Practice Care by Design, CYCU Teachers and Students Build Access-Free Environment as “King Maker”
[Power News Reporter Lo Wei-Chou/News of Taoyuan]
In order to enable the physically and mentally disabled friends to enjoy a convenient and comfortable living environment, the teachers and students of CYCU Department of Interior Design led students to practice the work physically through interview, survey and planning, in order to re-build the access-free sink for Ai Jia Development Center. Therefore, they resolved the physically and mentally disabled trainees’ problems for all the years. The participating graduate students also felt that they did meaningful work, although they were so tired at the same time!
Ai Jia Development Center, which is located in Pingzhen District, has provided the physically and mentally disabled with the learning service and life care for more than one decade. However, the sink has to be accessed by the trainees every day, which bothered the trainees for many years. The Director of the Center, Li Li-Hua, revealed that when deciding the height and materials of the original sink, the builder fails to take the trainees’ needs into consideration, as some wheelchair users could not access the sink because of the insufficient space and some little children could not touch the sink unless they stood on a bench.Li Li-Hua said that “CYCU students have visited the site for many times to verify each trainee’s actual need. Then, they proposed the corrective action plan to us based on their professional planning and also helped us remove the old counter and produce a new access-free sink; we felt so thankful for all of them!”
Associate Professor Chen Li-Yu, who led the courses, indicated that “VR Design” formed the characteristics of CYCU design education, as it taught students to practice physically to find problems and upgrade their professional knowledge by practicing; meanwhile, the students may realize that “the design should be based on human beings” to care the users’ needs with the sense of identity.
The students of Department of Interior Design participating in the service indicated that the teacher led every one of them to verify the question about sink at Ai Jia Development Center; upon discussion, the group members finished the “access-free sink” after design, preparation of drawings and construction. The graduate student, Lai Pin-Hsuan, said that “It is very difficult to solve the problem about access by the physically and mentally disabled, but we feel the sense of accomplishment after completing the design of user-friendly environment with the knowledge we learned!” Chen Lo-An also said, “The design course provides the real learning, as the design should focus on “human beings” to verify different needs and meet the purpose of helping people! We hope that each of Ai Jia Development Center people may feel the pleasure derived by the friendly design.”
Teacher Lin Wen-Chi of Department of Interior Design, who instructed the professional carpentry, said that in order to prevent disturbing the trainees’ daily life, the students were willing to perform the construction work on holidays and some of them who have never used the tools before also spent a few weeks in learning cutting plates, assembling framework and grinding artificial stone. Teacher Lin Wen-Chi said that “The students realized the gap between design of drawings and physical practicing in the process of learning by doing and this would be helpful to enhance their specialty inevitably.”
The “Care Design Studio” led by Associate Professor Chen Li-Yu helped Ai Jia Development Center reconstruct the access-free sink and produce lockers with recycled furniture for a LAHOS Preschool. Meanwhile, it also helped the Carpenter’s House complete the environmental renovation of the public welfare coffee shop and design of the second-hand bazaar shop’s window. It also helped Fongbin Primary School in Hualien renovate the classroom for aboriginal children with the recycled materials from the College of Design graduation exhibition to fulfill the friendly creativity and care design, and provide service adequately.
CYCU Chief Strategy Officer, Wu Chao-Ming, indicated that CYCU has been dedicated to promoting the Service-Learning for more than one decade. Each college’s teachers and students combine profession and care, utilize knowledge to combine resources from various sectors to help communities, rural areas and disadvantaged groups, fulfill the university’s social responsibility, enable CYCU students to practice the “social design”, and derive positive social influence.
(Photo provided by CYCU/CYCU teachers and students with the Director of Ai Jia Development Center, Li Li-Hua (the fourth from the left))
