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Treasure Hill


Coordinates: 25°0′37.92″N 121°31′59.32″E / 25.0105333°N 121.5331444°E / 25.0105333; 121.5331444

Treasure Hill (Chinese: 寶藏巖; pinyin: Bǎozàng Yán; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Pó-chōng-giâm) is a community in Taipei, Taiwan. Originally an illegal settlement, it was founded by the Kuomintang military veterans at the end of 1940's and served originally as an anti-aircraft position.

After cooperating with non-governmental organization Global Artivists Participation Project, the Taipei City Government developed the area into an example of environmentally sustainable urban community. With the policy of preservation and revitalization, the old settlement unfolded a new vision of an artivist compound which would respect the existing fabric of the community while fulfilling the regeneration concept of "symbiosis" to incorporate production and ecology in communal living and ushering in the program of an international youth hostel and creative ideas of art to further cultural exchanges with broader international communities.

Commissioned by the municipal government to propose an ecological masterplan for the area, Finnish architect Marco Casagrande found that this settlement, perhaps because of its illegal and marginal status, has evolved organically to operate according to an ecological model: recycling and filtering grey water, using minimal amounts of electricity (“stolen” from the city grid), composting organic waste, and repurposing Taipei’s waste. Casagrande relates his experiences of working on the site: For the ecological urban laboratory I had to do nothing, it was already there. What I did was to construct wooden stairways and connections between the destroyed houses and some shelters for the old residents to play mah-jong and ping-pong.


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