WDC Taipei 2016 Shouts Out to the World of Professional Design in Gwangju
The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) held their 29th General Assembly meeting (GA) this past weekend, October 17th and 18th, in Gwangju, South Korea.
There were approximately 60 Icsid members attended the meeting from all over the world included members from Asia, America, Europe, Africa, and Oceania. Also, the 2015 International Design Congress which is held by three major design organizations includes the International Council of Design, International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers, and Icsid, will be the eye catching event from October 19th to 21st in Kimdaejune Convention Center in Gwangju, South Korea. The official is expecting over 3000 visitors will attend in this 3 days event.
To represent World Design Capital Taipei 2016 (WDC Taipei 2016), the Commissioner of Department of Cultural Affairs of Taipei City Government Chung-Hua Ni leaded the team to attend the meeting. The team members included the CEO of WDC Taipei 2016, Han Wu, Chief Advisor Officer of Taiwan Design Center, Tony K.M. Chang, Chairman of Chinese Industrial Designers Association Jieh-Cheng Kuo, Vice President of Experience Design, Compal Electronics, Inc, Shikuan Chen, and Yu-Jui Chou from KEV Design Studio from Taiwan.
“We believe WDC Taipei 2016 will continue the great spirit of World Design Capital and create our own Taipei design experience,” said the Commissioner of Department of Cultural Affairs Chung-Hua Ni. The CEO of WDC Taipei 2016 Han Wu officially introduced the plans of WDC Taipei 2016 during the GA and it was also the first time announced the kick off of WDC Taipei 2016 to the world of professional design. “The main theme of WDC Taipei 2016 is what we called「Adaptive City－Design in Motion」, meaning to adjust the city by design and continue to elevate to meet our citizens’ needs in both hardware and software upgraded. Also, Taipei is the most eligibility city to become a social design platform in all Asian area. By using this platform, Taipei will be able to share the spirit of social design and spread the attempt and determination by our yearlong events,” said the CEO of WDC Taipei 2016 Han Wu.
Due to the similar spirit and concept of social design, Taipei and Icsid come together to share the same value of social design. Iscid was found in 1957 and after 58 years of operation, Icsid’s GA approved with a two-thirds majority vote the motions to renew the vision and mission of Icsid and to change the name of the organisation to World Design Organization (WDO). The new concept of WDO is “to use design to build up strategies to solve problems and apply these strategies on products, systems, service, and design events with leading the innovation, promote successful emerging economy and provide better quality of life. The main objective of the new World Design Organization is to re-position industrial design as a catalyst for positive change in the world.”
Although, for promoting WDC Taipei 2016, Taipei is participating in the 2015 International Design Congress with Yu-Jui Chou being the chief curator. Yu-Jui uses the geography of Taipei city as an exhibition idea and to show the 5 major topics of “history”, “geography”, “lifestyle”, “Taipeian”’, and “future.” By showing these 5 topics, visitors from around the world will have better understanding about Taipei; at the mean time Taipei is ready to experience the power of design in WDC Taipei 2016.
At its 29th General Assembly, Icsid announced that Mexico City has been designated World Design Capital (WDC) 2018 by beating Curitiba, Brazil. It is the sixth city – and first city from the Americas – to hold the designation. Mexico City also invites Taipei to become a partner city of Design Week Mexico, hoping to use this opportunity to increase more popularity and more international partner through design.
The new concept of WDO:
“To use design to build up strategies to solve problems and apply these strategies on products, systems, service, and design events with leading the innovation, promote successful emerging economy and provide better quality of life. It is a cross-professional disciplines, innovation, technology, business, research and consumer closely together to carry out creative activities and issues to be addressed, the proposed solutions to visualize, re-deconstruct the problem and to build better products, systems, services, experience, or business networking opportunities. All of these new concepts will provide a new value and competitive advantage. The main objective of the new World Design Organization is to re-position industrial design as a catalyst for positive change in the world.”
Contacts:
Taiwan Design Center
Irene Wu, Director of Int’l Design Development Section, wuyipei@tdc.org.tw
Candice Hsu, Project Manager of Int’l Design Development Section jessica_guo@tdc.org.tw