[Study-Space Series] A European Hideaway Near Taipei Main Station: The Singularity

Introduction

I was introducing one study spot a week, and now whenever anyone sees an interesting place to study, they come tell me about it XD. Thank you so much! Otherwise I think I would soon run out of places on my list.

The best part is that their suggestions are both interesting and useful. I visit every recommended place myself! I already have four friends' recommendations to share with you one by one later.

The place I am sharing today absolutely deserves an article of its own.

“I want to recommend this place—my friend opened it!” A friend I had not spoken to in almost ten years suddenly messaged me a link.

I met this friend while working at Wencheng near NTU. We were not actually very close, but she was so pretty and sweet that I always wanted to get to know her better. I just never found the chance (hides face).

I took a look at the place my friend recommended and was astonished.

Wait, there is a place this nice near Taipei Main Station? I had passed it over and over while visiting the nearby study centers and while heading out for 5min Sleep, yet I had never noticed it! I wish I had found it sooner.

“It only opened a month ago, haha!” my friend said.

A month! It was still properly new. Better go and check it out before it got busy.

With my own very selfish reasons in mind, I invited a bunch of friends to hold our next meeting there. I used the meeting as an excuse to investigate XDDD, and that is how this article came about.

Honestly, I have to tell you about a place this good. I will probably go back again and again myself XDDD.

Let me say this first: this is definitely not sponsored. But if anyone wants to trade goodies for a mention, I am very open to that XDDDDDD. At this point, I will take money and nice things.

My Personal Ratings

Comfort for studying and working: ★★★★★

Cleanliness: ★★★★★

Transport convenience: ★★★★★

Privacy: ★★★

Friendliness of the counter staff: ★★★★★

Price: $

Privacy does not get full marks because this is still a public place. Other people can see what you are doing XDDD. They are probably busy with their own work, though, so they do not pay much attention to you.

Even so, I felt safe leaving my things on the table for a short while!

After all, this was a place where I could go out to eat and come back to work XD. I will explain how the plans worked in a moment.

How the Plans Worked

Update: this article records my September 2022 visit. Please check the venue's latest official announcements for current prices, plans, reservations and rules. Seating, furnishings, accessible floors and services may also have changed. The prices, hours of access, drinks, snacks and floor access described below are not promises of what is available now; confirm the details with the venue before visiting.

The Singularity describes itself as a shared work space, but it is quite different from a conventional coworking space for entrepreneurs.

After spending time in so many places to study and work, I found its way of charging quite novel.

One major difference was that The Singularity offered delicious drinks and snacks; the price also felt much lower to me than at an ordinary coworking space.

It was not trying to create the stern, office-like atmosphere of a conventional coworking space. It felt more like a warm home.

So calling The Singularity simply a coworking space does not feel quite right to me.

Maybe The Singularity is just The Singularity. There is no need to compare it with another kind of place.

Ah, I got sidetracked. Let me briefly explain how the plans worked when I visited.

There were several plans. Every one of them included a seat with a power outlet, and generally you could choose your own seat.

The “kill time” plan gave you three hours. You could come and go and bring outside food. If you did not want to go out, you could have refillable drinks and as many little snacks as you liked. The opening-period price was NT$200.

If three hours were not enough, you could upgrade to the all-day plan. It included the same services throughout opening hours and cost only NT$100 more.

When we went there for our meeting, our meetings routinely lasted six or seven hours, so we chose the all-day plan.

I have to say, the friends I meet with lately are completely out of control (I mean that as praise). How can they hold a meeting for six or seven hours straight without going off on tangents? Amazing.

If even three hours sounded too long, there was also a 1.5-hour dessert plan. You could still have refillable drinks and receive a cake or another dessert, although you could not keep eating the little biscuits. It cost NT$160, roughly the price of a drink and dessert at an ordinary afternoon tea.

As someone who often hides in Starbucks or another café to read, I thought a cake and 1.5 hours of refillable drinks at that price sounded like a good deal.

But for another NT$140 you could stay all day. If I were studying or working, I would go for the all-day plan. Please call me the budgeting master (?).

There were also monthly plans and an annual preferred-member plan. For those, please check their official website yourselves.

The Singularity’s official website

Their website is beautiful and has so much character. I peeked at the code and, sure enough, traditional HTML, CSS and JS can create a wonderfully personal style like this.

I have added it to my list of websites to analyze XDDDD.

The Space

You might already be impressed by the plans and want to go have a look right away.

No, no: the plans are not the only impressive thing about The Singularity. Its interior design and décor are what really made me fall for it.

Two of the friends in our meeting care deeply about their surroundings and aesthetics. If even they loved it, imagine how impressed a color-blind person with no aesthetic sense or creativity like me was.

I thought it was wonderful!

I was in a bit of a hurry when I entered that day. I had arrived early, but first went wandering off to inspect the vegetable-fairy capsule toys around Taipei Main Station.

My friends therefore got to the shop before I did. To avoid being called the late one, I quickly opened the door and went in without lingering outside.

It did not merely look like a little European shop from outside; the interior seemed to be going for that style too.

The first floor felt rather like an ordinary café, with bar seats and regular tables. Whether you came with friends or alone, you could find a little spot for yourself.

Because this was a work space, both the individual seats and the regular tables had desk lamps and outlets.

I really liked the lamps. They reminded me of the many lamps in NTU's main library (although those were green), and made me miss my days of studying hard there.

The counter staff kindly introduced the plans and patiently answered every question we asked.

The plans were as described above. Because we expected a very long meeting, we chose the NT$300 all-day pass without hesitation.

There were many kinds of drinks. You could ask the counter for tea, and they would give you a tea bag to brew. A small fridge in the drinks area also held orange and cranberry juice.

If you wanted iced tea, you could brew it in a teapot, pour it into a glass and add ice. There you go: iced tea!

There was also a coffee machine. Basically, it was hard to imagine not finding something you wanted to drink.

The instructions for using the space were presented in little illustrations. They were unbelievably cute; I suspect Nana drew them.

But perhaps those little scent bottles were for tea leaves...?

I had iced black tea, orange juice, more iced black tea, cranberry juice and so on that day. I almost filled up on drinks alone.

The little snacks I mentioned as part of the all-day plan were in this cabinet.

There were so many kinds that I could hardly name them. I did recognize some delicious Japanese rice crackers, something that looked like chocolate-flavored Kuai Kuai, and some cheese-flavored biscuits.

I tried a little of each. Even for a picky eater like me, none was a dud; I thought they were all quite tasty. I would recommend choosing a plan that included those biscuits.

I did not taste the cakes for you, though. If you are curious, you can go and try one yourself!

If you look carefully, you will notice that all of The Singularity's extension cords were the same black model. Surprisingly, they suited the place.

By the way, what most intrigued my friends during the meeting was an ice bucket.

When I went to pour a drink, curiosity got the better of me and I asked a staff member who was passing by:

“About how often do you have to replace the ice in this bucket?”

The staff member thought for a moment and said, “About every two hours!”

Huh???

Copper normally conducts heat very well. If you put ice in it, you would think it would melt quickly. Yet this bucket could last two hours?

Could it have two layers with a vacuum in between? Wait, the outside felt cold and had water droplets on it!

After that I kept thinking about the mysterious bucket throughout the meeting. I should buy one and investigate it properly.

The science-teacher part of my brain really will not behave; it wakes up at the oddest times.

After looking around, we paid at the counter and were given a pass that let us come and go all day.

Wait, was the plan not NT$300? Why did I pay NT$350?

Because I bought a cool snack clip for myself and one for my friend XD. They were NT$25 each.

At first I did not know what a snack clip was. A friend explained that it works a bit like chopsticks: you use your thumb and forefinger to grip snacks without getting your hands sticky, so you can keep working while eating.

It sounded so cool that I bought one.

And then I ate snacks with my hands all day and never used it XDDDDDD.

The second floor felt like an English-style library. It was quieter than the first floor, and some of the facilities were different.

We arrived at around 10 a.m. Only one person was working in a corner upstairs, so I could take pictures freely.

Unlike the first floor, the second floor had a quiet reading area as well as open seating.

The Singularity had separated it with glass. I stepped inside to see how it felt. I do not know whether they had done any special soundproofing, but it really was rather quiet.

It looked like a good place to reserve for a class or meeting.

A quiet space naturally had more rules. Even so, there could hardly be more restrictions than at some of the study centers I had visited XDDDD. I would recommend it to friends who really want somewhere quiet to study or work!

The Singularity thoughtfully put an outlet at each seat in the quiet reading area too. You could therefore still use a laptop or tablet there, although you were expected to set your phone to vibrate.

An ordinary study center might demand complete silence from your phone because even vibration makes some noise. That is why I say the requirements in this quiet reading area were relatively relaxed.

That does not mean I heard anyone blasting videos in a shared space XDDDD. I saw someone watching what looked like an engineering-math course that afternoon, but they wore headphones.

If the quiet reading area was in use for a class or meeting and you still wanted somewhere relatively quiet and undisturbed, you could use the second-floor phone booth. It was quite roomy; it struck me as a good place for tutoring.

The sofas felt like something from an elegant library. A couple was sitting there chatting and spending time together that afternoon.

Maybe it was the atmosphere, but even their conversation was very soft.

Seeing those sofas in a library-like space made me desperately want to fall asleep there... (What is wrong with me?)

The return station for cups and plates upstairs seemed to be here. After our meeting, we could not find one on the third floor, so we brought everything down here to sort it.

No one was using the third floor that day, so the staff asked if we would like to stay up there, where there was more room to discuss freely.

Why would we say no? XD. Once we went upstairs, we saw that the room really was huge.

Could the four of us really use a space this big? XDDDD.

The third floor had a ceiling roughly two stories high. It felt like a study in someone's home—a very wealthy person's home, mind you, not just anyone's (emphasis).

The third floor had so many sofas and chairs. Because our meeting was a brainstorming session, my friends and I wandered among the sofas, sitting or lying back in different positions. Being able to move around like that really helped us make progress.

You might ask whether sofas that lots of people had used would feel dirty.

Not at all. Whether they were leather or fabric, I did not cough once that day—and I am someone who often coughs when there is a bit of dirt around.

Every sofa felt well cared for, with no dust that I could feel.

Just being there made me imagine booking the whole place for a lively company year-end party or birthday celebration. The well-kept décor would also make a great ready-made background for filming a YouTube video.

If a group wanted to play games here, there was a television as well as a huge wall and a projection screen. Projecting a game onto it would be such fun.

The cabinet on the right was packed with DVDs. If you did not want to meet or work, just watching a film there sounded lovely.

Those sofas were so comfortable!

There were more bookshelves by the windows. A friend found a book they had been required to read in mechanical engineering at university. I also saw books on mechanics of materials; I wanted to grab one and curl up on a sofa.

If my home had a space this large and this lovely, I would read there for eighteen hours every day!

Beside the little bar was a sink and even a fridge. For a place that could be rented out, it seemed well suited to group activities.

If someone brought a packed lunch to a company event and put it in that fridge, surely they would never forget to collect it after the event and leave it behind... right?

I behaved like a child that day, opening and closing everything I could reach. I found ice in the freezer and, to my surprise, a sofa bed hidden on the third floor XDDDD.

This little area felt more like a dining space, adding to the third floor's home-like style. It was entirely different from the first and second floors.

In fact, because we needed computers to talk through our meeting, we spent most of our time at the huge wooden table in the middle.

It was a little far from the wall, but The Singularity had thoughtfully placed outlets and extension cords in the floor, so everyone at the table could plug in!

As a child who pokes around everywhere, how could I see another staircase and not run up it? That would go against my nature!

And when I reached the top...

“It's an attic!!! That is so cool!!!”

It was a small space clean enough to sit on the floor. It felt different again, and it too had outlets and a TV. It would be perfect for chatting with a few close friends, or playing games together XDDD.

We loved it so much that we ran downstairs to ask the counter whether we could stay there.

But the staff explained that this area was not normally open. What a shame QQQ. I hope we get to play in that little attic another time :D.

So we stayed on the third floor after all, with its very high ceiling. I felt a bit bad that just four of us took up so much space. Yet of all the work spaces I had visited so far, that day felt the most comfortable and freeing.

And what about the restroom, you ask?

From the third floor, you had to go down to the second and then out through something like a fire door before you could see it.

With so many plants, the passage looked outdoors, but it was still inside the building. What a mysterious spot.

I did not feel like taking a picture inside the restroom XDD, but it was clean and obviously well maintained.

After almost seven hours of meetings we had made great progress. My friends were also with me for an outcome that other people might think was great, but that I personally did not want at all.

That gave me one more private memory of this place XDDDD.

Whenever we finish a meeting this long, we go for a meal. The photo above is of Kamimura Bokujou on the second floor of Taipei Main Station's Breeze Center. I have eaten with this group so often lately that I have even started eating water snowflake stems (shui lian)!!

Along with helping me get my schedule in order and exercise, are they going to cure my picky eating too?

Conclusion

This shop was not originally on my article schedule. If my friend had not told me about it, I could have walked past a hundred times without ever stepping inside.

I am so glad my friend told me about it. Getting to know such a lovely shared work space was wonderful.

At the time, The Singularity felt like an excellent choice whether I needed to hold a work meeting, concentrate on my own tasks, or arrange a company party or other event.

We spent this visit on the third floor. Next time I wanted to try the second floor, either the open area or the quiet reading room.

In short, it was somewhere I wanted to return to again and again.

By the way, I saw that The Singularity was recruiting a skill-exchange partner. Someone could trade their particular skills for a lifetime access membership. I was so tempted!

Would law, public health, statistics, physics teaching, marketing or website building qualify? Maybe I should apply and see XDDDD. I want to go back, and back, and back.

See you in the next article!

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