National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan, Technical University of Darmstadt and King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Thailand co-hosted the NCKU-TUDa-KMUTT Embodied Resilience International Workshop at NCKU in Southern Taiwan from April 4-9th, 2024. The objective of the workshop was to facilitate students’ preparation and understanding of the Designing Resilience Global (DRG) Competition through analogy of field trips to Tainan and Kaohsiung waterfront and case studies from home countries.

A total of 42 students, including 12 from NCKU, 9 from TUDa, and 21 from KMUTT participated in the workshop. In addition to visiting some design landmarks in Tainan and Kaohsiung, such as the Qin-Kun-Shen Fan Shaped Salt Farm, Yu-Guang Island, “The Spring” by MVRDV, Kaohsiung Port, and CiJin Island, the students also joined in Input Lectures delivered by NCKU’s Prof. Hsiao Wen Wang and Prof. Patrick Hwang, TUDa’s Dr.-Ing. Simon Gehrmann and Prof. Annette Rudolph, and KMUTT’s Prof. Martin Schoch and Prof. Sunaree. A final sharing session allowed students to share coastal (waterfront) space cases from Thailand, Germany, and any city in the world from their life experiences and travel. The content of the sharing included introducing urban development of waterfront spaces, challenges of resilience issues, and experiences that could potentially be learned and applied to the Singapore DRG Competition SITE.

The workshop guided students to look into (1) responses to mitigate climate change and reduce its effects through improved regenerative approaches to architecture, urban design, and planning, (2) practical and scalable nature-based approaches to how cities in the tropical Asian region might mitigate the effects of rising seas through urban design and biophilic approaches for water sensitive design, and (3) socio-economic aspects of the sea city interface, focusing on how these zones can combine their historical roles, with emerging hybrid developments for a social and creative economy supporting diverse productivity and promoting livability.