Starting from the start 019. Beauty Found in Broken Stone

Stone is commonly used on building façades and in public spaces. But on construction sites, breakage is almost unavoidable—during transport, cutting, or installation, stone slabs can crack or shatter and are often discarded as waste. The design team META Design saw something else in these broken pieces: a distinct beauty created by fracture itself. They brought the damaged stone slabs back to the studio and began asking what it could still become.

The designers decided to use these stones for seating in the waiting area. The form was inspired by the L-shaped pallets commonly used in stone-processing factories to store slabs. This structural language was translated into the chair’s frame, with the fractured stones carefully placed on top, resulting in a sculptural seating form.

In the detailing, stones with different colors and patterns were intentionally joined together. The broken edges were aligned so precisely that they resembled the natural ridgeline of a mountain range. This approach softened the overall form of the chair, preventing it from feeling rigid, while also preserving visible traces of how the stones had fractured on site.

This way of working with stone would likely be considered troublesome by most stone-processing factories. Fortunately, through years of reusing old materials, META Design has built a network of partners who understand these kinds of requests. Mr. Jiang, the owner of the collaborating workshop, was well accustomed to such challenges. When craftsmen nearby joked, “The stones we throw away are bigger than the ones you’re using,” Mr. Jiang would simply laugh and reply, “Theirs have a story.”

When the chair was completed as part of the Project 1.0, it sparked discussion among colleagues. Some placed their ID badges on the backrest and jokingly referred to it as a “tombstone chair.” Over time, however, as the FG Next initiative progressed, perspectives began to shift. Today, the chair is on display at the reception center—inviting viewers to see broken stone not as waste, but as something shaped by history and meaning.

Photo Credit: META Design

Editor: Shih Yi Feng

Starting from the start 026. Where Cultural Change Began to Ripple

Complaints and doubts are not necessarily negative. Sometimes, they are simply the beginning of conversation. FG Next had been in preparation since 2017, with weekly meetings devoted to discussion and debate, gradually shaping Farglory’s direction toward “sustainability” and “sharing”. The 1.0 shared space was the first attempt to bring the idea of circular regeneration in architecture into the workplace. When a concept moves from discussion into everyday reality—when it becomes part of where people work—it naturally invites people to feel, to reflect, and even to question. That, too, is part of cultural change.

Starting from the start 025. The Night We Moved In: Project 1.0

Six months earlier, the FG Next team had visited the META Design studio in Tamsui for the first time. That visit allowed us to truly see how discarded resources could be transformed into something meaningful. It aligned closely with the conversations FG Next had been having for more than two years around architectural sustainability. When we shared the background of FG Next, the issues we care about, and the idea of using the 16th-floor shared space as an experimental site, META Design understood that this was not a one-off commission. It was a company choosing to test new approaches within its own workplace.

Starting from the start 024. A Phone Booth Between Vision and Reality

After the completion of the 1.0 shared space, practical needs led us to add a phone booth. Looking at a space built entirely from construction waste, and then flipping through catalogs of commercially available office booths, it felt clear that simply placing a ready-made product inside would the overall look and feel of the space. It would look out of place.