Studio: The Creek That Connects It All

BPRF team  from National Taiwan University, worked together to design ways to rebuild the significant features of the small village, Kuo-Hsin. They suffered from numerous problems: earthquakes, deforestation, dwindling agricultural sector and an outflow of youth that needed to be halted within the community. The team wanted to give to this needing community without taking away the charm of the village by implementing technological advancements on the villagers way of living. "The damage and casualties caused by the earthquake put a number of small mountain villages in the national spotlight, attracting intellectual and financial resources while rekindling a desire to address the villages' ongoing problems." (58)

The passage discusses how a master plan allows the people of the community to feel more involved by taking an initiative in a public works project. With research, the BPRF was able to discover rich and historical parts the valley creek's, Chi-Keng geographical features had.

The Team's Goals:

• Extend participation to diverse community groups
• Base any physical transformation of the creek on scientific grounds
• They claimed this would be a difficult task initially to achieve. As a collaborative team of designers, is that the right approach to a project? When do you know what you can achieve and cannot?

Promoted slogan: "Just restore our place as it used to be."

"During the process the planners saw the villagers attitudes shift form indiffrence to investment." (60) This seems really symbolic for any plan that is introduce into communities, especially of areas that have more financial concerns of where their money is going. There will always be skepticism until further explained not only by mouth but seeing the project in action.

"The BPRF helped organize the residents into different working groups in charge of materials and equipment, food and drank, and publicity." It is interesting that even after the project, villagers attempted to add more swimming ponds and engagement to the creek. Like the BPRF team had done in Chu-Keng, designers / architects / artists who utilize their space efficiently by incorporating the area, really challenge themselves and preserve what may mean the most to a community.