Save this picture! Courtesy of Norihiko Dan and Associates 
 
 + 19 
 
 Architects Norihiko Dan and Associates 
 
 Location Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE), No. 9, Hangzhan South Road, Dayuan District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan 33758 
 
 Area 15540.0 sqm 
 
 Project Year 2013 
 
 Design Team Ming-Hsien Wang, Eiji Sawano, Austris Jankovskis, Ralitsa Kafova, Masato Shiihashi, Tadashi Yoshimura 
 
 Supervision SHEU Architect and Associate 
 
 Structural Engineer Kunio Watanabe, Structure Design Group (SDG) 
 
 Engineer Uichi Inoue Equipment Laboratory 
 
 Air-condition Uichi Inoue Equipment Laboratory, Morries Technology Engineering Co., Ltd. Interior\NaHsin International Co., Ltd. 
 
 Interior Norihiko Dan and Associates 
 
 Landscape Norihiko Dan and Associates, BES Engineering Corporation 
 
 Construction Architecture BES Engineering Corporation 
 
 Construction Engineer BES Engineering Corporation More Specs Less Specs 
 
 Save this picture! Courtesy of Norihiko Dan and Associates 
 
 Text description provided by the architects. Constructed in 1979 by the highly respected Taiwanese structural engineer T. Y. Lin and influenced by Eero Saarinen’s Washington Dulles International Airport, Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 1 featured a prestressed structure that was state of the art at the time. However, after thirty years of use, Terminal 1 was operating over capacity and had become outdated well before its time. 
 
 Save this picture! Courtesy of Norihiko Dan and Associates 
 
 The regeneration aimed not only to re-establish a new main gate for the country, but also to expand the terminal to said requirements without tearing down the existing structure. This enabled the project to retain continuity with the past. Thus, it was a rejuvenation plan to amalgamate the old and the new. Old Terminal 1 had been handling an estimated five million passengers annually. However, due to the subsequent rapid growth of passengers, a plan to allow fifteen million annually was required. 
 
 In this project, a method was designed to frame the large roof—which contained the outdoor terrace that the visitors could not access— on both wings to widen the space without constructing any new floors, while simultaneously providing a seismic reinforcement to the structure of the existing Terminal 1. That is how the terminal’s characteristic diagonal pillars, which used to line the exterior walls of the former building, were assimilated to its interior. Hence, these pillars were converted to the main element of interior space from that of the exterior. 
 
 Save this picture! Courtesy of Norihiko Dan and Associates 
 
 The rows of roof girders utilize catenary curves and sunshade louver tiles are placed atop to mutually clamp the girders together. This method of “clamping” provides stability against seismic forces and wind pressure while also presenting the tiled roof of traditional East Asian architecture through modern architectural construction. 
 
 Since the former terminal exhibited a state of chaos with an intermixing of cars, buses, and taxis, this project made use of a dual layer of traffic lanes, which doubled the capability of traffic processing. Because these improvements were made in quick response to new circumstances while also utilizing the existing structure, the building cost as well as the construction waste was reduced to one-twentieth when compared to a case that requires demolition and new construction. ||||| Taipei, Dec. 27 (CNA) Head of the Bureau of Consular Affairs (BOCA) Agnes Chen (陳華玉) stepped down Wednesday amid a furor over an error on the newly updated Taiwan e-passport, which bears an image of Washington's Dulles International Airport rather than Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. 
 
 
 
 "On behalf of BOCA, I apologize to the public for the major oversight and will take full administrative responsibility for the incident," Chen said in a brief statement at a press conference. 
 
 
 
 Chen said she had met with Foreign Minister David Lee (李大維) the previous night and submitted her resignation to him. According to MOFA spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章), the foreign minister accepted Chen's resignation Wednesday morning. 
 
 
 
 Meanwhile, Taiwan's top envoy to Canada Kung Chung-chen (龔中誠), who was BOCA's chief when the new passport was designed, has been recalled, Andrew Lee said. 
 
 
 
 The foreign ministry is still trying to determine who else should be held responsible for the passport design error, and other heads could roll, according to chief of MOFA's Department of Personnel Kuo Su-ching (郭素卿). 
 
 
 
 The issue came to light Tuesday in a report by a local media organization, which said netizens had commented on the error, pointing out that one of the images on the pages of the new e-passport was that of Dulles International Airport. 
 
 
 
 At first, the foreign ministry rejected the claims, but later said it was recalling all 285 of the new passports that had been issued so far and would return the 200,000 that had already been printed to Central Engraving and Printing Plant (CEPP), the contract printer. 
 
 
 
 CEPP, meanwhile, had said it will bear the cost of printing 200,000 new passports with the correct image of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, according to MOFA. 
 
 
 
 CEPP is still calculating how much the reprint will cost exactly, said MOFA, adding that the first print was around NT$80 million (US$2.67 million). 
 
 
 
 (By Joseph Yeh) 
 
 Enditem/pc
– An official in Taiwan has stepped down from her post after what looks to be a multimillion-dollar mistake involving hundreds of thousands of passports. Focus Taiwan reports that Agnes Chen, the chief of the country's Bureau of Consular Affairs, resigned Wednesday after it was discovered the nation's new passport had on it a picture of DC's Dulles International Airport instead of Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport. The wrong image was imprinted on 200,000 new passports, which will now be sent back to the printer to be redone; 285 passports that were already handed out will be recalled. The Washington Post notes "more than a passing resemblance" between the two airports, citing an architectural website that says the designer of the Taiwanese airport was "influenced" by the DC building, built 17 years earlier. Still, Chen is taking the fall for the goof. "I apologize to the public for the major oversight and will take full administrative responsibility for the incident," she said at a press conference. It's not clear how much it will cost to reprint the passports, but the original run ran about $2.7 million.