounding restaurants, bookstores and other public spaces.
Exhibition space - Art storage- and Resource center
The art storage for the collection is not hidden away but was designed as sculptural center core for the project. The 85m tall art vault not only protects the art from exposure to sunlight and humidity but forms a visual center and focal point as one moves through the galleries. It also includes all main circulation elements like elevators and stairs.
The exhibition spaces are organized in an upward spiral formation around the core. This creates a large void space above the galleries on the exterior and allows for natural daylight to enter the galleries through skylights from above. It also contributes to the dynamic and expressive morphology of the museums envelope that mimics this movement.
The visitor enters the museum from the park through the open outdoor lobby – a raised platform in the center of the project. Express elevators bring the visitors to the very top of the museum from where they wander back down in a spiral like circulation through the different galleries.
The galleries are designed as bright, relaxed exhibition spaces with plenty of daylight from above and large openings that frame stunning views of the surroundings and form many visual connections between the city, and the exhibition spaces. This visual dialog emphasizes again the idea that art is a ubiquitous and integral part of life promoting a seamless fusion of art and lifestyle.
The resource center and children’s museum of Art are located on the first four levels on the north side of the museum and directly connected to both, the exhibition spaces above and the outdoor lobby, park and public spaces below. Special care was given in placing the classrooms, reading rooms, many of the children’s museum exhibition spaces as well as the auditorium around the lobby space. By maximizing transparency of these spaces they become a lively backdrop for the museums entrance, promoting art in education and as a resource. The Arts hall of fame is part of the same assembly and located on the ground level to the Northeast and highly visible and accessible from the lobby.
The administrative spaces are located on the upper levels of the museum right below the sky view restaurants on the top.
Building materials
The exterior enclosure is designed to be a teal color metal skin with glass openings and skylights. The arts storage core is out of concrete and the exhibition spaces designed with hardwood floors and white plaster walls.
Pedestrian and vehicular Access
Pedestrian access from the park via the existing pathways that lead from anywhere in the park to the outdoor lobby space of the museum. From the city center we propose a pedestrian bridge that crosses the creek and Huan-He road in the south and connects the entrance plaza with the city center.
A new street turning from Huan-He road in the southwest corner of the site provides access for cars and busses. There is a drop off zone at the main entrance plaza and tour bus parking for 10 busses in close proximity to the main entrance of the museum. Parking for 355 passenger cars and 355 motor cycles is provided underground with an access ramp on the southeast corner of the site.
Structural concept
Sustainability Concept
Green building strategies for the NTCArt
The intensity of outdoor activities is one of the basic parameters which define the attraction and social sustainability of a site – the number of people and the time they spend outdoors in the gardens, cafes, restaurants, playgrounds, parks, circulation areas etc. Thus the environmental comfort concept of the NTCArt is aiming to provide an outstanding thermal comfort so that social activities indoors and outdoors are promoted and uphold year round.
General:
approach for a high comfort but low energy building ensemble
based on local climate and resources analysis
facing the hot and humid climate at Taipei
considering the high sun positions
optimizing thermal and visual comfort for visitors
providing an outstanding indoor air quality
taking into account the main wind directions in monsoon and winter periods
Objectives
create excellent indoor and outdoor comfort for visitors
increase comfortable time at semi outdoor spaces by maximizing passive strategies backed up with dedicated local comfort strategies
filter sun light through the facade – not just block – to allow to supply sufficient natural daylight and a generous visual outside connection
minimize electrical energy consumption for artificial lighting
increase air quality by low emitting building materials
provide excellent fresh air supply for the occupants
ensure great flexibility of the spaces
allow individual control of room climate according to visitor frequencies
minimize water usage
reduce electricity for fan, pumps and chillers
compensate the electrical energy for artificial lighting with renewable energy from the facade
increase efficiency of chiller by heat-rejection to the river and ground water
utilize high efficient a/c systems with latent heat recovery
Design considerations for the Climate Engineering
The local weather is characterized by a high solar isolation of about 1600 kWh/m²a and a high average ambient temperature. In winter period ambient temperatures are comfortable for outdoor activities, In summer period, the ambient humidity is high and outdoor comfort is reduced. The ambient humidity is exceeds 11.5 g/kg for more than 6000 h per year.
Semi outdoor Areas
In the warm and humid periods water walls are utilized for local air dehumidification and to provide radiant comfort. Blocking warm and humid air outside air but creating local air movement is key to increase the Perceived Comfort. With these passive and active measures the times with good outdoor comfort will be substantially increased (see detailed outdoor comfort study). In winter time the benefit of solar gains are utilized to compensate for discomfort caused by cold and humid air draught.
Indoor areas, Galleries, Assembly halls
Indoor areas, within the controlled thermal envelope, are conditioned all year round to provide excellent air quality, low humidity and operative temperatures within 20 to 26 °C. In this conditioned environment art is well protected and people encounter excellent fresh air conditions. Especially the densely occupied areas as supplied with fresh air as displacement ventilation which is high efficient to keep the indoor CO2 level low in the occupied areas. Utilizing thermal stratification mixing of fresh and return air is reduced to a minimum. The a/c system is equipped with a high efficient latent heat recovery to reduce the energy and peak load demand.
Archives
Special emphasis is given to the thermal envelop of the archives to reduce infiltration of humid air so that these areas are very efficient and a/c requirements can be reduced.
Good daylight design
The envelope of the ensemble creates a good shading and good daylight condition for all zones. The transparent areas of the façade are optimized for high natural daylight autonomy in the building. Skylight opening in the Galleries are optimized to block direct sun light but to provide views to outside where appropriate and diffuse light where required.
Renewable Energy
The opaque areas of the envelope are used for renewable electric energy production with photovoltaic. The aim of the design is to compensate the total electrical energy demand for the artificial light. So the envelope will become the light filter for natural daylight and the “energy filter” for the artificial light.
Client: New Taipei City Goverment Program: Art Museum Size: 550,000 sqft Budget: NA Completion date: 2011-08-01 Unbuild Material: fiberglass composites, glass Team: Principal:Herwig Baumgartner,Scott Uriu ; Team:Nema Ashjaee,Perla Aguayo, Stephen Sun, Rebecca Gilbert Consultant: Transsolar- climatengineer; Schlaich Bergermann and Partner- Structural engineer
