‘Open Green’ is an experimental living space project, initiated by The Taipei City Urban Regeneration Office in 2014, which aims to alter the impression that urban development in the city acts only to replace existing historic buildings to suit new visual preferences. Through an open call, the project invites local residents and communities to take part in the creative renovation process, this ‘bottom-up’ approach is designed to empower people with a sense of agency, urging them to take charge of improving their living conditions and to manage abandoned spaces. Furthermore, in connecting neighborhood spaces with local residents, the project fosters collaboration and action toward common issues.
The project focuses on both improving and ‘greening’ everyday dwelling spaces in the built environment, while encouraging ecologically ‘green’, and ethically-aware, efforts; taking into consideration urban health issues, the relationship between people and nature, social benefits and the underprivileged.
Over the past four years, a total of 61 community development projects have been completed in different administrative districts in Taipei. Through collective, innovative and experimental actions by local residents, schools, and creative groups, these projects have transformed abandoned, closed, or disused spaces, and also involved restoring and maintaining old waterways and trees. Often working in a cross-disciplinary way, these projects utilize eco-conscious methodologies over conventional construction methods, resulting in effective and communal ‘placemaking’.
On view in this year’s Taipei Biennial is a retrospective presented by the team behind ‘Open Green’, chronicling various neighborhood renovation projects across Taipei, and presenting the core values behind the endeavor. The audience is also invited to visit these community development sites to personally experience the links formed between these new spaces, the wider city, its people and nature.
Implemented in Taipei in 2014
Project conducted by: Classic Design and Planning Co., Ltd.
hellogreenlife.blogspot.com
taipeiopengreen@gmail.com
Lecture
Open Green and Slash City
Speaker: Liu Po-Hung (Principle of Collaborative O. Company)
Date: 2019/1/20
Time: 13:00–14:00
Venue: Ecolab 2F
Tour of Community Development Sites
Limited to 15 people per session
Meeting point: will be notified result by email
Route 1: Exploring Community with Bee Eyes
Date: 2018/12/29
Time: 9:00–12:00
Guide: Tsai Ming-Hsien (Community College Urban Beekeeping Project Founder/ Beekeeping Course Lecturer at the Songshan Community College)
Online registration: https://bit.ly/2yINcGs (12/1 open for registration)
Route 2: Tour of Bat House
Date: 2019/1/12
Time: 9:00–12:00
Guide: Chang Heng-Chia (Director of the Formosan Golden Bat’s Home)
Online registration: https://bit.ly/2yQrobU (12/25 open for registration)
Route 3: An Eye for the Waterways
Date: 2019/2/16
Time: 9:00–12:00
Guide: Ho Wen-Hsien (Cultural Historian/ Convener of Wenshan Community College’s Regional Studies Course)
Online registration: https://bit.ly/2QfwV2B (2/1 open for registration)
