Skin Of Skin House

In a subtropical climate of heat, humidity, and strong solar exposure, corrugated metal sheets and light-gauge steel frames have long been common in everyday buildings and agricultural structures for simple reasons: they are affordable, quick to assemble, and resilient in extreme weather.

Rather than disguising these vernacular tectonics, the project works with the existing pitched steel frame and treats it as an environmental instrument—reconfiguring the section to turn gaps of wind and light into an operative microclimatic device.

To accommodate a mixed-use domestic program—bedroom, two living areas, kitchen, studio, and a tea room—the design avoids conventional floor-by-floor stacking and instead tunes floor levels in section.

The tea room is lifted to frame long views over the surrounding farmland, while also freeing generous height for the living and kitchen areas beneath, subtly recalling the elevated form of vernacular pigeon lofts in Taiwan.

The split levels reduce the need for solid partitions, open diagonal sightlines, and form vertical interstitial gaps that act as light wells—bringing daylight from upper-level openings deep into the ground-floor kitchen and improving air and visual continuity through the house.

Typical sealed corrugated roofing is reworked into a ventilated double-skin: metal panels are offset and fixed to the upper and lower flanges of rectangular steel tubes, keeping a continuous cavity open to airflow.

Coated in vivid red, the steel tubes act as reflectors—filtering harsh sun into a warm, diffuse glow that washes the roof deck below.

On the west facade, finely folded metal cladding and a secondary cavity block low-angle sun while promoting ventilation through a small stack effect, helping purge accumulated heat.

On the upper level, the tower becomes a thermally buffered wall beside the tea room, exhausting residual heat through adjustable louvers while introducing calm, indirect sidelight at seating level.