Like a surrealistic movie set
Kris Yao, who had previously designed the Hsinchu THSR station, won the contract for designing the Yunlin and Changhua stations. Yao, who studied film in the United States, enjoys envisioning architectural space in terms of “minute-long images.” Seeing in his mind’s eye travelers moving hither and thither, unsettled and alien to their environment, he wanted to create stations that would give visitors “scenes that would touch their hearts while providing some solace and comfort for the soul.”
He set out to create visuals that would impact people, and would trigger their spatial intuition and perceptivity. He also wanted to create stations that local people would identify with—that is, local residents would feel that the stations are representative entryways for, and symbols of, their own communities. Finally, he wanted stations that would generate a sense of expectation and aspiration going forward, a feeling that the future will be a better place.
The Changhua THSR station, which captured the 2016 “Architizer A+ Popular Choice Award” (decided by an online vote among design enthusiasts after nomination by an expert jury), is built around pillars inspired by flowers. Green plants circle the interior, and there is a natural contiguity from them to the cultivated fields outside. There is a certain sense of the surreal under the decorative lighting, as if you were on a film set.
The pillars evoke the fact that Changhua County is a major center of Taiwan’s flourishing floriculture industry. The most fascinating thing about them is the way they generate a sense of space, while at the same time blocking one’s line of vision. Kris Yao, who has very much the aura of an artist, invested a great deal of creative energy into designing these “arching wall-like pillars in the form of blossoms,” and they really manifest the mental imagery of a bouquet. They not only increase the visual space, they also give the stream of travelers passing under them a sense of ever-changing scenery.
The tops of the faux-flower pillars emerge through the roof in triangular shapes. They are angled to create north-facing exposure, and they allow natural light to shine onto the pillars below. The interior light is therefore also undergoing constant change depending on the angle of the sunlight.
Actually, northbound passengers just alighting may find the triangular roof features inexplicable. But when they proceed on the staircase toward ground level, what greets the eye brings instant understanding. As soon as they see a pillar below each triangular shape on the roof, and see the light reflected mirror-like from the floor, they realize: “I get it. It’s a flower!”
Travelers who raise their heads and look upward will see a ceiling of cool blue, and will naturally feel “chill” and that “there’s no rush.” One’s line of sight is then pulled toward the translucent greenhouse paneling that makes up the windows, and the encircling green plants, putting the observer in a relaxed frame of mind as these elements blur the distinction between interior and exterior.
Stepping outside the station proper, there is no sharp break in the visual line from inside to outside. Rather, there is an uninterrupted transition to the fields that surround the station. The station is located in a Changhua township called Tianzhong, meaning “among the fields,” and it was lauded in olden times as one of the Eight Scenic Views of Changhua, a place where clouds drift in the breeze and birds flit among the paddies. Dusk brings a kind of dreamlike hallucination in purple hues, while at night you find yourself in an arboretum or conservatory from some surreal world, as if entering a scene from a science fiction movie, exploring the future.
The scenes never repeat, creating precisely the dramatic and cinematic effect that Kris Yao so loves.
A bird’s-eye view of the Yunlin THSR station. Architect Kris Yao arranged pillars and roof panels to create an impression of sunlight piercing through clouds.