Market, Canal and Port-City by Mabel Wu is an Architectural Association graduating project about Khut-Kang, a centuries-old market in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
The project is useful because it treats market architecture as memory. It asks how buildings, stalls, canal edges and leftover spaces can hold stories that official archives often miss.
Project visuals
The drawings and illustrations help turn a layered urban history into a project that can be read spatially.
Khut-Kang as a living archive
Khut-Kang once flourished around a former canal branch connected to Kaohsiung’s harbour. Its history includes illicit foreign-goods trading, local resilience and stories that are not always visible in formal records.
Mabel’s proposal brings those histories forward by treating architecture as a living archive. The project uses existing structures, alleyways and remaining fragments as clues rather than wiping the site clean.
What makes the project strong
- It starts with a specific place and community history.
- It connects market life to the canal and port-city setting.
- It values informal memory as much as formal archive material.
- It uses architecture to curate and reveal stories rather than overwrite them.
- It gives a complex urban topic a clear project focus.
Urban memory project checklist
If you are presenting a research-led urban project, make these points clear for the reader.
- What place is the project really about?
- Whose memory or story is at risk of being missed?
- What existing fragments are worth preserving?
- How does the proposal help people read the site differently?
- Which drawings make the argument visible?
Architecture Social view
Stephen’s recruiter view is that research-led projects need a clear reader route. The theory can be rich, but the portfolio still has to show the site, the issue and the design response quickly.
Showcase your urban project
If your architecture project explores urban memory, community, markets or public space, Architecture Social Showcase can help present it clearly.
- Lead with the place and question.
- Show the strongest maps, drawings or illustrations.
- Explain the community or cultural context.
- Make the design response easy to understand.
Add a comment