A Little shining box with a fresh perspective - Taipei Fine Arts Museum Store

In the 1960s, with the economy in development and the population expanding rapidly after World War II, a group of architects formed the Metabolism movement. Using the core structure of the building as the load-bearing device, the architects of the Metabolism movement developed diverse ways to explore the land and space. Architect Kao, the designer of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, is one of the important figures of the Taiwanese Metabolism movement.

The whole floor of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum is more than 24,169 sqm, but The Little Museum Store is only 45 sqm, located in the corner of the lobby. Our challenge here was how to take that small little corner to make the biggest impact possible. While we designed something new, we still kept the memory emphasizing the window of the original booth. It not only stands for a simple shop but also the history of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. We knew the Metabolism concept is the only way to better visualize the design of the gift shop and to further develop the original concept of the building. Through stacking the movable cantilever structures, we created an interesting structure that provides spatial flexibility which allows visitors to see the ordinary gift shop in a new way every time they visit.

During the design and construction we had to alter our design to smoothly accomplish the space as we expected, we have to reduce the cantilevers' weight as much as possible, not only for the construction progress but also for their future employees to move the structures easily. As a result, we concur the situation with the structural engineer by calculating the load-bearing capacity first and found out a perfect solution with our craftsman on how to reduce the weight of the cantilever shelves.

As we mentioned, the store is located in a small corner on the first floor of Taipei Fine Arts Museum, so when it comes to designing the lighting system of the store, we have to consider the daylight is not sufficient enough. In order to solve this situation, we use upward and downward indirect lighting to illuminate the souvenir products to be seen. For the ceiling, we utilize the original lightweight steel construction, exchange all the flat lights and calcium silicate boards with translucent acrylic boards, and turn the whole upper space into a luminous ceiling, so the current area transformed into a shining box as the result.

While only occupying 0.2% of the museum, the design can drastically change the movement and structure of the lobby to give a fresh perspective to different visitors each time. When people spin the cantilevers into different directions, it extends outward and the creation of a totally different space appears. It is another large-scale artwork that spontaneously and playfully lays out into the Taipei Fine Arts Museum lobby.