THE DARK LINE

The Dark Line aims to preserve the post-industrial landscape in its historical AND ecological depth. Time has produced ecological, atmospheric, acoustic, chromatic and luminous variations along this route, which are the core of our proposal.

Despite this attitude of withdrawal in favor of the encountered atmospheres, heavy interventions were necessary to open this route to the public. The challenge was to conceal the project's efforts to let the ancient tunnels and the landscape speak for themselves.A single material, iron, repeated endlessly, allows us to forget its presence. Through this material, the project evokes the 2 great phenomena that have impacted the place over the last 100 years:

- the rebars build a new “iron path”, in place of the original railway

- the gaps between the bars show the powerful action of the tropical nature

By lifting and bending almost imperceptibly, the rebars gradually give shape to the furniture, the signage and the protective vaults.

At the start, the decking is raised to leave the old ground intact; trees and grasses, keep on growing through the bars. In the tunnel, the light source is invisible, sparing the intrados, where the bat colonies hang in semi-darkness. Visible under our feet through the decking, the ground keeps changing: water streams, sand, rocks…

This long underground gallery ends in a high vertical light well, open only to the sky. The sun's rays filter through the layers of foliage of the cliffs and produce, in contact with the vapours exhaling from the tunnel, an unreal atmosphere of fantastic tale. The second tunnel, after a wide curve, opens onto the gorge. A water mirror fed by natural streams extends above the river. From the inside, the visitor's silhouette remains suspended between its own reflection and the mountain landscape in the background.

Then, following the sinuous cliff, a footbridge threads its way between the highest trees that emerge through the decking, and above the canopy.

The construction method, midway between industry and crafts, is adapted to Taiwan SMEs capable of both efficient mass-production in workshops and "haute couture" on site.