Interview with Naai-Jung Shih

As a professor for the design studio of the first year architecture students, this unique experience makes me rethink and explore the forms and orders for architectural spaces and elements.

A project is usually approached with a theme or an inspiration. Digital tools are used to improve the quality of design components. Hand touch like painting or assembly method is preferred at the final stage.

Each design phase has its emotional attributes and something to be excited about.

I prefer taking pictures of spaces or shadows to reveal the hidden relationship among solid and void objects. It’s a very common shill and shared by many designers.

My design paths are tangled with many old and new projects and themes. My office is like a warehouse full of woods, stones, 3D prints for future exploration of human-object interaction in terms of lights.

There is no guarantee of success or so-called all winner design. Be faithful to your own sense might be a good start.

Do not use the word success as the only judgement of life too often might be a good rule for design career.

My everyday life is so routine that pushes me to cherish every design spark for happiness.

Many students attend design competitions as a way to represent most current design trends in my university. As an educator, I also have to convince myself the fundamental part of design that also matters.

A good design evolves beyond time and does not stop at deadline.

I always keep an open tab in my mind to make earlier designs better. So actually a design is theoretically never ready.

The biggest project was a Cultural Showroom that is made of elastic fabric to redefine an old historical building into a dynamic space.

Zaha Haddid is one of my favorite designers. Her interpretation of space has also shown in fashion design.

My favorite and inspiring city is Barcelona. I’m teaching in the Department of Architecture, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. The change to my life is an office full of interesting design stuffs.

I am a hard worker and usually work alone for a not so tight inspection of personal progress.

I have managed several design exhibitions with students in recent years to let us get involved with communities. It also comes with pedagogical purpose.

It’s a self-evolving process when you are a professor for over 20 years. It’s a also a challenge when most of the instructors co-author designs with students too often. To attend A’ Design Award is to connect with the world in every manner.

I come up with ideas every day, and I want to be a designer as a creator or an interpreter of spaces and geometries.

I choose to be a designer.

In addition to a formal style of “design”, I also prefer to make something out of its original configuration and composition in a more de-construction manner.

Every designer is unique. She or he does not have to become anyone.

Every designer is a good or great designer whenever she or he works her or his own way out.

A good design may come with the form, the function, and the message that a design can deliver. A great design is a design keeps evolving.

A good design improves the effectiveness and efficiency of life.

I would like to design a system for design so everyone or myself can use it.

My dream project is not a design; it’s a personal inventory system of possible resources for design.

Well, keep coming back to re-interpret design and fix it may be one of the recipes.

Zaha Hadid is one of the masters I admire for her achievements architecture.

There are so many designers I prefer, in A Design Award or Pinterest for example, although I do not know their names.

In this case, Wood Storm and Billy Julie were two of my greatest designs up to now, because both illustrated a viewpoint where metaphors and physical objects meet.

A good designer can be achieved by observing, practicing, thinking, and keeping communication with people.

May be a teacher, I have been working as a professor for 27 years. If I hadn’t become a so-called designer, I still can be a designer for myself.

Design is everything.

The biggest support is the A Design Award who has provided an open environment for anyone to express itself. I didn’t even tell my wife what I am doing.

I am not a great designer. I’ll let you know when I reach it.

I guess I myself am the only obstacle to become a design master.

In these days, there are many ways to present design works. Each of them should be taken care of.

There are some projects from past that I am still working on. You’ll see.

My goal would be the creation of new interpretation or inter-relationship for design elements.

I am not an esteemed designer yet. Please do not expect anything from me yet.

A design can be a new interpretation of needs or demands that will create a better society.

I am working on metaphor- and interface-types of space order for fun.

The metaphor translation kind of project stimulated me and gave me the most satisfactory.

A BIM (Building Information System)-like changes in each stage of design would be very interesting.

The embracing of technology with environmental concerns would be something we are headed for.

It may take from 1 week to two years to finalize a design project.

Actually a new project may starts anytime and anywhere, since many of them are of my own interest.

Keep curious about anything is very helpful to me.

They are mutual influential, I guess.

Technology helps me explore different possibilities, produce prototypes, and visualize alternatives.

Other than general 3D modeling software, parametric design software and 3D printing machines are very helpful.

All the elements are important for sure in defining the characteristics or delivering a message of a design.

Just like the questions mentioned earlier, it would be very interesting to be asked about a design for its naming background or the stages in idea developing process.

How did the designer come up with the vision, interpretation, or the solution for an issue?

Maybe a collaborative relationship, like a supporting RP company, is more suitable to define the partnership. Co-design is great for a complementarity relationship.

I think every people I have been interacted with had the influence on me more or less. The influence could be made subconsciously, so it’s really hard to tell.

For my architectural background, “Architecture: Form, Space and Order” has been always one of the most important books.

I’m not a master designer, and still working on that.

Actually I have met the author of the book “Architecture: Form, Space and Order” as one of the greatest experiences.

It's not hard to be famous, as long as you do not take it as the only judgement of your effort and stop moving forward.

Not specifically, everything has its part of interest. I do love summer.

This weekend, I took pictures of the graffiti outside a studio and found many of them were interesting.

Being curious and being a design studio instructor are two of the reasons that motivate me to self-evolve as a designer.

No it’s not obvious, although I was considered as above average in painting.

In 2018, the time has arrived to the date many former sci-fi movies have predicted, but not much difference has shown. If it’s possible, I will like to have a real Holodeck to accompany.

People only have to know that there is a guy in Taiwan loves to work on something strange.

Department of Architecture, NTUST

re-interpretation, problem-solving, viewpoint exploring

concept-storming, viewport-exploring

a design that redefines popular view point

As the background of architecture, programming with the requirement of client should be the first thing to work with.

Parametric adjustment with RP production process is appearing to me currently.

When I ‘m able to connect design issues with different viewpoints.

It’s more architecture-oriented, the functionality and aesthetics.

A mixture of different kind of emotions, but happiness does not always go first.

A mixture of different kind of emotions, but happiness always goes first.

Frankly I guess a design can hardly 100% success. Fulfilling design requirements always goes first.

Fulfilling design requirements always goes first.

I guess it has become solid design requirements for society and environment, not just moral responsibilities.

I guess it’s going to be cross-culture, cross-discipline, and cross-paradigm interactions.

I am a professor for 3D RP and design studio. I usually manage a exhibition near the end of each semester like December or June. Some of them were held outside university in a local gallery, some are inside campus.

I did a lot of 3D scans of temples, urban open spaces and street blocks. The static buildings and dynamic pedestrians have created a very energetic inspiration for my works. I never consider as being creative. It’s the development of concepts makes me feel great.

Frankly I would rather call the style as a history of interaction with architectural and urban spaces. I’m so afraid to define my style because I guess any style is strongly related to a personal self-development stage. By looking back to style just like opening files of old archives, it’s a collection of interactions that should be think about before approaching a design.

I live in Taipei, Taiwan. I have done lots of 3D scans and few RPs for cultural heritages. I guess it is personal preference that I haven’t been influenced by the cultural issues. It’s still quite open to all possibilities.

Being in academics, I didn’t work with many companies. The companies I have been worked with come with specific requirements to be accomplished.

It’s like a marriage; there are no specific rules to me.

Very typical. Like a spiral development of concept, any selection of alternatives would redefine former problem space and thus lead to a new perspective.

Oh my, you got me.

By being a full professor, it’s really a typical 9-5 routine every day, except I can arrange most of the time when not in lectures.

Frankly I don’t have something for young designers. Actually I'm still learning from any designer.

I do not consider myself as a designer. I guess the positives and negatives of being a title is the title itself, since a person can be limited by predefined notions.

interpretation in terms of interpretation

observation with open-mind

I have 3D scanners (Leica HDS, Artec, MS v2), RP machine (Microjet, Plus2), 3D software (Geomagic Studio), and frequently visit web pages and news (3ders, SPAR, Engadget) for the inspirations that come from class assignments given to students or even the moving figures in traditional market.

This is a very common situation since I was an architecture student. There is no easy solution to that.

from a few years to a few weeks, sometimes former designs were brought up because of new interpretations

Actually I would rather be called a problem-solver or an explorer who provides concepts and methods of execution.

arca show room design for British Office Taiwan and being architectural design studio chairperson for 90 students and 10 instructors

One is show room design, as a team work, for British Office Taipei for the purpose of culture promotion. Most of the clients are academics like Ministry of Science and Technology , Taiwan.

In all the architecture building information modeling (BIM) level of development (LOD) 100-500 (conceptual/programming to reality), I guess each level has great potential and can be played with.

I would like to apply current RP technology to explore some designs that cannot be made before.

Most likely designs are developed by myself. I also work with students as a team.

Design has become a hobby. There are sketches in my note I can get them done in near future.

email would be fine