How would a more than 100 year old Pingtung Military Village, that went under Japanese rule and the former Nationalist government, welcome a newsstand that has disappeared in the daily streets? For a context that integrates newspapers, coffee and outdoor space, we proposed a field experiment of "walls".
In the early low-rise residential form in a social atmosphere of poor public security, the houses in the military village had 1.6-meter-high walls as residential boundaries. The walls are high enough to provide privacy but still allow households to have visual access to each other from their elevated interior floor. Such walls define a civilized era in which people were connected and take care of each other. The new walls of the newsstand, erected in the backyard of one of the houses in the military village, intend to re-examine the connection between people that is challenged by the virtual world of internet.
The two walls are placed in a slanted “T” form. Where the walls intersect is an opening to create connection between the two sides. The 80 degrees between the two walls gives more area to the outdoor space, which responds to the role of the newsstand in the context. The roof on the inner side is lowered and concealed, in order to emphasize the expression of the walls, in anticipation that when one enters the backyard, the military village culture can be furtherly discerned through the building of the newsstand.
Carbonized cork boards are used on the facade for heat insulation and hydrophobicity for the hot summers that are often accompanied by tropical typhoons. For a temporary building, such 100% recyclable material is what we should favor. In the backyard surrounded by a variety of plants, the cork facade integrates the newsstand into the context effortlessly. Newspapers are hung on the cork wall, sharing different perspectives from Taiwan and the world.
Scissor legs commonly used at traditional Taiwanese banquets are further developed and used as a base for the coffee tables in the outdoor space. Conventional stainless-steel stools are restructured and attached on the scissor legs as a height-adjustable and easily-detachable tabletops. Custom made stainless steel accessories are also used as vase holders on the scissor legs, with the support of commonly used camping pigtails. We intend to turn ordinary objects into a possibility of everyday objects for the new generation, and maximize the adjustability of furniture according to the numbers of guests and weather condition.
In the morning, on the way to work, she buys flowers before heading to the newsstand. Today is a busy working day, she sets up some tabletops to a height for standing to echo the convenience of take out coffee, and lowers some tabletops for the guests to sit down for newspapers in a slow morning. In this free and casual space for everyone to walk around, the old space standing up from the new walls seems to be slowly stitching up the difference between the old and the new.
