Department of Cultural Affairs

The 12th edition of Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s Program X-site, featuring The Pore Landscape Project, officially opened on May 3, 2025. 

With sustainability the guiding theme, X-site 2025 invites participating teams to embed eco-conscious thinking into both concept and construction—championing circular design and low-carbon innovation to infuse the museum plaza with a blend of creativity and environmental responsibility.

As the urban heat island effect continues to intensify, heat has begun to infiltrate our everyday lives in increasingly subtle yet disruptive ways, changing how we move through and linger within public spaces. 

Confronting this environmental challenge head-on, architects Wei-En Kao and Yu-Hung Tan of the team Studio Superficial present The Pore Landscape Project, a landscape-art installation that has transformed the TFAM plaza into an experimental zone of climate awareness and spatial dialogue. 

Drawing from architecture, industrial design, urban studies, and sustainability, the interdisciplinary team explores the porous boundary between the built environment and the natural world to seek new ways to mediate the effects of climate change on urban life and public interaction.

At the heart of The Pore Landscape Project is a reimagining of the act of “occupation,” deconstructed into three dimensions: material transformation, porous intervention, and microclimate modulation. 

Inspired by the human body’s natural cooling mechanisms, the installation features a sprawling mesh embedded with 142 symbolic “pores” that evokes the texture of skin. The misting units simulate perspiration by releasing vapor that cools the scorched ground and dissipates heat. The result is an immersive, breathable climate bubble where mist kisses the skin, cooling sensations ripple outward, and visitors become acutely aware of how urban temperatures shape the way we coexist with our surroundings.

Breaking from past X-site conventions that often focused on a single architectural structure, this year’s project introduces a large-scale mesh system constructed from smaller modular units. The flexible ground plane shifts subtly underfoot, while the expanded mesh openings create moments of transparency, intimacy, and connection between body and space. In an effort to reduce environmental impact, the misting devices were cast using 3D-printed molds composed of recycled industrial and consumer-grade aluminum, thus advancing both sustainable material practices and local circular economies.

TFAM also offers a dynamic series of public programs designed around the themes of cooling the body and healing the senses. Activities explore sound as a climatic sensor and the body as an environmental barometer, featuring sonic meditations, yoga and mindfulness sessions, and herbal therapy workshops. These multi-sensory experiences invite the visitor to reflect on how their body responds to climate change and how new relationships with the city and its ecosystem might be imagined.

▍Program X-site 2025: The Pore Landscape Project

Date | Saturday, May 3–Sunday, July 13 

Venue | Taipei Fine Arts Museum Outdoor Plaza