Waterscape and Playing Dome

NOIZ's proposal was selected as the best public art competition in 2020 to be installed in a park in front of the train station in Longtien, a small town in southern Taiwan. Surrounded by the landscape, the park is composed of two main elements that blend into the landscape.

The first is an installation of irregularly shaped mirror-finished stainless steel plates, a miniature version of the famous "Coral Tan" lake created by the nearby Wushantou Dam. Like Coral Tan, a beautiful lake hidden in the mountains not far from Lungtian, the flat mirrored surface reflects the surrounding landscape. The Wushantou Dam, which forms Coral Tan, is considered the cornerstone of Taiwanese agriculture, and is one of the largest dams in Taiwan that still functions as the keystone of Taiwan's agricultural water supply, enriching the fertile Jiayi Plain, and is also known for the significant contribution of the Japanese engineer, Yoichi Hatta, in its construction. In order to make this heritage of Taiwan's modernization accessible as a symbol of local pride, a permanent lake of precisely 1/150 scale was installed as a symbol of local pride and at the same time as playground equipment that children can touch and feel physically.

The other is a permanent air dome trampoline called the Fluffy Dome. The two series of small domes function as a hill overlooking the miniature coral tale, as an observatory to feel the intricate shape of the coral tale that gave it its name in everyday life, and as an exercise facility where children can forget themselves and enjoy themselves with their whole bodies, as a device to imprint the pride of the community on their bodies. At the same time, the volume of these two domes is a learning material to visualize the volume of water that the 1/150 scale coral tale right beside it can store. This public art is planned to function in a complex manner as a facility that allows visitors to experience the function, history, and beauty of the industrial heritage that supports Taiwanese agriculture around them in a variety of ways, and to pass it on to future generations.

Indirect lighting is installed along the contours of the stainless steel coral tale, which, when darkened, illuminates a landscape that is inverted in unevenness from the actual dam. The sight of the fantastic mirrored coral tale glowing and floating in the evening landscape, which is not possible with an actual coral tale, functions as a device to enhance the beauty of the typical Taiwanese rural landscape and is intended to foster pride in one's town among the children of the community.

Year: 2022

Category: installation

Status: Built

Location: Tainan, Taiwan

Photo Credit: Kyle Yu

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