(photo from NYCU Hsinchu Living Museum)
The NYCU Hsinchu Living Museum team has won GOOD DESIGN AWARD 2023. The team has been promoting a sustainable urban lifestyle in the philosophy of eco-friendly, sustainable ecology, respect for life, and fair share through ecological conservation education for the coexistence between the Asian parti-colored bats, chickens, and the local community since 2018 at the historical site of the former Imperial Japanese Navy’s Sixth Fuel Factory, Hsinchu Branch (The Big Chimney) and NYCU campus.
The NYCU Hsinchu Living Museum Team Pursues the Following Four SDGs to Fulfill the Idea of Sustainability in the Community
The Big Chimney brings together different ethnic groups and species as well as life experiences and memories of different periods, hence historical complexity and profundity. In 2020, the team pursues the following four SDGs to reconnect such a site with contemporary society and turn it into a place where people forge local identity and co-create new experiences and meanings.
To march toward SDG 15 Life on Land, the team annually hold a series of workshops and bat observation events when Asian parti-colored bats visit the Big Chimney. The actual contact enables the residents, teachers, and students in the vicinity to understand that “bats can help improve the environment.” Thus, different species are treated with respect and sustainable coexistence is discussed. To actualize SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, and SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals, the team seeks to forge local consensus and attachment by building the chicken coop in collaboration with the community college, and inviting community residents to raise chickens together. The chicken coop has become the center of community bonding thus restoring the lifestyle of community chicken raising. To promote SDG 4 Quality Education, courses like “Participatory Design for Sustainable Living” and “Slow Design for Mindfulness and Awareness” were offered for the students and the community. The team recycles rainwater to water the plants, collects cafeteria leftovers to feed the chickens, and offers the volunteers and the cafeteria the eggs laid by the chickens in return, so as to fulfill the idea of sustainability in the community.
A New Sustainable Urban Lifestyle with Chickens and Bats as Learning Partners
The team established two monitoring systems. One is the real-time chicken coop monitoring system, which enables the researchers and volunteers to observe the behavior of chickens, and identify other species that intrude the coop, helping them better understand the local ecology. For students and community people, chickens are learning partners of human beings instead of economic animals. The other is the real-time bat monitoring system, which allows bat lovers to observe bats’ living situation in the chimney. Through the LINE group “Asian parti-colored bats at the Big Chimney,” the team shares bat knowledge and event information with the public. In addition, the bat boxes were made and hung to expand the bat habitat in response to rapid urban development.
The NYCU team aims to preserve and revitalize the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Sixth Fuel Factory Hsinchu Branch – a WWII industrial relic, a military dependents’ settlement, and a habitat for protected Asian parti-colored bats. Through community development, this place has become a hub for promoting new sustainable urban lifestyles, with chickens and bats as learning partners.
Judges’ Comments:
The community design was highly praised based on the view that humans do not unilaterally control species of bats and chickens but are learning partners by ethical principles based on permaculture philosophy. Programs such as using technology to care for chickens from a wellness perspective, such as smart poultry houses, and teaching those bats to live intertwined with their environment all promote a perspective beyond anthropocentrism that is called for at present. We hope that the university will continue to disseminate its activities both in the country and abroad and have an impact on museums and other natural and scientific communities.
This article is edited by Elaine Chuang.
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