Taipei apartment

Abstract

To accommodate the rapid modernization and urbanization between 1960s and 1980s, a large number of mid-rise apartments has been built in Taipei. Today, these poorly designed apartments represent about 40 percent of the total residential buildings in the city, as much as 3,000,000 housing units. It has become a city-scale social issue, since these apartments no longer !t the needs of aging and wealthier inhabitants. People have been finding ways to modify and improve their living space. However, generally, these building improvements are limited to a relatively small scale due to the in"influence of the "floating real estate market and the high owner-occupied rate in the city. With limited legislation for apartment maintenance, it is di#cult for the existing communities to reach a consensuses that achieves the building improvements on a larger scale, such as creating more space for public amenities. Today, the local government is promoting a series of city renewal policies to rebuild these aging apartments. In this situation, architects have a chance to create a new housing system with well-established regulations. $e new system will help to well distribute the levels of control and provide greater adaptability to !t the living culture in Taipei City.