Shimen Reservoir Administration Bureau Dormitories

A sprawling settlement of staff dormitories built starting in 1958 to house workers from the Shimen Reservoir (石門水庫) construction project, one of the most significant water resources undertakings of the post-war era in Taiwan. The whole was planned in 1955 as Shiyifen New Village (十一份新村), combining offices, dormitories, a communal dining hall, a fire station, a kindergarten, and a hospital into a single integrated settlement. Funded in part by USAID, it stands as a rare early example of modern town planning in Taiwan.

Buildings here are simply brick and cement structures arranged in detached, duplex, and row-house configurations with front and rear yards, around curving roads that enclose a central open space. The American engineers attached to the project lived separately to the northeast in Shiyuan No. 1 Village (石園一村), now absorbed into the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) campus and closed to the public. In January 2026 the Taoyuan City Government registered twenty surviving dormitories along Jia’an West Road (佳安西路) as the city’s first historic building group (聚落建築群); several units now serve as the Sankeng Watertown Visitor Center (三坑水鄉遊客服務中心) and artist residencies, while the rest remain in use as water company staff housing.