NCKU student bags Taiwan young architect award

2015/09/08

An undergraduate from the Department of Architecture of National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City was named Sept. 6 winner of the Far Eastern Architectural Young Talent Award.

Ko Tsai-yi’s submission beat out 138 other entries from home and abroad in the annual competition on the strength of its open space design. She incorporated the checkerboard street patterns of Tainan City in southern Taiwan, as reflected in the box-shaped book shelves attached to both sides of the building’s inner walls.

With support from award organizer Taipei City-based Far Eastern Group, Tsai will fly the flag for Taiwan in the 2015 Shinjinsen Asian Architecture Rookie Awards competition next month in Vietnam.

Another project winning the hearts of the judges is Huang Yu-cheng’s design of a church doubling as a community center. The undergraduate is from the Department of Architecture at Tamkang University in New Taipei City.

Huang also won the opportunity to vie for top honors at Shinjinsen with the support of FEG and the recommendation of Lee Young-il, an architecture scholar from Japan and member of the judging panel.

Three other architecture majors from Shih Chien University in Taipei, as well as TKU and Tunghai University in Taichung City, also earned a special mention and cash prize of NT$20,000 (US$609) each.

In addition to honoring excellence in architectural design, the FE young talent award aims to encourage undergraduates to incorporate local elements in their designs while promoting dialogues with their peers from other countries and territories in Asia.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=234656&ctNode=2194&mp=9)