Star House

By Luca Maria Francesco Fabris - 13 December 2022
Duravit has participated in the project

Two ancient archetypes are always present in Chinese architecture: the row house and the rural courtyard house. The row house is an urban typology, man’s answer to urban density. The origins of the courtyard house are lost in the mists of time, its configuration both functional and symbolic. Practical and born of necessity, the row house is the result of urban explosion and the urgent need to provide housing for the droves of people crowding into the city from the countryside in hope of a better life. The rural house has a heart, the closed courtyard – the tabernacle of the family’s ancestors – against whose outer walls specular copies were added down the years and centuries, replicating the original format for new generations. These building clusters are a typical feature of rural Chinese villages. Their ancient spiritual heart is a tangible testimony to the history of each family clan, their particular stories and future prospects. They resemble a fruit, its seed – that fragment of eternity conferring strength and security – safely nestled in its core.

After studying at MIT and Harvard, Taiwanese Grace Ming-En Chang founded her own firm, atelier GRATIA, in 2009. With this large urban residence in the city of Kaohsiung, she has interconnected the two building archetypes, giving each a new lease of life. The project took shape when Chang recognized a disruption in the strict urban grid at a point where two grid layouts – developed in different periods – collided at different angles, creating an anomalous-shaped plot alien to the rigorous logic of everything else around. For Chang, this odd-shaped pocket of land resembled a star, which, oddly enough, turned out to be the name of one of the streets running along one side of the plot. It was then she decided that the building would be an enormous manifesto embodying her idea of the family as a group of people who, while relating and connecting with their...