Taiwan has joined the bandwagon of turning abandoned locations into beautiful places for people to enjoy. This abandoned airport was chosen to become the next site for a brand-new landscape architecture project in the country, by recreating lovely green spaces into huge sensory experiences for visitors. It is considered to be a refuge for those needing a reprieve within the city to get away from the hustle and bustle of it all.
Located in one of the main cities in Taiwan, Taichung, the Phase Shift Park will have at least 200 varieties of plant species, as well as 10,000 trees strategically placed all over the space to give residents shade from the heat, more so during the warmer humid summers. But what is said to be the main highlight of the development are 12 urban landscape installations that correspond to Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Principles of the 12 Senses.’
Although Taichung’s air quality is not as horrible as its neighboring country, it can still be considered quite stifling, especially during the much warmer and incredibly humid summer days. This is mostly because the country is well-known for being hit by the Kuro-Shio, which is considered one of the largest marine currents in the world, adding to the very tropical weather.
The designers of the park chose trees that would provide the most shade, being planted beside the winding lanes that lead from the north to the south areas within the park. This will allow for the installations to have a play on Steiner’s senses of smell, hearing, taste, touch, speech, thinking, equilibrium, vision, movement, life, ego, and warmth.
As visitors go through the park, they will see a lake that is designed to create ‘lifelike echoes,’ while there is also a field of flowers that are cultivated precisely to ‘envelope it with an intoxicating curtain of perfumes.’
The topography, which was designed by French architecture firm Mosbach Paysagistes, was intentionally created to take advantage of the wet monsoon season in the country. Beneath the soil of the park is a rather intricate flood control and irrigation system that allows it to make sure the trees are completely refueled and watered all year round, even during the drier months in the country.
Moreover, the initial concept art and early images of the space also depict a much more futuristic landscaping than that of how a natural oasis would appear. It will also help bring in more tourists to the city, as it offers a spaces of shelter, for play and the best part of all, fresher air.
By using Steiner’s idea of the sensory experience, the abandoned airport turned park is meant to allow people to feel a sense of peace and calm in the green oasis that happens to exist within the busy and dense urban setting that Taichung is better known for.
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