WABI SABI

Q-LAB

Short description

Tea, has become the essential part of everyday life in Taiwan over the last few decades of popularization, modernization and even evolution. Today with more than 25 thousand tea shops in almost every corner of Taiwanese cities, the culture of drinking tea has been transformed from once sacred or even ceremonial in ancient times to now widely affordable and trendy for everyone to enjoy from.

The design of CSFC headquarter was inspired by the Japanese philosophy “Wabi-Sabi” which is often associated with tea culture and defined as “beauty in imperfection”. Such ideology represents quality of peace, serenity, goodness and respect for all living things. Since Tea Ceremonies were usually held in the form of “Wabi-Sabi” setting, the concept of “a house inside a garden” becomes the most prominent theme throughout the entire project.

To perform the concept of “a house inside a garden,” five sets of houses were created and stacked on top of each other in this headquarter building. Each of these houses features a three-story-tall “garden” in the middle of its massing. These “gardens” not only improve the spatial quality of work environment but also provide direct visual connection to the floors across, below and above.