FCU Architecture Students Win Bronze Award at the 2026 Chiayi City Timber Construction Competition with “Tea Pavilion”

Students Yang Ching-Wu, Bai Jen-Hao, and Fu Yu-Chieh from the School of Architecture at Feng Chia University, under the guidance of Wan-Ting Chen, won the Bronze Award in the University Division of the 2026 Chiayi City Timber Construction Competition with their wooden installation,“Tea Pavilion.” The competition, organized by the Chiayi City Cultural Affairs Bureau under the theme“Resonance Timber DNA,” required participating teams to construct their projects at full scale on-site. The FCU team assembled their work at the Experimental Timber Yard within the former Chiayi Prison Dormitory Complex beginning on September 5, and received their award at the ceremony held on September 7. 

Students from the School of Architecture at Feng Chia University earned the Bronze Award in the University Division of the 2026 Chiayi City Timber Construction Competition with their project“Tea Pavilion.” Developed through a hands-on design-and-build process, the award-winning timber structure demonstrated the students’ creativity, technical skills, and ability to translate architectural concepts into a full-scale built work.

The competition builds on the achievements of Chiayi City’s long-running Timber Industry Cultural Promotion and Design-Build Education Program, encouraging timber architecture to move “from design to construction and from material to space.” The 2026 theme,“Resonance Timber DNA,” focused on the interactions among timber culture, urban public space, everyday life, and construction practices. Rather than remaining as drawings or scale models, all entries were required to be built and experienced in a real-world setting.

The design of“Tea Pavilion” was inspired by the concept of a “resonant city,” connecting Chiayi’s tea-producing Alishan region with the spatial spirit of tea culture. The team envisioned a visitor’s movement through the structure as a tea leaf gradually unfolding in a cup. The pavilion embodies a sense of temporal order while maintaining an open and undefined spatial form. Through the shared act of drinking tea, the design seeks to foster human connection and social interaction. The team described the pavilion as “a timber structure filled with poetic spatial qualities,” gently rooted in the landscape and cultural context of Chiayi.

The School of Architecture commended both the students and faculty advisor for their dedication throughout the competition and encouraged students to continue participating in architectural design competitions. The school hopes that through such experiences, students will learn to respond creatively to environmental and cultural contexts, gain hands-on experience with construction materials and building techniques, and strengthen their ability to integrate design thinking with practical implementation.

The project demonstrates Feng Chia University students’ capacity to transform architectural concepts into full-scale built works while exploring the relationship between place, culture, materiality, and human experience

“Tea Pavilion” expresses the image of tea leaves unfolding in a cup through a series of layered timber elements, transforming the brewing process into a spatial experience and creating a poetic wooden structure that invites visitors to slow down, gather, and connect.