Urban acupuncture and award-winning design. Cicada by Marco Casagrande.

A pavilion in an organic form made from bamboo. A construction on a human scale in the heart of Taipei, Taiwan, won the Red Dot Design Award for Finnish architect Marco Casagrande, whose projects are centred on the relationship between humans and their environment, introducing the natural aspect even in difficult contexts.



The “Cicada” stands in a plaza in Taipei, surrounded by anonymous buildings. Like an oversized cocoon, its organic, undulating form makes it arresting. This woven bamboo structure is overgrown with clinging vines, whetting the curiosity of passersby simply because it appears here, in this urban context .





Still, it is when visitors enter this fairytale world that they can really see how Casagrande has used limited resources to create an atmosphere enhanced by the gentle light filtering through the natural weave.





A shelter from the frenetic, anonymous city life thus takes visitors into a dimension connected to the rituals of primitive life. Inside the construction there is a fire pit surrounded by metal benches, evoking the post-industrial landscape just outside. The elliptical opening in the ceiling is like a cut-out of the sky above, but it is also a chimney, with the smoke coming out signalling a different form of life, one that responds to the ancien rhytms rooted deep inside us, despite technological progress.





Marco Casagrande ha responded to the tension caused by nature for so long ready to burst out of its rigid plan, with a construction that acts as “urban acupuncture”. He also reworked the Cicada concept for the Triennial of Beaufort, Belgium, with his work entitled “Sandworm”.

Architect: Marco Casagrande, http://www.clab.fi
Project Managers: Delphine, Peng Hsiao-Ting / JUT Group
Nikita Wu / C-LAB
Casagrande Laboratory for Cicada: Frank Chen, Yu-Chen Chiu, Shreya Nagrath, Arijit Sen
Location: Taipei City, Taiwan
Measures: 34 m long, 12 m wide, 8 m high
Interior space: 270 m2
Materials: bamboo, broken concrete, broken glass, steel, earth, creepers
Client: JUT Land Development Group
Completed: 2011
Photos: AdDa
Award: Red Dot Design Award 2012
Link: Sandworm – organic space. http://www.floornature.com/blog/sandworm-andndash-organic-space-marco-casagrande-8176/