An Integrated Model of Flexible Design Process for Taiwanese Housing Developments

Abstract:

This paper proposes a human-centered design approach to provide a model of flexible design process for private housing development in Taiwan. By integrating concepts of “Open Building” and “Open Source Building”, this paper suggests the scope for the ongoing customization of individual units within housing developments that intends to facilitate real-world, sustainable development for the Taiwanese housing market. Also, it argues that the current market-led design approach creates inherent problems for the Taiwanese housing developments. However, in Taiwan’s housing sectors are coupled with entrenched, unsustainable decision-making from housing developers and particularly the intractable communication gap between developers, architects and homebuyers. The current circumstance is that architects often lack professional integrity and serve the interests of developers before those of home occupants as well as the wider community. Noticeably, growing global awareness of sustainable development has recast housing as an intrinsic component of the urban environment and successful communities. In Taiwan, short-term profitability rather than long-term sustainability drives private housing. As a result, by employing a series of exploration to current design process and the principle of design management, this paper will 1) analyze the flawed relationships between Taiwanese developers, architects, interior designers and homebuyers, explaining how these lead to inferior housing design and the waste of significant human, material and financial resources; and 2) then concludes a model of flexible design process integrated the concepts of human-centered design approach, Open Building and customization of Taiwanese townhouse developments. Consequently, such approach can significantly improve the flexibility of the present design process in terms of better meeting end-user requirements, the demands of sustainability, whilst ensuring the continued commercial viability of housing developments.

• Periodical: Applied Mechanics and Materials (Volume 311)
• Pages: 386-391
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.311.386
• Online since: February 2013
• Authors: Kuo Hsun Wen, Artde D. Kin Tak Lam
• Keywords: Designer Client Relations, Flexible Design Process, Human-Centered Design Approach

References

[1] Open Building Booklet, the CIB W104 (updated on Jul.1, 2009)

[2] Information on http://jihyun.gcd.yuntech.edu.tw/Research/2005/21Cheng_Lee.pdf

[3] B. Jia, Open Housing International, Vol. 23 (1998), p.4

[4] B. Jia, Open Housing International, Vol. 31 (2006), p.20

[5] B. Jia, The 2005 World Sustainable Building Conference "Action for Sustainability", (Tokyo, 2005, CD-ROM)

[6] K. Kadowaki and S. Fukao: the CIB W104 Open Building Implementation "Open Building and Sustainable Environment" (2004, CD-ROM)

[7] H. Ogawa, S. Fukao, S. Yamazaki, K. Kobayashi, K. S. Kadowaki: Minami, IASS International Conference on Adaptability in Design and Construction "adaptables 2006" Vol. 1 (2006), p.149

[8] K. Kadowaki and S. Fukao, The 2005 World Sustainable Building Conference, Tokyo, (2005, CD-ROM)

[9] Y. H. Hsieh: The 1990s Taiwan residential construction boom: a supply side interpretation, Construction Management and Economics Vol. 23 (2005), p.268

DOI: 10.1080/0144619042000202717

[10] A. Friedman, The Adaptable House: Designing Homes for Change (McGraw-Hill, New York, 2002), p.11