Location: The Magong airport is located in Husi Township, Penghu County , Taiwan. It was an airport which is used for both military and civil aviation. The lot size is 214,000 square meters, the length and width of the runway is approximately 3,000 meters long and 45 meters wide. This airport provides five individual taxiways.
The shed is located at northeast corner of the Magong Airport. The building provides major taxi parking and waiting purpose with significant location.
Architect: CHI-CHIN LIN
Country: Taiwan
Background: The taxi parking shed in Magong Airport had been let fall into disrepair and was destroyed by typhoon. The Taiwan (ROC) government had a plan to reconstruct this parking shed, by including it in the project of “Low Carbon Island of Penghu”. After our team reviewed the location of the parking shed, we came out a design of “a shed which is more than just a shed” to conform to the project’s purpose.
Idea: Penghu is a beautiful tourist city surrounding by ocean, and full of sunshine, beaches, and cactuses. Through transforming the shed to a sailing image, our idea is to make visitor feel, immediately when they step out the airport, like they’re taking an exciting voyage at sea, accompanied by brilliant sunshine and ocean waves, and enjoy the freedom of speed.
Design: The shed’s appearance was composed of colorful steel plates from a variety of shapes by segmentation, cutting, bending, and misplacement, which allows the shed present a wave-like shape leading to sailing imagery. The “bending” design is to keep the shed be in harmony with the airport; meanwhile, the angle of “bending” is designed to prevent western exposure and mitigate the strong northeast monsoon. The “misplacement” design is to bring fresh air and natural light into the shed to improve the dark and humidity within the shed. Thus, the shed, without consuming unnecessary energy, can successfully achieves carbon reduction purpose.
Construction and Challenge: The first challenge is that all the steel plates need to be produced in Taiwan mainland and shipped from there, and then assembled in Penghu Island. So accuracy is very important in drawing stage. We conscientiously monitored that all the components were lifted and precisely installed, piece by piece, until finishing the shed skin with paint of red, orange, yellow, and blue.
Completion: As a simple architecture as this taxi parking shed, how much different it could be with and without design?
This project demonstrates that a good design could make a steel shed not just a shed.