Urban approach and strategy.
The situation of the new building of the Shuitou ferry terminal rises up a series of discussions about the future direction of the whole area.
On one hand, we have the existing landscape, picturesque, with low height hills, local vegetation, the sea shore, and the existing villages and nucleus of small houses which contain various monuments. On the other hand we have the existing Shuitou Pier, with the actual ferry terminal, outstanding in the landscape because of the position and scale.
And finally we have the whole new urban intervention and the intention to modernize the port installations and the whole area, looking for the future development of the area and the whole island. For this intervention, the future building of the ferry terminal will be the first and the most important.
As being one of the first and greatest interventions that are done in the island of Kinmen after so many years, we believe that the implementation of the new terminal building will mark the directions of the development of the whole area. For this reason, we believe that the urban and landscape considerations should be much taken into consideration, and they should prevail on the architecture of the building.
Our intervention is based on a careful observation of the site. For this reason, the visit to the site was very important because it revealed us the quality of the existing landscape with the old villages are integrated in a vernacular way.
We also learned a lot about the history, culture and the identity of the people of the Island. We learned that there is a lot of heritage to appreciate and enhance, nice landscape and natural sites to be preserved. A richness that we feel it should be the most important feature for any future development because it will preserve the identity of the island. Kinmen is not Xiamen nor Guylang island. It has a different and precious identity that has been preserved for so many years and makes it special. We feel like this is the first thing that the visitor should now about Kinmen, and we would like that our building should talk about all this richness.
