Ziyu Zhuang

LEGENDARY INTERVIEW

Design Legends ("DL") had the distinct honour to interview legendary designer Ziyu Zhuang ("ZZ") for their original perspective and innovative approach to design as well as their creative lifestyle, we are very pleased to share our interview with our distinguished readers.

DL: What’s your ultimate goal as a designer?

ZZ : There is no certain ultimate goal, because design is the life circle work. You always put in your new experience of what you just discovered from the world to deliver to your receivers or to your users, right? So that the goal is always changing. There's no such ultimate goal, because it is such a dynamic work in such a dynamic procedure in such a dynamic goal as final.

DL: How does design help create a better society?

ZZ : I think a good design is a window or is a kind of container for people to experience different things. So, itself could be one of the thing, this experience, or at least to a certain channel, a certain vision for people to look at the world. So that's why how you know better design to create a better world. Design itself, or the design production itself is basically your attitude of the whole society of the whole world. Right? So as a good designer, ¬you use your attitude or your own experience to lead people to experience what you want people to see. That's the really important point of design.

DL: How long does it take you to finalize a design project?

ZZ : Forever, you start a design procedure, for example, take No. 4 middle school we are working on in Tianjin as example, or the hotel project we're working in Nanjing. You know, the procedure already takes years, but we still never say we already finalized or finished the design because the procedures always it's from the big scale to smaller scale from one step to the other step. Every step, every scale, you find out you find with the procedure and how you build up the project and to be realized. You are finding new questions and new issues, and you always have to deal with the new questions with your original target, or with your bigger strategy from the really beginning. But every step is a new challenge to dealing with the new questions. So, this procedure is from the very beginning to the very end. There is no such a moment saying we can finalize whatever things.