Starting from the start 022. Construction Upcycling Through the Eyes of a Collage Artist

If it weren’t for the Construction Waste Upcycling Project, we might never have known that so many people in different fields were exploring similar directions.

In Construction Waste Upcycling Project 1.0, the META Design team invited collage artist Tsou Hsiao-Wei to take part in the project. For the artist, this was not an unfamiliar approach. She has long worked with recycled magazines and found objects as her primary materials. When invited to create with construction waste, she did not hesitate. Instead, she approached these materials—so familiar and often overlooked to us—with a strong sense of curiosity and anticipation.

Responding to the project through collage, Hsiao-Wei offered her own perspective on construction, building, and the life of the construction site. She re-read the collected waste materials with fresh eyes, dismantling and reassembling the relationships between them, and created five artworks for the space.

As the Construction Waste Upcycling Project continued and moved into its 4.0 phase, Hsiao-Wei was once again invited to participate—this time in the renovation of the main lobby. The scale of her work was no longer confined to frames on a wall, but directly engaged with the space itself. With META Design proposing to reuse the lobby’s original stone by flipping it, Hsiao-Wei expanded her collage practice to the scale of an entire wall, completing the mural Mountain, while also creating a sculptural installation titled Forest for the stair hall. Through these works, her art became part of the spatial experience.

The Construction Waste Upcycling Project has shown us that when a company is willing to open up the boundaries of a project—allowing artists to participate over time and grow alongside the space—creation becomes more than a finished outcome. It becomes a process that evolves together with its context. This journey has not only changed how we see materials, but has also led us to meet a community of partners who share the same values and direction.

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.