After the first residential tower in Taipei, MVRDV returns to Taiwan—this time to Taichung City—with another building that breaks away from the traditional apartment-tower model. The project is The Island, yet another tower; however, instead of the centrifugal explosion of cantilevered box-like volumes extending into the landscape (as in Out of the Box), this design is defined by sinuous lines that give the construction—massive, functional, and cost-efficient—the soft, enveloping allure of an organic architecture.

The building establishes an enthusiastic dialogue with vegetation, which overflows from shared terraces, private balconies, and planters, suggesting the idea of a potential and progressive absorption of the building by the natural element.

This conceptual osmosis with nature also draws inspiration from the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. The project borrows his construction technique for the façade, which will feature a mosaic cladding made of small irregular ceramic tiles—an homage to Parc Güell. The tiles, in pale tones, are designed to follow the curvilinear flow of the elevations and to play with the changing light reflections throughout the day.

MVRDV has just obtained the building permit for this development, located on the border between Taichung’s North District and Beitun District. It rises 21 stories and includes 76 apartments (four on each floor). Shared spaces scattered throughout the volume encourage interaction and social exchange among residents: from the services hosted on the first two floors (shops, a restaurant, a karaoke room), to the five communal balconies that, at different heights, carve into the mass of the building with a three-story void creating dramatic chiaroscuro effects on the façade, to the rooftop garden terrace offering a privileged view over the landscape.

As MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs says: “the design of The Island brings a soft touch in a city full of boxes. As with other residential buildings in Taiwan, the building’s underlying layout had to follow a fairly standardised and highly efficient approach. The building’s character therefore has to come from its details, from the soft curves, from the Gaudí-inspired façade finish, and from the way greenery is integrated as if the building is part of the same organic system”.

The complex will reuse salvaged materials from the demolition of the building currently on the site, like a living organism rising from its own ashes with renewed character, nurturing new forms of community energy and urban greenery.