Exploring Indigenous Craft Materials and Sustainable Design—A Case Study Based on Taiwan Kavalan Banana Fibre

Yi-Shiang Lin and Ming-Huang Lin
Additional contact information
Yi-Shiang Lin: Institute of Applied Arts, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300093, Taiwan
Ming-Huang Lin: Design Department, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 106335, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 13, 1-30

Abstract: For a long time, local craft traditions were passed on through apprenticeships. Consequently, new generations of designers and industries cannot easily intervene or produce new designs. This inability to integrate craft traditions in a modern context and changing cultural environment has resulted in the stagnation, decline, or even elimination of such crafts. This study focused on the use of banana fibres in the craft traditions of the Kavalan people of Taiwan, and research-through-design concepts were applied to the creative study of materials that are essential to ecological sustainability and cultural heritage. The method, Material Driven Design (MDD), was implemented through participation to experience traditional processes and explore the visible properties of craft materials. The goal was to gain a holistic understanding of materials and leverage the participants’ expertise in determining which steps in the methods could be improved. This process was supplemented with grounded theory, which was used to analyse and summarise the data in order to understand the factors influencing the creations of participants. Lastly, in addition to producing semifinished and finished products in our experiment, we believe that our findings regarding the examined materials and material tinkering to develop a material-tinkering loop based on the MDD can be (i) combined with the unique insights and technical expertise of designers and (ii) used alongside contemporary technical and digital aids to effectively support the continued development of innovative craft designs.

Keywords: banana fibre; sustainable materials; circular design; Material Driven Design; research through design; ground theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/7872/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/7872/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:13:p:7872-:d:850509

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().