Taoyuan City Department of Transportation Taoyuan District Xiamen Street Parking Garage Public Art Project

A parking garage is a spatial node for transportation. It can reveal the special characteristics of a place. It can also become a place for exchange and convergence of information about a city through the integration of compound spaces. This project responds to the Taoyuan Smart City and Smart Parking Garage characteristics of the site with 《Hyper_Link》as its curatorial theme. Hyper_Link represents a cloud-linked, integrated management of smart transportation, making transport more convenient, reaching the goal of creating a free-flowing and sustainable Taoyuan.

Shalom Arts Consulting’s team invited technological art teams to create two artworks. The outdoor work on the first floor was made by WHYIXD using Taoyuan’s topology and lights to create 《The Bonding》, indicating the site’s position as a transportation node. The indoor artwork at the foyer to the Department of Transportation on the eighth floor, 《Taoyuan Hyper_Link》, was planned by Jetkey Interactive Studio, showing the development of the Taoyuan City Department of Transportation. We hope that this public art project will increase the diversity and beauty of the urban landscape, interactively displaying the integration of life aesthetics, promoting and advocating for the importance of transportation.

《The Bonding》 takes its inspiration from the history of Taoyuan: Early on, there were many peach blossoms in what is now Taoyuan, hence its name which means “peach orchard.” More recently, because of its superior geographic location, Taoyuan has become a transport hub connecting Taiwan to the world. Therefore, this artwork combines the shape of peach tree leaves and the outlines of the Taoyuan street network, linking the path of development of the area. During the day, the work presents Taoyuan’s geography, but at night it’s connected to data about the available spaces in the parking garage: red tones means there are few spaces while yellow tones means that there are many available spaces, showing the state of the parking spaces in real time. The overall lighting design for night plays out as moving lights between the nodes of the road network, reflecting how Taoyuan’s transportation network is moving toward a Smart City development goal.

《Taoyuan Hyper_Link》shows the development and future vision of Taoyuan’s transportation. Using interactive touchscreen technology, it explores the essence of Taoyuan’s Three Centers and Six (Rail) Lines transport vision, highlighting the geographic and cultural landscape. Through multimedia videos, the viewer can learn about the development and services of Taoyuan’s smart transport. Through beautiful illustrated scenes, the viewer can come in contact with Taoyuan’s sustainable lifestyle, revealing Taoyuan’s local cultural characteristic of being the nation’s transportation doorway, and realize the ideal of sustainable living through public transport.