One such transformation has occurred in Tai­tung, one of Taiwan’s most remote counties. Typhoon Nepartak wreaked havoc on it in 2016, but also served as a turning point, stimulating the authorities to integrate design thinking into public policy, create an exclusive “city brand,” and inaugurate the first-ever county-level design center on the less-developed eastern side of Taiwan.

“Transforming the system from within”: The team led by Chang Chi-yi (middle) is the “spark” that will hopefully ignite creative interaction between the public and private sectors.

Design drives Taitung innovation

What is design? “Design is part of our lives,” explains ­Chang Chi-yi, CEO of Tai­tung Design Center (TTDC). “It doesn’t merely grapple with the basic question of what is or is not ‘beautiful.’ It should provide techniques and solutions to resolve problems.”

A native of Tai­tung, ­Chang originally returned to his hometown to serve as deputy county commissioner. His actual job title should have been “aesthetics director,” he confides. At the time, Commissioner ­Huang Jian­ting made use of ­Chang’s expertise to ensure Tai­tung’s aesthetic appeal, and henceforth the city embarked on a path toward quality control and innovative concepts.

A challenging period of acclimation, however, was required before “design thinking” achieved widespread consensus within the county administration. Established in 2017, TTDC was originally under the International Development and Planning Department. “County government departments weren’t prepared,” says ­Chang, “and the center was often perceived as just one more body engaged in oversight and micro-­management.” Later the center reported direct to the county com­missioner, and established a project office. Meanwhile, the idea of the center’s function was re­visited. Its work was “ideally not to frequently intervene in the execution of projects themselves, but rather to introduce good ideas before everything is set in stone. If appropriate strategies are first elaborated, then as projects proceed things will naturally fall into place.”

In ­Chang’s view, frontline civil servants at the local level are often overburdened by administrative tasks. They haven’t spare time to carefully consider what the underlying policy is intended to achieve. As a result, in most government projects officials simply focus on completing the procurement process, but when a project is conducted in this way it often fails to meet core goals. ­Chang explains the center’s role via a simple analogy. “When you visit a doctor, you don’t choose the one who charges the lowest fee, right?” he says. “You seek the one whose expertise lies in the appropriate field, and who has the best reputation.” The center’s role is to flag core issues for county government departments during the early phases of project planning, pose the right questions, and then, in keeping with the needs of the project, to be familiar with Taiwan’s best organizations and the nature of the services they can provide.

In 2018, the center invited Plan b, a private-sector consultancy and planning firm, to jointly promote the introduction of professional design concepts in Tai­tung. The former railroad police station in Taitung City, then idle, was refurbished to serve as the site for the TTDC. For both logo design and exhibition space, designer Feng Yu employed a “window” image that symbolizes the world as seen from a design perspective. Via this window one can both “observe and explore” and “discover and create” Tai­tung’s future. 

In order to highlight topics such as “concepts of governance,” “natural landscapes,” and “urban lifestyles,” Taitung Design Center conceptualizes a variety of exhibitions and invites audiences to ponder them and engage in dialogue.

Conveying “authentic” Tainan

While Taitung hopes to create a unique “city brand” via design, Taiwan’s oldest urban center—Tai­nan—­intends­ to use design to convey its genuine persona.

In 2015, when direct flights were inaugurated between Tai­nan and ­Osaka, the Tai­nan authorities ­contemplated how to attract Osaka residents to visit. Sue Wang, then dir­ector of the Tai­nan City Tourism Bureau (and now deputy mayor), points out that overly commercialized marketing of a city doesn’t communic­ate anything particularly true; it simply facilitates price-based comparisons. “You can’t really say that’s a method for accurately conveying a city’s reality,” she comments. “We decided to highlight motivators for a visit, rather than focusing on Tai­nan as a tourism market. That meant creating an urge to visit Tainan.”

Wang decided to hold an exhibition that could highlight the “true face” of Tai­nan. The Tourism Bureau sought out C.W. Yu, general manager of L-instyle Boutique Travel Services, founder of Join Cultural Integration Company, and a pioneer in promoting small-scale travel within Taiwan.

What makes Tai­nan what it is? “We like to say, ‘Taiwan’s loveliest scenery is its people.’ Yet we never utilize people to communicate this in depth,” says Yu. In order to convey the real Tai­nan, Yu’s team contacted several locals to share their “Tai­nan story”: Li Wen­xiong, owner of Lily Fruit, a shaved-ice shop; paper-cutting artist Yang ­Shiyi; Feng Cha teahouse boss Ye Dong­tai; Cai Zong­sheng, owner of Sai Kau Kin Old House, built in 1897 and now functioning as a bed and breakfast; ­Huang Ding­yao, executive director of the Togo Graceful Farmer Art Factory; art conservator Leo Tsai; and award-­winning singer-­songwriter ­Hsieh Ming-yu. “This is the requisite ‘human angle.’ When we believe that behind each resident there is a story worth telling, then aren’t a city’s stories inexhaustible?” says Yu persuasively. 

The ubiquitous red plastic stool that dots the city’s food stalls was selected by Yu’s team to serve as Tai­nan’s icon. Deceptively simple and unadorned, the robust stool fears neither sun nor rain, and—not unlike the character of the Tainan­ese—it is welcoming and depend­able. The sight of a group of the bright red stools brings to mind the hearty local greeting: “Take a seat!” At the annual “Red Stool Travel Club of Tainan” exhibition in Osaka, each stool is used as a stand to display an item that represents a “Tai­nan story,” and carries with it an aspect of life in Tainan.

Window on Taitung-to-be: The presence of such an opening within the TTDC exhibition space symbolizes future-oriented observation and exploration from various perspectives.

Find the right person and move forward together

The Japan Institute of Design Promotion, which tradi­tion­ally emphasizes innovation and sleek design, surprised the design world by recognizing the Red Stool Travel Club with a Good Design Award in the category “Activities for Regional/Community Building” in 2018.

Scouting for the right partners has turned out to be the key to success. Over the last two years, Yu has visited Japan with an eye for issues related to “regional revitalization.” “How the government identifies private-sector partners who share common goals, and then nurtures trust and open-minded collaboration, is absolutely crucial,” he says.

“No matter what problems we’ve encountered, we’ve never lost faith in one another,” says Wang. For government projects, there is a certain verification schedule to be followed. But Yu always tries to win more time for collaborating artists. “A little more time can mean increased opportunity for inspiration to occur.” On the other hand, execution of a project depends upon a reasonable pace in order to culminate in a satisfactory outcome. At times like these, Wang must make a professional assessment from the perspective of the commissioning department, and determine the maximum permissible delay.

After deciding to join forces with Tai­tung Design Center, Plan b’s founder and senior partner Justin Yu called on various departments of the county government. Senior officials “were really very fond of Tai­tung, and put the county’s interests first in considering all matters,” relates Yu. “That was truly remarkable.” For deputy CEO, ­Chang Chi-yi selected Lo Shu-yuan, who possesses abund­ant experience in business, to liaise between county departments. This included communicating with the accounting department to grant the design center greater flexibility regarding procurement standards for projects, and bringing in professionals from different fields in order to achieve optimal results from the design-driven approach. “The key performance indicators that we set require our partner to deliver three key projects that can exert public influence. As for what sort of projects they would be, we have left the content undefined,” says Lo.

“It is true that we are challenging past procurement practices in terms of key performance indicators.” For anyone knowledgeable about the procurement process for government-commissioned projects, Lo’s description would sound rather surprising; just in terms of the difficulty of persuading the accounting office, defining the phrase “exert public influence” would suffice to sew utter confusion, chuckles ­Chang. “But we believe that if we introduce professional teams into the process and give them space to function, they will generate social influence in and of themselves. And that will be the result of our collaborative efforts.”   

This year TTDC launched a campaign to redesign the county government’s business cards. Centered around the theme of Tai­­tung’s mountains, sea and sky, elements such as rice, sugar apples, flying fish, San­xian­tai Island, Kung-Tung Church and hot air balloons appear on the cards in sketched form. “Besides aiming to convey to local residents the problems that the design center hopes to resolve, the county’s redesigned calling cards are exchanged daily and therefore can help recipients discover what makes Tai­tung different,” explains Yu. “This point of difference implies that Tai­tung is open to accepting a greater variety of new possibilities.”

Find the right person and move forward together: Collaborators Sue Wang (right) and C. W. Yu (left) aim to convey an accurate understanding of Tainan.

Small item, big impact

A visiting card embodies Tai­tung’s unique culture, and communicates how it is changing. “Perhaps it isn’t a big thing, but it can have a big impact,” says ­Chang. What other counties and cities have not been able to do, Tai­tung has achieved via this petite but widely influential item. “So we are the ones lighting the torch, driving the public sector to imagine opportunities for innovation by working in tandem with the private sector.”   

Meanwhile, the red plastic stool has become a symbol of Taiwan in Japanese eyes. At the closing of the annual exhibition held in Osaka, the organizer encourages attend­ees to take a stool with them as they leave. At first some locals told Yu that attendees would be averse to be seen transporting a stool home on a train, but in the event, each and every one was snapped up. “It’s emotions that cause us to do the irrational,” says Yu. The red stool connects the ordinary people of Japan with ordin­ary Taiwanese. “This isn’t about price, it’s about value.”   

“A red stool is actually an inconspicuous element in our lives. But if we have the confidence to present such an element to others and concede that this is us, that signifies that we have the courage to face up to who we really are,” says Wang. She has constantly been hoping that tourism can be correctly perceived, and thereby help more people get to know Taiwan and understand that this is a country that maintains freedom, demo­cracy and human rights despite adverse conditions. This realiza­tion is the unseen raison d’être for tourism—to convey this message to more visitors.

We continue to look forward to a wealth of possibilities generated by design-driven innovation.           

The red stool crossed the East China Sea to Osaka, highlighting the true face of Tainan. (courtesy of Join Cultural Integration)

（蚯蚓整合文化提供）。 The red stool crossed the East China Sea to Osaka, highlighting the true face of Tainan. (courtesy of Join Cultural Integration)

Tainan’s ubiquitous red stools somehow tapped into emotions that connect the Japanese and Taiwanese. (courtesy of Join Cultural Integration)

Tainan’s never-ending story: Picturesque temples, houses and alleyways.

Tainan’s never-ending story: Picturesque temples, houses and alleyways.

Tainan’s never-ending story: Picturesque temples, houses and alleyways.

When Plan b took on the project to redesign business cards for the Taitung County Government, the result was a series that highlights unexpected aspects of the county. (courtesy of Plan b)

Visitors to Taitung Design Center are invited to submit their ideas for future Taitung lifestyles.

“Raw Trip”: A memorably named campaign undertaken by Taitung Design Center that aims to explore Taitung’s natural world from a host of different perspectives.

The fresh approach to design in Taitung has not only provided an impetus to creative thinking, it has also strengthened residents’ pride and confidence in their county’s own culture. (photo by Chuang Kung-ju)