WZWX designs factories, food processing plants and laboratories for manufacturers in Taiwan and China. We take a project from land due diligence through masterplanning, architecture and interiors to construction supervision, so your brief is carried through every stage, from the first site visit to the first production run.
Our factories include a 22,000 m² meat processing plant for T-HAM in Pingtung and a 22,000 m² carbon-fibre bicycle factory for Quest Composite in Taichung, both certified LEED Gold, and a 70,000 m² lithium battery plant for Shihlien New Energy in Jiangsu.
A factory is a production tool first. We start from your process: output targets, product flow, temperature and hygiene zones, loading and storage, and the people who will work there every day. The building is shaped around that, then made as good a place to work as the budget allows, with daylight, views and proper staff facilities. Better working conditions help you recruit and keep staff.
At T-HAM, the brief was to double production capacity and meet Japanese and Singaporean export standards. Offices, R&D, quality control and canteens sit at the front behind a full-height glass façade. Production and cold storage sit behind super-insulated walls that hold temperatures from –35 °C to 13 °C. The plant now produces 45 tonnes of processed meat a day and 12,000 tonnes a year, across more than 250 products.
Food plants need strict separation of raw and cooked zones, controlled temperatures and surfaces that are easy to keep clean. After the processing plant, we joined the design team for T-HAM’s new slaughterhouse: the conversion of an ageing meat processing plant into one of the largest and most advanced slaughterhouses in Taiwan. It uses Marel processing lines from the Netherlands, and every pig is electronically tagged, so each cut can be traced back to its source and shipment. We worked alongside a local MEP engineer experienced in temperature-controlled plants, who also worked on the T-HAM processing plant, and WSP as project manager. WZWX was responsible for the spatial design: the factory floor plan and interiors, a new office, entrances, lobby, meeting rooms, a public lecture hall, and changing rooms and toilets. Outside, we re-masterplanned the site and designed a new façade, gatehouse, car parking and planting, a lairage building where pigs rest overnight before slaughter, and a new water filtration building. The plant has been in full operation since the end of 2025.
At Qianzhen Harbour in Kaohsiung, we designed the façades and interiors of the HPW Cold Storage Logistics Centre & Seafood Market, a nine-storey, 90,000 m² building with 55,000 m² of refrigerated and super-chilled storage. The planning architect was DG Architecture Studio.
For Shihlien Biotech we designed the 900 m² laboratory of a plant that produces about 300,000 tonnes of medical-grade salt a year, with ultra-clean rooms, chemical testing rooms and a central control room. It won a Red Dot Best of the Best and an Architecture MasterPrize Best of Best. The Shihlien New Energy battery plant combines production halls, clean rooms and an R&D test hall, and produces 4.0 GWh of lithium iron phosphate batteries a year. We have also designed the R&D and quality-control spaces at T-HAM and Quest, and an R&D lab for Shan Tea in Guangzhou.
Land due diligence. Before you buy land in Taiwan, we check what can be built, the permit route, utilities, traffic, timeline and budget.
Masterplan. Site layout and phasing, with lorries and people on separate routes and room to expand.
Design. Architecture, interiors and furniture designed together, so the offices, canteens and production floor work as one building.
Approvals. In China, a licensed design institute (设计院) stamps and submits the drawings. For each project we choose the institute best suited to execute it: sometimes a local institute that knows the local authorities, sometimes one we know well, which works to our standards and collaborates with us through the necessary rounds of review and revision. In Taiwan, the drawings are signed by a licensed architect we have worked with for many years. In both, we run the project as your single point of contact.
Construction supervision. We supervise the architectural and interior work on site through construction, checking it against the design until handover.
From 2010 to 2014, Richard and Stephen Wang worked on the client side, as the in-house architectural design managers of Shihlien Chemical in Huai’an. Working with the construction manager and directly with the chairman, they proposed designs, issued drawings, and coordinated local design institutes, the planning bureau, the land management bureau and city and provincial government offices. They designed and managed dormitories, VIP dining and hosting pavilions, offices, gatehouses, new warehouses, upgrades of older factories and landscaping, and set and enforced one design standard across all 11 plants on the site. They also managed Shihlien’s work with Pritzker Prize winner Álvaro Siza, Carlos Castanheira and the German design firm E-15, including the Building on the Water. They know what an owner needs from an architect, because they have been the owner.
Long-term clients
Yes. We have studios in Taipei, Shenzhen and Jiangsu, and projects across Taiwan and in Jiangsu, Yunnan, Guangdong and Shandong.
In China, the licensed design institute best suited to execute the project. In Taiwan, a licensed architect we have worked with for many years. In both, we lead the design, coordinate the authorities and remain your single point of contact.
Yes, and that is the best time. For sites in Taiwan, a land due diligence study tells you what you can build and what it will take before you commit. See our masterplanning service.
Yes. Our factories for T-HAM and Quest are both certified LEED Gold.
Yes. Construction supervision was part of our scope at T-HAM, Quest and the Shihlien New Energy battery plant.
Planning a new plant or an expansion? Tell us what you make, the output you need and where you are looking, and we will reply with how we would approach it.