Since arriving in Taiwan, I have enjoyed every moment of every day. Each day we experience a busy but exciting day of learning, laughing, and my favorite; eating. So far, we’ve visited many places that have inspired me such as the Taiwan Design Research Institute, Trash Kitchen, the National Palace Museum, and the Vision Base space at SCU. With each visit, I’ve gotten to see how traditional culture can be intertwined with the future possibilities that are unlocked with new technology.
These experiences have also further guided me in the direction that I’d like my career to go. For example, getting to tour the TDRI, I saw how the design teams there collaborate, have their own work space, and the type of projects they get to work on in this particular work environment. During this visit, I think a lot of us will remember this building for the fun and unexpected experiences like the all black and white pool table or the ball pit that a few of us jumped into during the guided tour of TDRI. After that tour, we went for a visit to Trash Kitchen where we got to do hands-on work to create sunglasses from recycled materials. I was fortunate enough to be the first to volunteer to assist in measuring out the recycled plastic materials for the sunglasses and this landed me with the opportunity to make the glasses myself and use the heat press equipment used to heat the plastic until it is moldable. I was so fascinated by this entire studio. All around the room you could find tiny containers with labels like “shredded mask pieces” or “kayak” that told exactly what the often unrecognizably tiny pieces of material once were. However, now that they had served their purpose and were successfully recycled, they could have a second life there at Trash Kitchen. To make the sunglasses, I chose plastic pieces such as bottle lids and pieces of a cut up milk carton. These pieces were then heated between a 3 ton heat press until we could roll the plastic onto itself and placed into molds. These molds were then heat pressed to form the sunglasses shape that once trimmed were ready to be assembled.
Both of these experiences were not only fun in the moment with my classmates, but were also really memorable for me because they made me feel excited and curious for my future. The two experiences pushed me to think about all the ways in which my design education could take me to different career paths or sectors of society as well as how impactful those designs could be on others. Overall, this study abroad has really made me excited to continue learning, growing, and finding my place within design during this trip and throughout the next few years of my life as I head into the workforce. I look forward to carrying what I’ve learned into my design work for the rest of my life and can’t wait to see what else the rest of this study abroad brings!
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First time outside after arriving to hotel
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Walking into the TDRI
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The materials we used at Trash Kitchen
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| The sunglasses I got to keep! |
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