University and City Government Working Together to Build a New Style for Old Community

Reporter Lee Shu-Hsuan/News of Taoyuan

May 17, 2017/00:18

▲CYCU invited experts to lead the community residents to work with the university students to experience various construction methods and engage in the community development physically. (Photo/provided by CYCU, May 16, 2017)

In order to make the old communities re-interpret the meaning of times and brand new style, Taoyuan City Government contracted CYCU College of Design to perform the plan for “Community Environmental Construction in Taoyuan”, selected and guided a total of 26 community reconstruction projects in Taoyuan, and invited experts to lead the community residents to work with the university students to experience various construction methods and engage in the community development physically via the “Learning Workshop”.

According to CYCU, it is proceeding with the teaching and implementation of kids’ playware transformed from wasted old tires on the vacant land at Fushan Yen, Daxi District, the ecological pond construction workshop in Neili Community, Zhongli District, teaching and growing of multi-layer planting in Chiu Tou Community, Xinwu District, and the landscaping work in the front of Gao Lian Activity Center, Pingzhen District.  Accordingly, it has built the brand new style for various old communities in Taoyuan.  Meanwhile, the community workshop organized by it for “Historical Relics Renovation and Landscaping on Wenhua Road” in Jiaan Community, Longtang District a few days ago invited the local carpentry teacher retired from the Affiliated Tao-Yuan Agricultural & Industrial Senior High School of National Taipei University of Technology, Chiu Shih-Che, and the national treasure master, Tsai Sung-Po, led the community residents, CYCU teachers and students, and students of Hanyin High School to join the implementation of services together. Under the sun, all of the participants completed the wooden bench under Chiu Shih-Che’s patient instruction. Tsai Sung-Po interpreted how to prepare and stir such materials as sticky rice, brown sugar, hemp and lime in detail, and also demonstrated how to smear and pile up. The senior high school students or university students on the site were so exciting to crouch down to experience the ancient bricklaying method and, therefore, figured out the big difference of the physical operation from the master’s interpretation or the interpretation given in classroom.

Chien Tzu-Hsuan, the sophomore student of CYCU Department of Landscape Architecture, indicated that for them, the sticky rice wall was only a historical term referred to in the textbook; however, after participating in the Service-Learning course, he experienced the bricklaying process for the sticky rice wall and, therefore, realized that he really learned more by doing physically outside the classroom. Chief of Village, Lo Chi-Chiao, also revealed that he was glad to see that schools and various sectors worked together to reconstruct the idle old military housing into a comfortable public space, and he planned to upgrade it as the in-depth tour guiding location of Jiaan Community in the future.

Chief Strategy Officer of CYCU Office of Research and Development, Wu Zhao-Ming, mentioned that CYCU would value the knowledge responsibility, continue to promote the professional courses in practicing and link it locally, in hopes of enabling each student to learn professional knowledge and also apply the same to benefit people and care the society. CYCU will work with the City Government to draft more interdisciplinary integrated social design programs, in hopes of fulfilling its social responsibility toward the communities and then the whole Taoyuan District.