C. David Tseng 曾成德

Lifetime University Chair Professor of Architecture and Director of Transdisciplinary Design Innovation Shop National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biography:

C. David Tseng [曾成德] is Lifetime University Chair Professor of Architecture and director of Transdisciplinary Design Innovation Shop at National Yang Ming ChiaoTung University, Taiwan.

 

Under his leadership, the university team won the Solar Decathlon Europe (SDE) 2014, Middle East 2018 and, again, SDE 21>22 in categories of Architecture, Urban Design, Innovation, Energy Efficiency, Creative Solution and Popular Choice. Tseng and his team also represented Taiwan in the 2016 Venice Biennial International Architecture Exhibition. These works showcased his commitment to sustainability and innovation as well as the achievement in excellence of design.

 

David has served as the Consultant General of the Built Environment to the Mayors for the cities of Taichung and Taipei. His commitment to design excellence helped bring about significant public projects, such as the Taipei Performing Art Center (Rem Koolhaas), Taichung Metropolitan Opera House (Toyo Ito), Taoyuan Museum of Art  (Riken Yamamoto) and Taichung Gateway Park (Stan Allen).

 

David is a practicing architect and the founder of CitiCrafts, an architectural office that received an Emerging Talent award by the Taiwanese Institute of Architects. The houses he designed consecutively won top prizes in the first and second biennialTaiwan Architecture House Award. The work he involved appeared on international journals, such as Architecture+Urbanism, Plan, Architecture and ProgressiveArchitecture, Dialogue and Taiwan Architecture.

 

He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the Harvard University GraduateSchool of Design. In 2017, the French government bestowed upon him with Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, for his contribution to art, architecture and culture.

 

Session Title: Design for Change: Beyond SDGs*–People, Planet, Prosperity, Partnership, Pedagogy and Projects

Abstract:

“An architect knows something about everything. An engineer knows everything about one thing.” –Matthew Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School

 

“The Engineer, inspired by the law of Economy and governed by mathematical calculation, puts us in accord with universal law. He achieves harmony. The Architect… gives us the measure of an order which we feel to be in accordance with that of our world, he determines the various movements of our heart and of our understanding; it is then that we experience the sense of beauty. The Engineer’s Aesthetic and Architecture two things that march together and follow one from the other… The time has therefore come to put forward the problem of the house, of the street and of the town, and to deal with both the architect and the engineer.” –Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

 

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs, quoted inRob Walker: The Guts of a New Machine by, New YorkTimes, Nov. 30, 2003

 

Design is the key to bridge engineering and architecture, the mediator which oscillate between problem solving and problem seeking. “Design” and/or “design thinking” have been the concept, or rather, the tool and key components of the projects which I conduct/lead in the university lab endeavors and the national pedagogical programs.

 

At Transdisciplinary Design Innovation Shop (TDIS), National Yang Ming ChiaoTung University, we design and develop House Prototypes which take on current (natural and cultural) challenges such as climate change, social wellbeing-ness, etc., based upon technology, innovation and creative solutions. With Curriculum ReformInitiative Taskforce (CRIT), a forward-looking workgroup commissioned by Ministry of Education, Taiwan, we contrive to conceive and mastermind innovative learning/teaching frameworks. Touted as “The Agenda for Art and Design Education,” the undertakings are to inject design/design thinking tools into elementary and secondary school educational syllabus for future generation.

 

From Orchid Houseto1: House for ALL, from Everyday Architecture Re: Made in Taiwan to Creative Action Base in Dubai, from Artificial Intelligence to Aesthetic Intelligence, from Ways of Seeing to World-making, Design for Change aims to discuss how design could be engaged into pioneering projects and dynamic programs to take initiative to transform oneself, to change the world, and to take action to make the world a better place.

 

*SDGs: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future”. The SDGs were set up by the United Nations General Assembly (UN-GA), included in Agenda 2030, aUN-GA Resolution, and are intended to be achieved by 2030.

 

2022 CIE/USA GNYC Annual Convention