At first, I looked around and began to wonder: where do the materials that build up these spaces come from? Space relies on material construction, and as people enter, stay, rest, and live within it, are we not also entering into these very materials as they envelop and carry us?

With these reflections, I gradually made my way to Shoushan in Kaohsiung. At the foot of Shoushan, there was once one of Taiwan's earliest cement quarries. Through the extraction of limestone and the firing process to produce cement—the foundational raw material of architecture—Shoushan reveals itself as an uplifted high-altitude coral reef limestone. The rock mass was formed through the remains of corals, shells, and calcified organisms; yet, when a building is erected, a part of the landscape disappears. Between these limestone rocks bearing diverse shell traces and the human traces within architectural spaces, through the time of depletion and addition, matter becomes a fluid form, lingering and leaving its mark across different eras. From limestone to architecture, from landscape to dwelling—are we not living within a singular, continuous landscape?

I follow a downward path. Inside limestone caves shaped by weathering and erosion, time manifests with the flickering light. The physical sensation of being surrounded by limestone and enveloped by space reminds me of my thoughts on architectural environments: about matter and space, about the subterranean and the surface, and about two states of sedimentation. In the process of moving through the cave, I seem to become a person within a shell, moving with hands and feet pressed against the walls, my headlamp scouting the surroundings. Caves and living spaces are both formed within limestone, much like organisms growing their own homes from calcium. The cave is a shell and also a dwelling, revealing the time of limestone through light.