Icebreaker
My background in urban design
My undergraduate studies were in product design under the industrial design category, which requires us to create a design around a small product in terms of its appearance, function, experience, and so on. After graduation, I worked mainly in public art design. Such as public sculpture and urban furniture design, which is related to my undergraduate major in product design. But in the process of my work, I discovered the joy of exploring public space. What I want to do is no longer just focus on a small product, but to take a step back and look at the whole public space of people’s lives.
My first impressions of the course
Because of my interest in public space, I chose to enter the urban design program for further study. Urban design is a very practical program in my eyes. It is necessary to really enter into the lives of the people, discover and feel their daily life. And finally be able to really improve the life through design. I believe that urban design requires designers to have a God’s perspective as well as a first-person perspective. To be able to grasp the whole environment and at the same time to be able to discover the details of life through personal experience. For example, William White observed different parks and plazas in New York City and found that the seating space is an important factor affecting the popularity of the plazas. And he analyzed in detail the impact of different seats on people. This is actually very relevant to the work I did before, the design of urban furniture as well.
Urban design means to me
Urban design is a new field for me, but not completely new. First of all, regarding the new field. As I mentioned above, my undergraduate major was product design under industrial design, and the focus revolved around stand-alone products. But urban design requires designers to have the ability to not only pay attention to details, but also to discover the connection between people and space. In the second, urban design is not completely new to me. Because my work – public art – connects my undergraduate studies to it. I hope that through my study of urban design, I will be able to have the ability to control both the macro elements and the details, and be able to make a real difference in people’s lives.
