Listen with your eyes and see with your ears?…
Take a minute to step back and read the city of Taipei. What does it tell?
‘Taipei Universal Code’ is a transformation on the basis of one single picture: a popular view of Taipei with the 101 Tower in the focus. On the first picture you see the city represented in detail.
The second is a transposition: The previous image but in low density.
It uses a set of colours — each is a code for the urban molecules. The outstanding 101 Tower is violet, the hills are blue-green, houses are dark grey and the sign posts are yellow. The bright blue represents aerials standing on top of the roofs.
Finally the picture is transformed into an alphanumeric code. Now Taipei can be read like a book. You can speak it out loud, find the rhythm of Taipei or count the density of houses.
Every city has its own unique image — often represented by its skyline, its specific arrangement or just a single building. The ‘Taipei Universal Code’ shows another possibility: you can pic a city by its alphanumeric sequence and go on with your own interpretation.
