Designed for Win Sing Development Company, the tower occupies the centre of a small block alongside Zhongshan North Road, the main arterial connection between central Taipei and its northern districts. This location, along with the low- to mid-rise character of most of Tianmu’s buildings, mean that the project will become a landmark of the neighbourhood.

While the building’s floorplans are based on a small number of repeating apartment types, the addition of the boxes creates slight variations throughout the building. The size and placement of the boxes was determined via digital scripting, which processed considerations such as sun exposure to give the building its playful shape. In this way, the design was able to fulfil the requirements of the brief and respect the limits of the local building code while going “outside the box” to give every one of the building’s 93 apartments a unique floorplan. The benefits of standardisation, such as efficiency of space and services, are thus combined with the benefits of giving each apartment its own individual character.

“Considering this building’s location and its low-rise neighbours, we knew that this would be a building for viewing – something to see, and something to see from”, says MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas. “How could we express that in our design? The boxes popping out from the building signify this quality. They literally reach out into the surroundings, providing ideal lookout platforms to see the mountains and the city. From the street, they form distinctive, eye-catching features for passers-by.”