jailcd2021038: A Study on Reuse of Unused Space – Redesign for the Lao-Wan-Tong Museum

Abstract

Under the fast changing of urban construction, rural area is facing the challenge that not many resources are being put into the countryside. According to the main goal of sustainability development, it is important that more attentions are being put on building the rural area. The University Social Responsibility project, or USR in short, was launched by the Ministry of Education to make more connections between the university and regional cooperation and put into practice of university social responsibility. The idea of USR is to design courses that brings students into the actual field context and engage them with practical problems, cross-grade students with initiative, leadership, and execution characteristics, performing their skills and cooperate to create value into the field of the rural area. This research is based on the reconstruction of a museum named Lao-Wan-Tong located in the Hsinchu city, Taiwan. This museum acts the local cultural museum for the located township, although it has been out of repair for years. The plan is to make the museum into a place for mixing the traditional culture with the current needs and requirements. Works include investigation of the surrounding environment, maintenance of existing artifacts, and the redesign of the museum space from top to bottom and inside out. Apart from redesigning the building itself, involving more activities, bringing in different participants can also effectively bring up the attention of the unused spaces, in a long term, when the whole society are paying more attention and willing to put more effort on reusing the old buildings, it will make positive effects on the sustainable development of the local rural environment.