Where are the corners?

As I look out onto the Kaohsiung skyline, it strikes me how there is an extreme lack of residential buildings with full corner views.

Some of the newer commercial buildings are all glass but many of the newer and more expensive residential buildings almost all have either columns of concrete in the corner.

So what do the Taiwanese have against corners? It’s so much nicer to live in an apartment that has a corner view with Florida ceiling windows, and even the newer buildings here don’t have that possibility.

Why do they need to build corner posts in 2020? Is it an architectural trend/knowledge shortcoming here? Is it just not in style to have a good view especially if you have a more expensive building?

Where are the corners, why are there not more of them, and is it like this in other parts of Taiwan?

Sorry…

???

Speech to text.

Floor to ceiling.

“ Dictated but not read.”

I hope the rest is clear.

You don’t want floor to ceiling windows in a country with potential severe winds from typhoons or shaking from earthquakes. May not be the reason, but…

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Was about to say this. Nobody wants to have to duct tape big ugly asterisks on those windows every single summer when the spittoons come round.

Yeah nah, we all know that tape does nothing.

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Really? Didn’t know that. Then what’s there to be done about the windows? Pray?

Coat them with sticky stuff. Honey’ll do it. :footprints:

Corner is bad feng shui so they try to avoid it. As are cul de sac.

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There are always corners on a rectangular, triangular or square building. The feng hui comes into play when the building’s corner is pointed at another building. As is the case in HK with the Bank Of China Building.

" Bank of China Tower

The Bank of China Tower is notorious for ignoring good feng shui principles. Designed by the celebrated architect I.M. Pei, the tower is in the shape of a triangular prism, mimicking the elegance of a bamboo shoot, and making for one of the city’s finest examples of Structural Expressionism.

The Bank of China Tower © Brian Harries/Flickr

However, the prism’s angular structure goes against feng shui practices, as the knife-like edges “cut” good qi and give off negative energy to surrounding buildings. During the Bank of China Tower’s construction, a number of unlucky incidents added fuel to local superstitions about the building’s negative feng shui . These include the financial collapse of the original owner of the nearby Lippo Centre, as well as the death of the Governor of Hong Kong in the Governor’s House.

After the building’s bad feng shui was criticized by the public, some features were added to remedy the situation. A small waterfall was placed beside the building along with giant rocks imported from China, representing harmony and stability. Many plants and trees were also added around the building in order purify the environment and to cultivate good energy."

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I suppose they usually go together, but it’s less about the floor to ceiling windows as it is having a window that attaches to another window at a corner.

The exterior of most of the buildings here either just has a meter or two of solid wall or an exterior column. At least in some buildings with glass corners they put the column inside and try to hide it, but here that seems to be a non-issue, and they make much more concrete facades, notably with the lack of corner window features.

The corners still exist obviously, they are just made of concrete instead of glass, and that’s why I’m wondering why don’t they want glass corners here so they can see more and have a better view?

Taiwanese like to live in cave like apartments, dark.

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As the Geth says in Mass Effect 2, windows is a structural weakness. This is likely the reason for a lack of clear corners.

Big ass earthquakes will eat your corner windows for breakfast.

Not to mention typhoons.

And the sun will turn your house into a furnace.

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Because if you are at the 40th plus floor and one whole wall is made of glass, you feel as if you were being pulled by gravity… downwards.

Picture window on the first floor is problematic regarding privacy. Higher than that, you’ll give a wider audience an eyeful.

The sun is bad, bad! It takes away vitamin D-as my boss says.

I am being sarcastic, just to let you know.

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I lived on the 38th floor in HK with floor to ceiling windows (not a corner though). Survived a No 9 (or could’ve been 10) typhoon signal.

The bathroom door was noticeably swinging as a result of the building swaying…

Happy birthday!

Are you new here? I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that you aren’t trolling and I’ll answer in good faith. These are the things you want to make sure your Taiwan apartment has.

Everyone knows that the ideal layout for an apartment is 17 rooms of random sizes (but certainly no one room should be larger than two square meters), arranged haphazardly in a windowless maze. If you can stack some of the rooms on top of one another in a coveted “loft” setup, then you’ll get the benefit of shoulder-height ceilings on both floors. This will cultivate a sense of constant panicked claustrophobia in the inhabitant at all times, certainly a big plus for resale value of the unit, and makes it extremely easy to find tenants.

If you must have a window in the unit, it’s best to make it as small as possible, ideally no taller than half a meter, and place it at the end of an extremely narrow tubelike “room” which won’t be useful for habitation of any sort, and be sure to cover the window on the outside with immovable Japanese-style “wa” painted aluminum latticework. This stylish, classy design element will ensure that no natural light will ever penetrate into any part of your home, keeping you, your children, and your twelve giant dogs safe from all forms of cancer.

For interior design, you’ll want to stock up on white tile and just use that everywhere. The great thing about white tile is the color holds up forever and never fades, so your apartment will always look brand new. Better yet, you can put it anywhere: on the floor of course, but it also goes great on the walls, the ceiling, and even on the outside of the building! Even on the outside of the building, tile requires no maintenance at all. Best of all, white tile communicates to your house guests that you’ve always wanted to live in a hospital (not that you will ever have a house guest, that would be weird). It also prepares yours kids to be doctors.

If you opt not to tile the walls, just leave them white. Color and paint are foreign extravagances and it’s important to save money, after all, one day your kids will need apartments that look exactly the same as yours, and you’ll need to save for 37 years for their down payments. Even on their doctor salaries there’s no way in hell they’ll be able to buy apartments or get married without a lifelong sacrifice from you.

You’re relatively well off so your unit is probably at least 35 ping. You’ll want to devote 34 ping of that space to the windowless, white, featureless rooms described above, and in the last ping you should stick a galley kitchen with one burner, no appliances, and no counter along an out of the way wall somewhere that you can stick the female slave woman and forget she exists.

There’s only one kind of lightbulb available here in Taiwan (fluorescent white), and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Lastly, it is true that you can get by with just one giant metal fortress door but it’s better to have between two and four that nest together like Russian dolls. Each door should have a digital lock plus roughly six manual deadbolts. Taiwan is an extremely dangerous country.

Best of luck house hunting!

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That is harsh. But aside from the “well off” / “at least 35 ping” part, I admit there is some truth in there! : D

Guy