http://www.bdonline.co.uk/how-a-smal...067821.article
Mole Architecture, a small Cambridge practice, is designing an entire resort in Taiwan. Principal Meredith Bowles on a risk that paid off
Meredith Bowles, principal of Mole Architecture
Meredith Bowles, principal of Mole Architecture
I’ve just touched down from Taipei where I gave a lecture on our new scheme in Taiwan, a 70,000sq m hill-top eco village. How did a small practice in Cambridge end up designing a large-scale luxury resort in Asia?
Our previous built work was mostly houses, and the largest project nothing like the size of this scheme. It started in 2010 when we were invited to design a villa in the same resort; the chairman’s daughter lived in Cambridge and had seen what we had built first hand.
I worked in Taiwan many years ago and I saw this as a great opportunity to return to the country. Given the scope of the project I suggested that I team up with architect Gianni Botsford, and convinced the client, a large-scale land owning developer, that a series of villas by the two of us would make our involvement more worthwhile.
Speaking a bit of Mandarin helped, but what really convinced the chairman was our genuine enthusiasm and interest in Hakka architecture. Taiwan has a few historic houses left - principally open-courtyard brick houses, with complex spacial hierarchies; a very different order from our understanding of space. We travelled a lot, visited buildings, and ate a lot of Hakka food with the chairman.
Fast forward four years and Gianni and I were invited to give a public lecture on the scheme as part of a series of talks celebrating the company’s 25 years. Speaking in the same lecture series as Kengo Kuma and Bjarke Ingels, who are also employed by the developer, we turned out to be quite a draw. Despite coinciding with anti-government protests, our lecture attracted an audience of 1,300 people.
This whole experience has has shown us how the Taiwanese are eager to be part of a world stage, and to transform their cities with architecture. Both central and local governments have run design competitions for landmark buildings and our client is forward-thinking in seeing the value that good architecture can bring, employing foreign architects as a way to engage with an international culture and bring something new and fresh to their own country. Clearly they think this has a tangible financial value too.
We later discovered from the chairman, after he’d entrusted us with the re-design of his whole project, that he had been through six architects already – from Japan, the USA, Hong Kong and the UK. He was certainly willing to take a risk with us - two small practices on the other side of the world - in a way that is unthinkable in the UK.
I’m wary of approaches from potential clients in foreign countries with an offer that sounds too good to be true. We’ve had a few that have come to nothing despite quite a lot of investment on our part. But saying yes is the first step to finding out, without which we’d never have got the job in Taiwan at all.
We learnt on this trip that Kengo Kuma is to design one of the villas that we went out three years ago to pitch for, alongside those that we’ve already designed. You never quite know where a lead might end.
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