This is a short video describing our investigation attempting to integrate the formalistic relationships of the Forbidden City grid into a natural topography, which is the site of a new Taoist temple and masterplan. The investigation was inspired by an interview with the Taoist Abbot in which the shortest desrciption he provided of Taoism was ‘nature’. This brought up questions about the possible manifestations of the formal basis of the religion which is inherited from imperial associations (and historically intertwined with royal rites), when applied to a natural site such as this one.
