As average summer temperatures continue to rise, stifling heat is becoming harder to bear. For many city dwellers, reaching for the remote and switching on the air conditioning has become an instinctive response. The room cools quickly, but that immediate relief also cuts the interior off from the local climate, intensifying the urban heat island effect and driving energy use higher. Breaking this cycle takes more than changing how air conditioning is used. Buildings themselves must perform better, using passive design to regulate indoor temperature and humidity. In dense cities, however, limited space and the need for privacy make it difficult to secure natural ventilation and daylight while maintaining a close relationship with nature. Even so, urban life need not be cut off from the natural world when design begins with daily life and considers light, airflow, environmental conditions and energy use together. Set on Huagang Road in Yangmingshan, Taipei, The Enduring Mountain House is a detached residence with a generous site and far-reaching mountain views. Although the house benefits from these conditions, the thinking behind its daylighting, window placement and material choices still offers useful reference points for passive design in urban housing, while supporting genuine comfort and a sense of security at home.
Extending the Senses into the Mountain Landscape
At first glance, the project name refers to a house built into the hillside. Yet it also brings together three ideas at the heart of the project: memory, nature and dwelling. The name speaks to the depth that memory acquires over time and to the ease of making a home within the natural world. The house has accompanied its owner for nearly sixty years, holding childhood memories of sliding down the banister and talking with his mother. Although he now lives abroad and returns only occasionally in summer, those scenes remain vivid. Buildings age and ways of living change, but the memories they carry deserve to be preserved. Through a client, the owner met architect Dolly Lin, who had also chosen to live in Yangmingshan. A visit to the house she designed for herself changed his understanding of comfort. He realised that when daylight and a gentle breeze are welcomed in and air can move freely, both a house and its occupants can breathe more easily. Life could be pleasant without relying on air conditioning. When Lin first visited the old house on Huagang Road, she immediately proposed replacing the north-facing exterior wall with a broad expanse of floor-to-ceiling glazing. The change brought Mt. Shamao into view from every part of the house. As light and shadow shift through the rooms over the course of the day, they shape the occupants’ experience of the house and connect the present with memory and history. The mountain is no longer simply a view beyond the glass; it has become part of everyday life.
Tile | Be New Form
Lin considered the residents’ sensory and psychological experience alongside their patterns of use and safety. She did not want them to feel confined within a concrete box. For her, material choices were another way to reduce the divide between the house and its setting. Opening the view would ease the sense of enclosure, while surfaces suited to the landscape could soften the boundary between indoors and out. She therefore specified tiles and slabs supplied by Be New Form, choosing finishes whose appearance and texture sat naturally within the surrounding landscape. For the balcony, Lin chose Italian-made wood-effect tiles to sit alongside the existing andesite masonry. Their wood-grain texture relates to both the stone walls and the woodland beyond. The 20 × 120 cm format suits the balcony’s long proportions. Aligned with the timber floor inside, the tiles carry its visual line outwards, giving the space continuity and a clear rhythm. Their warm tone lends the balcony a calmer character. In Yangmingshan’s damp climate, where mould can readily develop, the outdoor finish also needed to be easy to maintain. The tiles are easy to clean and offer a high level of slip resistance, while retaining the softer feel of an interior floor tile. Residents can therefore walk barefoot onto the balcony and take in the surrounding view with ease.
Lin knew from her own home how much comfort and insulation could be gained from well-placed windows and double-wall construction, and brought the same approach to the renovation on Huagang Road. She also recognised that the old house’s seemingly plain andesite walls were examples of a building craft now rarely seen. As regulations have tightened and environmental awareness has grown, large-scale quarrying has become heavily restricted. At 30 to 40 centimetres thick, the masonry already provides effective insulation and slows heat transfer. It deserved to be preserved, both as part of the house and as a means of improving indoor comfort. Lin therefore limited work on the exterior face to essential repairs and a new surface treatment, then built a second wall inside. Even when rain saturates the stone, moisture does not reach the inner wall. The roof was retiled at the same time. An air cavity beneath the new tiles adds insulation and improves ventilation and drainage, helping the interior remain dry and comfortable. Age is not something the house needs to hide. With its defining andesite masonry retained, the stone can continue to respond naturally to rain, sunlight and the mountain climate, and endure over time.
The Old House’s DNA, Renewed
The interior responds to the homeowner’s preference for pale tones. Eco-friendly paint gives the walls a clean finish, while a section of the original andesite masonry remains exposed around the fireplace. Removing the ceiling revealed the existing timber frame, which was also retained. As light moves across the stone and timber, these elements keep the old house visibly present and turn its accumulated history into a visual focus within the renewed interior. To bring daylight further inside, Lin opened up the formerly enclosed kitchen and connected it with the living and dining areas, creating clear sightlines across the shared space. The circulation is thoughtfully planned around creating a sense of spatial and experiential layering. An open and expansive entryway serves as a prelude, inviting residents to change their shoes upon arrival before gradually discovering the spaces along the circulation path, taking in the subtle rhythm of everyday life within the home. The bathroom itself is composed in a restrained white palette. Slabs with Carrara-style veining line the walls, while warm, understated porcelain floor tiles cover the floor. Laid with narrow grout joints, the tiled surfaces take on a soft natural sheen as daylight enters through the window. The room feels bright, clean and calm. Following the renovation, the homeowner can revisit old memories while seeing the familiar house and mountain landscape he grew up with from a new perspective. Lin’s experience in commercial interiors informs her close attention to domestic life. Small adjustments to circulation and window placement, together with the choice of tile finishes, allow the house to meet present needs and support the next phase of life within it. The project also realises an idea Lin has carried since childhood: to create homes that coexist with nature and allow more people to experience that way of living for themselves.
