Meet the Taichung Cen­ter, Taiwan’s massive eco-friendly install­a­tion. The build­ing comes com­plete with eco-skin, a Vene­tian blind-style cov­er­ing which will allow air­flow and light to enter the struc­ture. The cen­ter will also fea­ture large grassy areas in an effort to focus on the East­ern wis­dom of har­mony between nature and dwell­ings. Taiwan hopes that this new pro­ject will spur interest in renew­able build­ing prac­tices through­out coun­try and become a land­mark among future eco-designed struc­tures.
Per­haps even cooler than the building’s concept and design is the use of Photo­vol­taic Glass. PV Glass pro­duces res­id­en­tial solar power like a panel while still func­tion­ing as a win­dow. As Sir Nor­man Foster said, “solar archi­tec­ture is not about fash­ion, it is about sur­vival.” He’s right, but with Taiwan’s very mod­ern appeal and rad­ical design, solar pan­els would have likely dis­trac­ted from the theme and gre­en­ways because of their need for space.