Ekin Bilal

Now a part of the vernacular of Taipei, steel cages added to the windows, balconies, and roofs of buildings increase apartment sqm to respond to hyper-condensed living conditions in a city with exponentially growing real-estate prices. Arguing that these cages are ‘eye-sores’ and illegal, the Taiwanese government is dismantling these additions without addressing the underlying socio-economic issues.

Though technically also illegal, the vernacular night markets in Taipei are one of the biggest attractions of the city. They generate a substantial amount of revenue, and in return are ‘overlooked’ by the government. Even when a stall owner is fined, all stall owners at the market share the amount amongst themselves. Drawing inspiration from collective solidarity of the night market, this project proposes to turn the cages on apartment facades into a vertical night market-scape, making use of the material and scalar similarities of both typologies.
This new market will generate finances to restore the structure of the Sanzhi Fucheng Temple, a disused temple in Da’an–a reference to how Taiwanese night markets historically started in temple plazas.

At night, the cages will unfold to connect the staircases and balconies light up as night market stalls. They not only provide a new method of generating income and connectivity for the residents, they also challenge the government’s existing perception of the balcony additions as ‘eye-sores,’, giving them a chance at beauty.

What is an alternative to the neo-liberal idea of wellness, where hyper-individualistically derived modes of mental and physical therapy are not utilized? How does this alternative not propose a hegemonic emphasis on the wellbeing of the collective at the expense of the individual, as seen in the soviet model of sanatoria? How should this dialectical positioning of the betterment of the individual and the collective be re-perceptualized in order to reveal their inherent codependency?

Taking into consideration these questions, and the the post-soviet Armenian context of Charentsavan, a city that has an infrastructure in place but disconnected from the rest of the world, we are proposing Alternativ. This project is conceived as alternative framework of societal health, a place where people who lack a support network in society can find one. Marginal identities are physically centralized, and through a nexus of connections, they are afforded a safe space that is not secluded.

Inspired by the connective industrial past of Charentsavan and the semi-ruinous state of its factories, we have reinterpreted found objects and placed them as screens, frames creating new spaces, transparencies, and atmospheres.