
nARCHITECTS’ Forest Pavilion – a temporary installation completed in May 2011 – served as a shaded meeting and performance space for visitors to the Da Nong Da Fu Forest and Eco-park in Hualien County, Taiwan. The project was conceived within the context of an art festival organized by Taiwan’s Forestry Bureau to raise public awareness of a new growth forest that is being threatened by development.
This circular gathering space emerges from the ground in a series of eleven green bamboo shading vaults, organized in two rings around a void. The plan is inspired by the rings of a tree, and the different form of the vaults by growth patterns in nature. In the same way that the infinite variety of shapes in a tree emerge from very simple branching rules, the configuration of vault shapes uses a single geometry, the parabolic arch, in a way that could in theory generate endless configurations.


Forest Pavilion’s relationship to the existing site is diaphanous and light – the pavilion sits lightly in its environment with minimal disruption, yet with lighting becomes a beacon at night, underscoring the relative emptiness of the valley.






Client: Artfield
Location: Hualien, Taiwan
Status: Completed
Dates: 2011
Program: Cultural venue for arts festival
Environmental: Constructed from green bamboo harvested locally
Design Team: Eric Bunge, Mimi Hoang | Ammr Vandal | Julia Chapman, Tiago Barros
Collaborators: Curator: Huichen Wu, Artfield | Project Management: Frankie Su | Structural Engineering: Yan Shi-Feng | Bamboo Fabricator: Amis Tribe
Photography: Iwan Baan