Plant Inspiration

 Days: 17/21
Teas: 42

Day 14

To start our day off our team worked with the circular design tools to create a user journey path for the obtainment, use, and clearance of a furniture product which helped us narrow down our intended user and find a couple pathways for keeping furniture in the loop. This was pretty thought intensive so I borrowed a bike to go with my teammates to get boba and felt like a real NCKU student. 

In the afternoon we had an indigo dye workshop where we learned about the history of blue pigment and the cultivation of indigo in Taiwan. We each folded and bound a fabric square before dunking them in a tub of indigo dye and putting it in the sun to develop. The woman leading the hands on part of the workshop had been learning the craft for a very long time and she had answers to all of our pattern questions and a variety of techniques that we could try. As a group we only dyed our skin a little bit, but made a bunch of unique patterns. I really like a bandana the teacher was wearing that had a ginkgo leaf pattern in it, but she said that it was a different type of technique that involved designing pattern, making a mold of it, putting a special type of glue in the mold to transfer to the fabric, and screen printing with the indigo dye after the glue dries. It allows more precision in pattern but requires a full day and more training. 

Day 15

The Taijiang National Park was both further and closer to NCKU than I thought. The route passed lots of reservoirs from where the land had been built past the original coastline and felt very winding but it still surprised me how close we were to the ocean because Tainan does not feel like a coastal city. Our tour guide on the boat was super fun and let us touch the top of a jellyfish we caught in a counter balance style net. We also got to hear from a mechanical engineering professor about the changes that have happened to the area in the last few years and what current changes are happening with AI becoming a bigger part of Taiwan's economy. He also talked about the habitat monitoring IOT system that was used to manage the area which reminded me of a water monitoring system my friend did research with for her PhD back in Michigan. 

After, we went to Anping old street where I had milk fish soup, then a black tea ice cream shake, then coffin bread, then quail eggs, then a sweet tofu dessert with lots of toppings, then a boba, then a jin xuan cold brew tea. I was stuffed but I got to walk it off on a walking tour where we learned about the Dutch colonial history of the area including Fort Zeelandia which was interesting to me because I grew up in a historically Dutch area in Michigan where we had a Zeeland city. 

My favorite part of the day though was the Anping Tree House. The structure reminded me of the Doh Suh exhibit at the Tate Modern in London that explores home and space. 

Day 16

Today was a long day in the classroom learning about circular design and getting critique on our projects. So many of our projects took inspiration from the window flowers and flower tiles we have been seeing. We used a circular design card pack to answer questions about the durability, flexibility, and customizability of our design. 

After class I went to Chihkan temple and found more examples of the green glazed tiles we are using as inspiration for our modular furniture project. 

Day 17

For our last free day, a group of us went to the Confucius temple and the Ten Drums Cultural Village. We got an impromptu lesson from Erin on Japanese art and architecture that was interesting and we learned about the history of the temple and how it changed over time much like the other historical sites in Tainan. 

Ten Drums Cultural Village is an old sugar mill turned amusement park and traditional drum center and we had a blast. They had a 3 story slide, a roof swing, and a dark flower maze with little animatronic flowers.  We also got to see a traditional drum performance and see how they make the drums. It felt very much like Disneyland meets Greenfield village meets Cedar point. One of the NCKU students recommended it in their introduction slide and I’m so glad that they did!