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MVRDV completes stunning new green-roofed wholesale market in Taiwan

2023-02-23T12:41:00-05:00

MVRDV has shared photos of its just-completed “ambitious architectural experiment” wholesale produce market project in Tainan, Taiwan.

The firm’s second foray into the country, open-air Tainan Market features a publicly-accessible green roof, punctuated at one end by an office structure, that can be further adapted for agricultural use while providing users a stepped vista onto the market floor and surrounding landscape beyond.

Image © Shephotoerd

The design team says: “Tainan Market represents an ambitious architectural experiment. Here, MVRDV reinvents the typology of the wholesale market — a building type that is usually housed in simple metal sheds — and turns it into a mixture of a market and a public green space. In doing so, the design takes an often-prosaic part of the food industry and elevates it into a place for the public to experience food and appreciate views of the landscape.”

Image © Shephotoerd

The market is ...

MVRDV breaks ground on terrace-roof produce market in Tainan

2019-03-05T15:56:00-05:00

In one of their latest developments in Taiwan, MVRDV announced the groundbreaking of their upcoming Tainan Xinhua Fruit and Vegetable Market. Designed with LLJ Architects, the open-air wholesale produce market transforms an often-overlooked part of the food industry into a public experience where visitors can meet up, enjoy the products, and take in views of the surrounding rolling landscape.

Image © MVRDV.

Interior. Image © MVRDV.

Located in East Tainan, the market will be a simple 4-story structure topped by an undulating green roof whose terraces will each grow a different crop like pineapples, rice, tea, roses, and more. The accessible roof will also provide sheltered spots, benches, and picnic tables for visitors. As a mixed-use structure, the building will also contain the market's administrative offices, a restaurant, and an exhibition center where the region's agricultural products can be displayed.

Garden. Image © MVRDV.

“[Tainan Market] is completely functional and caters to...

Developer and architects of collapsed Taiwan apartment building arrested

2016-02-11T13:17:00-05:00

Three Taiwanese construction company executives have been detained on charges of professional negligence resulting in death following the collapse of an apartment building that killed dozens. The district prosecutor's office in the city of Tainan said [...] that Lin Ming-hui and architects Chang Kui-an and Cheng Chin-kui were suspected of having overseen shoddy construction of the 17-story Weiguan Golden Dragon building, which crashed onto its side following an earthquake Saturday.

Previously in the Archinect news: Taiwan earthquake: tin cans found as fillers may have caused high-rise to collapse

Taiwan earthquake: tin cans found as fillers may have caused high-rise to collapse

2016-02-08T13:22:00-05:00

Taiwan's Government has ordered an investigation into the collapse of a high-rise building in an earthquake after it emerged tin cans had been used in its construction. Rescue workers found the cans as they searched for survivors two days after the 6.4-magnitude earthquake that has killed at least 37 people.

However, an engineer speaking to Taiwanese TV news channel CNA explained how using cans in construction was not necessarily illegal: “For such purposes in construction, it was not illegal prior to September 1999, but since then styrofoam and formwork boards have been used instead.”