Daily Vacation Merges Hotel Functionality into Opulent Residential Interior

With a building height of nearly 265 meters, it stands as the tallest luxury residential building in Taiwan, integrating residential and five-star hotel functions vertically. It becomes the only hotel-style residential estate in southern Taiwan, providing different residents with their respective suitable living spaces, much like the members of the owning group of this project: a mother residing in Kaohsiung and a daughter returning to the country periodically, catering to their individual residential needs by offering integrated dual-functional spaces.

Taiwan is located in an earthquake zone, and we frequently encounter earthquake disasters due to its narrow land area and dense population, with most people living in high-rise buildings. Considering the seismic shaking experienced at higher floors, which poses risks of falling objects, we have repositioned our design to lower levels, focusing on the overall layout below waist height. This approach reduces the weight at higher levels and emphasizes the use of floor-mounted furniture wherever possible. Ceilings and walls at higher levels are kept clean and simple, employing minimalistic designs with linear patterns that subtly echo the rise and fall of seismic movements. Residents can feel safer here, even during earthquakes, as the risk of injury from falling objects is minimized.

Surrounded by mountains, sea, rivers, and ports, this project is a vacation residence. From left to right, the entire space, spanning 15.5 meters wide, connects the study, living room, dining room, and bedroom, breaking away from established layouts, frameworks, and restrictions imposed by beams and columns from super-tall buildings (In Taiwan, beams and columns supporting super-tall buildings typically need to be reinforced and enlarged, and seismic-resistant measures as well as fire sprinkler systems are installed to ensure building safety.) Horizontal floor slabs extend between window frame columns, constructing picturesque large-scale framed views. With floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides, natural daylight is introduced, capturing the skyline and sea views, overcoming the drawback of single-sided lighting on-site and creating a vacation retreat for returning home and an age-friendly living space.

This nearly 70-story tall building rises from the waterfront like a cliff-side vacation home, outstanding yet unassuming, overlooking the turbulent sea and organic rocky scenery. It transforms into multi-layered wave-like ceiling shapes, with fireproof gravel coatings on raw steel beams, retaining ceiling height, integrating neat beams and intricate air conditioning equipment, integrating air vents, becoming the finishing touch of the space.

The space is divided into four main areas: the entrance foyer, defined by deep wood tones, presents a natural scenery different from the bustling cityscape, calming the heart’s journey home, and providing practical storage functions to leave luggage, worries, and concerns outside the door. As one steps into the wide public area, physical partition ceilings are removed, extending the space into a transparent sightline. Through the contrast of straight lines in hard furnishings and curves in soft furnishings, combined with freely defined areas by furniture, functional areas are delineated.

With the public area as the center, the space is divided into left and right blocks. The left side is the mother’s main living area, including the bedroom, study, and bathroom, introducing light through glass sliding doors to create a sense of purity and penetration in the space. The right side is the daughter’s vacation area upon returning home, defining public and private areas with soft curtains, and defining living areas and spatial depth according to different functional uses.