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陳宣誠&吳雅筑

Eric CHEN&Rain WU

The interior of the body comprises a nervous system, musculoskeletal structures, blood vessels, and organs—all of which is covered by a layer of skin. The body is a vehicle for individual evolution and sensory experiences in memory, biology and psychology, and it continuously overwrites history and records awareness and thought. The concept of the body can be extended as a metaphor for architecture: the skin is the expression of space; the muscles and skeleton frame the support structure; the blood vessels and nerves represent the paths for movement controlled and operated by residents; and the internal organs are the channels that create resonance between a body/building and its inhabitants. A building is a flowing archive that continuously evolves and develops in meaning, function, form, and experience.  

Collectivism is constructed from 600 bulletproof shields forming an outer ring around an open space into which bodies can freely enter. The encircled space is a garden in which visitors can linger. The ordered and the organic create a contrast that reflects the conflict between the individual and the institutional in the civil movements of recent years in Taiwan. In events of conflict, a shield acts as an object marking a boundary at the frontlines, between the individual and the institutional. It creates a division of difference between individuals on either side. The size of the shields represents human individuality and has been normalized to highlight institutional control. The work is an investigation of the dialectic relationship between a body’s functions of resistance and nurture through the contrasting imagery of a defensive collective consciousness represented by the shields and an unperturbed garden that naturally continues to grow. Within body of this architecture, resistance to conflict can incubate an indefinable power: a conscious ideology implants itself in the human heart that transcends form, system and collectivism, and creates a mutual saturation between intimacy and displays of power.

The planting of the project is sponsored by Good Hoard Co. Ltd.