Taiwan Architectural Award-Acceptance Speech
From Architect HSIEH and Atelier-3
Acceptance Speech for Taiwan Architecture Award 2011
Although most interpret the work we do in disaster areas as “humanitarianism”, the key motivation that gives us the strength to continue this work is the recognition of our architectural expertise.
We are really capable of building these houses within limited budgets-----
High standard eco-friendly green architecture
Antiseismic buildings with the lowest damage after a disaster
These houses are built by the residents, at the same time we take into account the protection of the right to work, psychological recovery, as well as community and cultural self-affirmation and recognition.
We do not merely focus on reconstruction after disasters.
Disasters give us a chance to clear the debt of all the inappropriate architectural behaviours inherited from the past.
Architecture of ordinary people’s homes……
”Housing for ordinary people” is the principal gate we’ve been trying to open for more than a decade.
What’s the problem with “the housing of ordinary people” ?
The 7 hundred million farmers in China, or say 70% of the world’s population, are gradually losing their traditional ways of life and values; they adopt techniques and materials unfamiliar to them, use up a lifetime’s efforts and savings to build RC and tile clad houses which are costly, vulnerable to earthquakes, bad for the environment, and unreasonable…..This is a black hole so deep we can hardly peer into it.
Architecture professionals are out of their depth in this sphere, having never so much as tested the water in this area before.
Moreover, the issue challenges both generally-understood operational modes in contemporary architecture as well as contemporary notions of value, even aesthetics…
Under such circumstances, there’s no way architectural professionals can tend to all the details like tailors do, nor can he be as demanding as an orchestra conductor; rather he’s more like a film director that brings out the ingenuity of the cast, within the structure and platform he designs….
The “intersubjectivity” of Habermas, the term we’ve mentioned numerous times, is an admonition for modernism.
Architecture professionals (should) only do the limited, the pivotal and the essential, and the rest should be left open to the residents.....
The Typhoon Morakot reconstruction of the villages of indigenous tribes is the largest scale project of our team in the past 10 years and has also demonstrated the viability of this operational mode. My appreciation goes out to the understanding and trust from the Red Cross TaiChung Branch and WorldVision Taiwan, and to all the supporting friends and the painstaking work of our partners.
