Standing on a hill to the west of the port,Taiping Elementary School witnessed the rise and fall of the Keelung Port. The Taiping Elementary School was founded in 1959,next to the Zeng Zai Liao Community to provide the children of workers working on the west side of the port with education. As Keelung Port became obsolete, the population outflow of the local citizens increased, and together with the trend of declining birth rates in the era, the number of students studying at the Taiping Elementary School fell gradually to less than twenty. Taiping Elementary School closed in 2017 due to enrollment shrinkage and became a memory.
Rebirth of an Abandoned Campus, Taiping Elementary School Becomes a New Attraction of the City in the form of a Blue Bird! Fortunately, the Taiping Elementary School has not become buried history, through efforts from the Keelung City Government, it was revitalized and successfully transformed into Taiping Bleu & Book.The government cooperated with the “Bleu & Book ” . The abandoned campus was transformed into the “Taiping Bleu & Book Bookstore” which overlooks the Keelung Mountains, Keelung Port, and the limitless sea.
The bookstore sits on a unique landscape boundary with the hills of the Keelung mountains on one side and the port on the other. The location sparked infinite creativity for the landscape design of “Taiping Bleu & Book”. The texture of the pavement is a meaningful imitation of the northern Taiwanese coastline, where reef rocks are eroded by continual wave movements. The seawater moisturizes the rocks. Moss and greenery flourished along the shoreline.
For the selection of plants, flora commonly found in Taiwanese coastal areas such as miniature bamboo , fragrant pittosporum, Chinese wormwood, Indian hawthorn, silver cock’s comb, goat’s foot, etc., were cleverly chosen. The selected greenery illustrates a microcosm of the fascinating vegetation covering the Taiwanese coastal areas. At the same time, rough-leaved holly that is regularly seen in the mixed forests of the hills of the northern coast, Japanese hawthorn, bird’s-nest fern, sword fern, Araceae plants, and grasses are planted, resonating the forestscape of the low-altitude mixed forests. After all, the landscape design in urban space is also part of the city’s landscape. Rather than creating an exquisite landscape design that stands out in the city, Motif Planning & Design Consultants chose to weave the scenery of the mountains and the sea with meticulously chosen plants into a miniature botanical garden that resembles the vegetation of the Island. The design not only echoes the rebirth of the abandoned campus, but also materializes a new and innovative portrayal of this unique geographic space.
Data
Landscape Architecture: Motif Planning & Design Consultants
Architecture office involved: Hsuyuan Kao Architects & Associates
Photo credits: Motif
