Kaohsiung’s shared workspace facility for creative industries, Pier-2 Base, is open for business, the Kaohsiung Bureau of Cultural Affairs announced last week.
The Pier-2 Base has 1,200 ping (3,967m2) of floor space on the third and fourth floor of the refurbished Huayun Building in Yancheng District (鹽埕), which used to be a Taiwan Sugar Co office building.
Space for 60 companies and additional workstations for individuals in the creative industries — with the latter having a seaside view — are available for rent by the year, month or day, the bureau said.
Photo: Huang Chia-lin, Taipei Times
Features of the new complex are its spacious working areas and designer decor, including a floor-to-ceiling bookcase wall, and firemen’s poles and slides for moving between floors.
“The major pitfall for cultural and creative bases that we have seen in the past was the homogeneity of the enterprises in the campus,” Cultural Affairs Bureau Director-General Yin Li (尹立) said. “Pier-2 Base was designed to address this by encouraging synergy between different types of businesses, as well as those at different points of the industry’s chain.”
The spatial arrangements are designed to inspire creativity and the facility is made to encourage integration between different types of companies, Yin said.
The bureau has moved some of its own operations — including the facility’s management staff and its help center for video and filmmaking — to the new site to enhance public-private cooperation, he said.
Pier-2 Base is part of the Pier-2 Art Center, a complex of warehouses and open space that was opened up as a venue for artists, performances, concerts and cafes in 2006.
Sixteen companies have rented space at Pier-2 Base, including Let’s Design Co, last year’s winner of the ADA Award for Emerging Architects, Laboratory of Fragrance and Perfume Co and the Shanghai-based I-Zen Dress and Suit Designs Co, the bureau said.
The facility has three function areas for meetings, educational classes and dining services, Pier-2 Base management team said.
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