College of Design - Interior Design
About US
Introduction

Our Department was founded in 1983, becoming the first department of design to be established by a Taiwan university. The Department Building formally was a section of the girls’ dorm, which consisted of three buildings: Faith, Hope and Love – of these three, Love was remodeled to house the department. The department’s founding director was Mr. Ze-hai Chung , who hired renowned teachers to fill the teaching posts. In 1991, he also applied for the establishment of the Master’s Seminary. In 1992 Mr. Chian-yeun Chang took over and became the second director of the department. In the same year the Department merged with the departments of Architecture and Business Design to establish the first College of Design in the country. In 1993 the Department formally established its Research Institute, becoming the first master’s interior design seminary in the country. In 1994, Mr. Chie-peng Chen became the third director of the Department and during his term he implemented the partitioning in the offices and renovated the lecture hall, materials room and the practice coffee bar. In 1999 the Master’s Program for Working Professionals was established allowing the industry’s elite to return for studies and receive training in humanities, local experience and concepts of technological integration; thereby emphasizing the equal importance of the role design talent play in professional training and academic research.

In 2001 Mr. Hu-bao Lin became the fourth department director. Director Hu ambitiously collected funds to implement major renovations to the Department, focusing on such spaces as the building`s public square, side-entrance patio, grass area, ecology pool, badminton court, tutorial room, dance stage stairs, and practical coffee bar lecture hall. He also initiated the education goals of "community ascetics" and "stepping outside the classroom", to unite with education and get involved with building projects in the Taoyuan area; taking part in rebuilding efforts in disaster areas and establishing a community creation center to transform the cultural environment of Taoyuan and the community.

In 2002 the College of Design established the Cultural Resources Research Institute and in 2004 it established its PhD Seminary, drawing on Faculty resources from the Department and using combined resources for mutually benefit. In 2005, Faith and Hope buildings were vacated and the Department increased its space by occupying two floors of the Hope building. In 2004 the wall of the large courtyard was removed and work was commenced to make a green space; which, together with the Department of Business Design, Cultural Resources Center and Department of Landscaping forms the largest courtyard space on campus.

In 2005 Professor Hsiu-tyan Chuang became the fifth department director and proposed the “not only step outside the class-room, but step outside yourself” motto – uniting the “Taiwan Interior Space Design Association” together with the strength of other related groups. In addition to promoting an interior design national examination with full strength, he also expanded the scale of academic seminars to the national and Asian level; thereby raising the standards and influence of the Department. In August of 2007, Honorary Professor Wey, Joseph churong became the sixth department director.

There are a total of four undergraduate classes in the department and the Research Institute is divided into Master’s A group, B group and Working Professionals group, with a total of approximately 340 students. The faculty, which is comprised of of graduates from American, British, Swiss, German and Japanese schools, possesses comprehensive global field vision and together with universities in Japan, Paris, Vienna, San Francisco, Fuzhou and Chengdu conduct academic or student exchanges. Every year scholars are invited from abroad to offer lectures at the Department and groups visit Europe, America and Japan for travel studies. The Department as a whole, including faculty and teachers, has cooperated to realize outstanding accomplishments; however we are not simply satisfied by this, and we will continue to pursue greatness and constantly march forward towards new objectives.

Mission

The Department’s special features of development involve the promotion of “community life aesthetics” and “healthy environment building” that differ from other programs. This Department regards interior design as a professional service aimed at “community life aesthetics” and “healthy environment building”; and not simply as means to train people in self-focused name-brand design trendy fashion. Consistent with these two items of development, in the past three years we have already seen the following community life aesthetics strategy results:

  1. Feature 1: Arts and Life Aesthetics – Beginning in 2001, using a community building methods, the department building and common space was renovated: the coffee bar at the entrance, the second floor drafting discussion room and patio, the outdoor banyan tree drafting stage, rock table, square, rain-water ecology pond and garden were all added, creating new spaces for education, discussion, learning, exercise and leisure. Learning and living regarded as one is the most recent feature of our department. By “stepping outside the classroom and returning to reality” the classroom of the outdoors has already become a general way of thinking for students and faculty. Student’ innovative furniture collections and exhibits, interior and exterior planters, and student made public art are full of flair for a lasting impression. Every year, in the first year, students go on domestic or foreign “experience travel” trips to exhibit the Department’s special features. Students are happy with their studies; the number of people in the department is few and the space is small, and so after renovation the lively learning area, students and teachers have been able to unite as one, resulting in low student stress and producing common happy and creative individual character.
  2. Feature 2: Cultural Academic Navigation – the department has already hosted 6 academic conferences. Previous research papers and practical works; as well as professors’ publication theses all contribute to a modern cultural way of thinking. Faculty recourses in research and creation all can serve for the betterment of everyone.
  3. Feature 3: Practical Affairs and Co-op – there are many items of education and practical affairs coordination, the work of which was already implemented in 2001 and possesses special qualities such as: city, countryside and community building, reuse of existing spaces and exhibiting of co-op projects. Every year project output values reach 8 million NTD.
  4. Feature 4: Healthy environments and community participation – cooperative projects may include: working together on industry sponsored promotion of interior design certification research, disaster area rebuilding service learning, neighborhood growth parks, community building service, strategic alliances with campus community mothers, public structures by renowned teachers in Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, consulting for municipal government and land scape services. Such works as these hold great prestige. And in the future, curriculum aimed at building of healthy environment will be further strengthened.
  5. Feature 5: Innovative Character – Department of Interior Design holds tent workshops focused on the College of Design’s “Eight Innovation Customs”, and has already established five individual characteristics including: master of life, designer, holistic person, cultural person and happy person as long term education objectives.
Objectives

Department of Architecture Development Goals and Strategies:

No. Item Goal Department Development Goal
1 Education
View
International From diverse feedback, we break through the limits drawn by the academic field and expand the scope of knowledge.
2 Architectural
Thought
Sustainable From the perspective of sustainable development, we create an opportunity to expand architectural thought and inspire a sentiment of care.
3 Professional
Development
Curricular From a perspective of curricular integration, we reveal the myth of separation between professional education and work, and raise the level of professional virtue.
4 Learning
Evaluation
Standardized From the perspective of competency, we adjust the weighting of learning evaluation processes results and return to the mission of education.
5 Learning
Venues
Life-centered From the perspective of service learning, we construct venues to experience heritage teaching and research, and create multifaceted learning.
6 Education
Environment
InformationAccessible From the perspective of the information mediums, we commonly construct a collaborative platform of education and learning, and create access to diverse knowledge.
7 Organizational
Operations
Stratified From a perspective of stratified responsibility, we establish strategies and mechanisms for decision making and raise the level of administrative efficiency.

  1. International View of Education, Expanded Scope of Knowledge
    In the 21st Century, in pursuing excellence in higher education, “innovative knowledge” is a must for information based economies. Students must face the future high-level competition of information based economies and so we use a life-centered, people-orientated, adaptive, technological, international view of education in pursing the type professional education excellence and innovation necessary for this. Globalization is a major trend of the 21st Century and an “international view for education” has become a focal point of change in the promotion of education. Furthermore, “cultivation of architecture professionals with broad fields of view and international understanding” is one of the main education goals of the Department. We believe that the most concrete method of education is real-life experience and to “learn by doing”, while simultaneously giving students knowledge of different cultures. Currently our goals of internationalization emphasize international education exchange cooperation to enrich students’ international competitiveness and elevate education standards. We aim to respond to internationalization as well as the effects and opportunities associated with Taiwan’s entrance into the WTO, with future development that takes into account both “localized” and “globalized” related issues. Considerations are given to conflicts that arise as a result of these two trends while heading in the direction of “sustainable environment” development. While responding to trends of international development and addressing society’s needs with respect to internationalization and diversification, students are encouraged to pursue related issues. Furthermore as they learn and add to the breadth and depth of their studies, students will expand their international perspectives in the field of architecture while strengthening their international competitiveness in architectural design.
  2. Sustainable Thinking for Architecture, Inspired Sentiments of Care
    Along with the rise in national economic strength and social prosperity, ecosystems have been disrupted and the natural environment has deteriorated, resulting in a clear and wide-spread phenomenon. Mankind’s “environment of existence” is attracting increased amounts of attention from architects. This is why looking at the environment from the perspective of sustainable building is the future road and direction of development for the architecture industry. The concept of “sustainable development” respects the boundaries of the environment and ecosystem. The burden that architects shoulder is now not merely to create visually aesthetic spaces; they must also address the existence of nature and man and the creation of systems that meld the two in an extended structure allowing for development of society and culture. Architectural design should, as a type of relatively complex living organism, develop and exist within the context of different climates, cultures, and technological environments. With the architectural concept of "sustainable development" as a starting point, professional leaders in architecture must also possess: broad bases of architectural knowledge and in-depth professional capabilities; technical integration capabilities; and good understandings of sustainable environments. Therefore, the concept of “sustainable development” is the Department’s overarching direction for development. During the time of their studies, expectations are to allow students to be able to nurture a passion towards architecture, gain a strong sense of direction towards the improvement and creation of architectural environments, and acquire the ability to perform on the job while making active contributions to the architecture industry. We also anticipate that they will get a good grasp on the world-wide trends of “information-based systems, globalization, and Green living”. And finally, we hope that they will strengthen their technological innovation while promoting the balanced development of culture and technology and create quality “productive and living environments”.
  3. Curricular Professional Development, Better Professional Skills
    Professional education traditionally adopts a model of “separate departments of education and separate fields of study”, and along with technological and economic development, this new generation now experiences a high degree of division; and so the knowledge of each department has continuously been divided into new fields of study. Furthermore, curriculum has become increasingly complex. This not only means that the knowledge leant by students is trivial, fragmented and unrelated but has also results in needless redundancies in curricular content. “Program-oriented Education” is a non-organized structure of study which focuses on “interdisciplinary horizontal knowledge integration”. It is built upon clearly independent department courses and provides a quality intermediary for “knowledge integration” which can reach education goals that are individualized and adapted to the learner’s special qualities. University education is intended to prepare students to face future career challenges; therefore, curricular planning should focus on a foundation of academic theory and provide the latest forward-looking professional knowledge or skills while paying attention to the system of low-level and high-level course articulation. Attention needs to be given to the integration of area-focused and interdisciplinary curriculum, looking at the feasibility of integration with new areas of study and the practicality in connecting with future careers. Curriculum planning should move towards the goal of integrated and instructive courses to encourage students to possess proactive learning motivations and abilities. Students’ advanced studies and future employment goals should set the curriculum markers and course planning goals and content should be organized accordingly. For this reason we review the appropriateness of course content and merge course content of similar nature, while offering innovative and integrated courses with hopes of integrating curricular and teaching resources and raising students competitiveness.
  4. Standardized Learning Evaluations, Returning to the Educational Mission
    Professional Architecture curriculum emphasizes that “students should engage in learning activities with an attitude focused on managing and solving problems; students learning should be autonomous and activities should be subjective.” Therefore, education activities adopt a subjective education and cooperative learning method to advance each of the various “capabilities”. In order to cultivate students’ professional “basic capabilities”, the Department has divided the course structure is into five areas of learning and each area is implements through its own learning activities. In turn the “basic capabilities” translate in to “competency index benchmarks”, which are represented in each area’s teaching materials, education and evaluations. The Department’s integrated curriculum of “architecture design” is also a type of “capability-oriented curriculum”. Basic capabilities are developed primarily through the use of appropriate “learning methods” which vary from the main teaching material of content-based curriculum. For this reason, the “architecture design” education model follows the idea that: “the education initiative belongs to the teacher and learning autonomy belongs to the student”. At the time of evaluation it is important that each of the various abilities are accounted for while also paying attention to the effectiveness of the evaluation. Therefore, we must establish a set of traceable education evaluation indexes and continue to improve the mechanisms, raise teaching quality and pursue the education mission.
  5. Information-Accessible Education Environment, Create Diversity in Knowledge
    In the past ten plus years, computers-aided architectural design has become popular and we understand that with access to information, designers can easily and accurately get a handle on design, alleviating the laborious manual methods of production and providing those who have stakes in the design with an effective tool for communication. Furthermore, architecture design is an operation involving a major base of architectural knowledge; and so, through full integration with information technology, communication between various users can be facilitated – user to user, computer to computer – and possibly stimulate and increase the creative capabilities of the designer. We hope that integration between computers and information technology can provide a new pathway for design and strengthen the mechanisms, aesthetics, technologies, economies and humanities related factors of traditional architecture design education, allowing for the “information intermediary” to become the greatest aid in architecture design. At the same time, though Internet education has offered some blows and challenges to the traditional education method, it has also provided education with a rich source of and application pipeline for information. Computers and the Internet have broken through barriers of time and space, not only influencing lives, but also impacting learning patterns. With the support of the Internet, education can function as a systematized teaching and learning activity. For education, through mediums of technology, teachers and students can be connected and both sides can be provided with a means of communication which allows for interaction to take place between teachers, teaching materials and students and meet the intended goals of education while allowing students to adjust their own learning progress according to individual learning capabilities. Furthermore, through the Internet it becomes easier to establish diversified knowledge allowing students to learn without limits to locale.
  6. Life-Centered Learning Venues, Creation of Multifaceted Learning
    In the 21st Century, an era of rapid change, our work, lives, career development, community relationships, etc., all must have a new way of thinking and a new field of vision. The nature of education and the method of implementation also require coordination with future needs and effective methods that can produce a new vision. University education should assist students in acquiring the capability to reflect on individual, self-development; connecting service learning with life and melding them together. Only then will students develop their potentials and be led to pursue individual growth. Because of the democratic and pluralist developments in Taiwan’s society, as well as the infusion of individualistic though, this era’s younger generation has seemingly formed its own sub-culture: “no investment in self, no effort in work, no gratitude to others and no appreciation for what they have”. We emphasize educating students in character, attitude and morals, to strengthen their service learning ability and to deeply implant students with competitiveness for their futures. Service learning has become an important issue related to the education and social development in recent years; it is also a type of service that emphasizes factors of learning. It involves planned service activities and through the process of structured reflection aimed at meeting the needs of those being served and promoting the development of the one serving. Simply stated, it is “learning by doing”. Also, hopes are that participants, through the process of engaging in service learning, will have an opportunity to pursue a type of sublime, forward-moving and touching experience in their lives; to reflect, to learn and to grow.
  7. Stratified Organizational Operations, More Efficient Organization
    Organizational restructuring signifies a rethinking of organizational operations and structures to re-examine issues surrounding the organizational models, structures, budgets and resource allocation as to adapt to the dramatic changes experienced by external environments. In line with a concept of stratified organization management for “policy resolutions” and “affairs decisions”, the Department and Faculty administrative organization structure is adjusted and separated into “policy” and “affairs” related work. Furthermore, a standardized management mechanism is constructed to raise the level of efficiency. The Department Affairs Board is organized under “policy resolution” and each function of the committee is set up according to the principle of “stratified authorization”. Each committee is responsible to the Department Affairs Board or the Department Director and must deliberate the planning of teaching, counseling, research and other related items, supplying the Department Affairs Board with resolutions or the Department Director with advice. The Department Director is the “head of affairs decisions” and the administrative staff undertakes the responsibility of affairs related work. Furthermore, they work to complete each item of the Charter and organizational operations while pursuing continuous improvements in sophistication and the quality of education.

Future Prospects

Pathway to advanced studies:
University graduates can apply for one of the Department’s master’s programs or graduate schools of related studies (architecture, art, applied arts) in the country; or the student can go abroad for advanced studies in related master’s programs.
Master’s graduates may choose to go abroad to continue their studies.

Pathways to employment

  • Designer for a design and decoration company.
  • Interior designer for architecture firms.
  • Interior design for own company.
  • Offer classes (master’s graduates can teach at domestic universities, colleges and vocational schools in related courses).
  • Designer or supervisor at decorating company.
  • Teach at a school.

Undergraduate

The department was established in 1985 and was the first department of interior design in Taiwan. The system is based on a regular school year with credits assigned based on performance. Four years are set for the completion of credits. When the study period is full, if students have completed the required 128 course credits, graduation may commence. Students who have not completed their required courses within the regulated period may apply to extend studies from one semester up to two school years.
First Year, Semester 1:

  • Develop visualization potential and promote creative ability.
  • Use illustrations to cultivate skills in creativity.
  • Develop methods and understanding of problem solving procedures.

First Year, Semester 2:
  • Explore the basic scale of human body and movement.
  • Learn to recognize the scale of a space and its structure.
  • Explore the relationship between behavior and special functions.

Second Year, Semester 1:
  • Learn to use materials and composition.
  • Look at the relationship between behavior and the special characteristics.

Second Year, Semester 2 and Third Year:
  • Get familiar with different special elements and conditions.
  • Get a hold of the relationship between special modeling structures and aesthetics.
  • Receive training in regional environment and pluralist civilizations issues.

Fourth Year:
  • Combination of all areas of ability to provide a link to advanced studies or employment

Design Education Course Structure for Each Year of Study
General objectives of Design Education; hopes are that all of the subjects can reflect the four aspects of life.
1. Living?€ 2. Work 3. Leisure 4. Humanities
Year Semester 1 Semester 2
1 Basic Design (principles and application in image creation) Understanding and application of interior design elements
2 Residential living space series (living units, residences and more) Consumer spaces series (cafes, restaurants, hair salons, jewelry shops, beauty parlors, and more)
3 Work and education spaces series (offices, work rooms, exhibitions, education facilities and more) Leisure and recreation spaces series (hotels, dorms, work-out centers, spas, innovative reuse of cultural resources, museums and more)
4 Graduation design project Graduation design project

  • Design curriculum adjusted for school-year based planning, means that each semester represents a stage of the program; the first semester of year one is the initiation stage, the second semester of year one and first semester of year two is the root laying stage; the second semester of year two and year three is the growth stage and year four is the unfolding and examination stage.
  • Design courses in each stage must:
    1. Establish a clear training objective
    2. Arrange a process of learning
    3. Set a clear evaluation standard
    4. Provide a list of supportive reading material
    5. Arrange for lectures on special topics
    6. Plan experiential learning activities

Graduate

Master’s Program
In 1993 the Department Research Institute was formally established and became the first interior design master`s seminary in the country. The research students of this Department have a study period limited from one to four years, and students must finish at least 36 credits and publish one peer reviewed journal publication or seminary thesis in order to qualify for graduation.

The fields of research of the Department faculty, in addition to research related to interior design, also may brush with other related fields, which can generally be categorized as environmental landscape research, innovative living and community environments, sustainable health and residences research, interior lighting and color composition research, and innovative culture and theory. The Department also has established the Illumination and Color Center, Innovative Integrative Design Center and TAF Nationally Certified Lamp Testing Laboratory. In order to increase student’s levels of academic research and use of professional skills, we also actively compete to cooperate with the industrial sector to take on industry-government-academia research projects, which, in addition to allowing research students have a chance to broaden their scopes of thinking, also further allows students to have more diverse options and engagements.

Master’s Program for Working Professional’s
In 1999 the a Master’s Program for Working Professionals was established, allowing elite professionals to return for studies so that people who possess humanities skills, local experience and concepts of technological integration could be trained as interior designer professionals with an emphasis on both professional training and academic research. The university study period for the working professional oriented program is limited to two to six years and students must successfully complete 36 credits to qualify for graduation. If students choose to make a “technical report” to obtain their Master’s Degree, they must take an additional 9 credits.

CURRICULA & CREDITS
FACULTY
CONTACT US
TEL:886-3-2656201
Fax:886-3-2656299
winterior@cycu.edu.tw