Stilt House Introduction
Shiding East Street, also known as "Diaojiaolou" or Shiding Old Street, is currently one of the few remaining examples of "not seeing the sky" streets in Taiwan. If you carefully observe the houses here, you will notice that they all rely on the strength of pillars, allowing the structures to be suspended above the riverbed—this is a very unique architecture. In the past, in mountainous areas, people sometimes had to elevate parts of their buildings to construct them in ideal locations, which is why the houses on the creek side of Shiding East Street are supported by pillars, a feature preserved since the Japanese colonial period and has become a distinctive architectural style. This special diaojiaolou architectural form was developed by residents to address the limited space. However, don’t assume that such a structural design is unreliable; these diaojiaolou structures have stood here for decades, proving to be quite sturdy over time!
