TAIPEI --(ASIA TODAY)-- The Department of Cultural Affairs in Taipei City initiated the WDC Taipei 2016 “International Design Open Call” in 2015, and from the 49 international submissions selected six proposals that could help establish a bottom-up urban development roadmap: “The Food Project,” “Citizen of Tomorrow,” “Green Ocean Project,” “Taste of Home,” “Next Design for Health Care in Taipei,” and “(Re)Create Taipei.” These proposals reflect the four core principles of WDC Taipei 2016: quality of life and health, eco-sustainability, urban regeneration, and smart living. The city aims to stimulate urban evolution and international exchange through design, so that public agencies will release public resources and open up to citizen participation, inclusive governance, and progressive city development.
Collision of Park Cultures in Taipei and Spain
Spanish design team Basurama previously participated in WDC Cape Town 2014, where they used unwanted plastic bags to create a large installation entitled Inhabiting Plastic Oceans to raise the awareness in Cape Town about plastic bag pollution in the ocean. For WDC Taipei 2016, City Yeast, a design team that frequently collaborates with the city government, invited Basurama to join them for a joint project as the teams share similar ideals and methods. They hope to liberate Taipei’s public spaces by utilizing recycled or waste materials and a design model developed to involve local citizens, further exploring the functionalities and practicality of future neighborhood parks. In March, a series of seminars and workshops were held at TAF, and during a two-day workshop with participation by 80 members of the public, designers used unwanted plastic bags donated by the public to create a five-meter tall, eight-meter wide “Bubble Station”. The Bubble Station, which accommodates up to 100 people standing up, became the workstation for the re-imagining of neighborhood parks.
During the seminars and workshops, Spanish design team Basurama discovered cultural differences Taiwanese and European attitudes to child safety: Parents in Taipei fear their children might come to harm in public facilities; while on the other hand, European parents want their children to be able to explore and experience their surroundings, including using public facilities and taking care of themselves, even if that means a few bumps and bruises. From March to June, the Bubble Station appeared at random at TAF, National Taiwan Science Education Center, Taipei University of Technology, and underneath Civic Boulevard Expressway. Members of the public were invited to enter the station and take part in activities and show off their own collections. Meanwhile, their views were canvassed on a wide range of issues relating to public space, such as facilities and regulations in existing parks, and how they imagined future parks and their possible users. The aim is to turn on its head the conventional notion of standardized parks, which are all alike and designed to meet safety regulations, and instead to develop a park system that builds facilities which reflects users’ ideas.
The goal is to set a precedence and demonstrate that public spaces, while being maintained and operated by public agencies, can also involve citizens in decision-making, management, operation, and maintenance, thus using public resources more efficiently.
Community Spirit Boosted by Opening of Public Spaces
Basurama came to Taipei again in July and together with City Yeast transformed two unused lots—the empty Zhengyi Post Office lot on Section 3 of Zhongxiao E. Road (Zhengyi Village) and the park under Civic Blvd. Expressway (Chengan Village)—into the “Kids Ambition Park” and the “Swings Park.” Before the reconstruction, the design teams held design communication meetings with Chief Pan, Chief Lee, volunteers, and residents of the two neighborhoods to improve public understanding of the impetus for the work and the management of public spaces, and to ensure the team would design facilities that meet public needs. The reconstruction used recycled waste materials in the hope that even the highly developed Taipei City will take sustainability into consideration in its urban development.
“Kids Ambition Park” is near a kindergarten next to Zhengyi Post Office. The teams utilized large cooling tanks donated by Liangchi Group, cutting up and reassembling the large bottle-shaped water tanks with unwanted park equipment provided by the Parks and Street Lights Division. In this way, they turned the vacant space next to the kindergarten into a park where children can explore materials and space. The teams hope that playing in the park will open children’s minds to a range of stimuluses, allowing them to physically explore their environment and become ambitious young citizens.
“Swings Park” occupies the large, elevated space underneath Civic Boulevard Expressway. Designers repurposed the structure by welding together unwanted lampposts from the Parks and Street Lights Division to create an elevated swing park, where people of all ages and genders can enjoy physical activities underneath the expressway. Because of the noise of the traffic, users do not have to worry about disturbing neighbors and can let themselves go.
During construction of the two parks, the design teams also spread the word and invited members of the public to get involved. Participants included welders, design and architecture students on summer vacation, and enthusiastic residents from surrounding neighborhoods. The creation of these two new neighborhood parks embodied the spirit of public participation and inclusive governance through design. WDC Taipei 2016 also hopes to use design to come up with new visions and a new sustainable system for the city’s development, building Taipei into a sustainable and competitive city.
About WDC Taipei 2016
“Adaptive City – Design in Motion” was Taipei City’s core concept in its 2015 application to host World Design Capital 2016. How can we apply innovative “design thinking” practices to overcome the constraints that limited resources place on our city’s development, pursue continual change in our urban governance, create happiness in the lives of our citizens–providing them with a better quality of life in a more livable, forward-looking city? These are the goals for Taipei City. 2016 marks the beginning of an evolution for Taipei, where we will take advantage of the potential in change by “Engaging Communities,” “Connecting Information,” and “Revitalizing the City.” For more information on WDC Taipei 2016, visit the official website http://wdc2016.taipei/en or follow on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/taipeidesign/.
About World Design Capital
World Design Capital® (WDC) is designated by Icsid every two years to recognize a city’s innovative use of design for economic, social and cultural development and to showcase effective design-led urban revitalization strategies that other cities can benefit from. Past cities to hold the WDC title include Torino (Italy) in 2008, Seoul (South Korea) in 2010, Helsinki (Finland) in 2012, and Cape Town (South Africa) 2014. Taipei (Taiwan) is this year’s WDC, and Mexico City has just been named WDC 2018. For more information, please visit http://www.worlddesigncapital.com.
- ASIA TODAY Newswire http://www.AsiaToday.com
