Product Leadership
Material Behavior
Algorithmic Nature
Culture & Research
Culture and Research
Street Eats
What can a crowded night market teach design about eating together?
Taipei’s night markets are a complex social and cultural fabric, shaped by local ways of life and tight constraints: dense crowds, narrow aisles, and no room for fixed furniture, since the market is set up and taken apart every day.
We led ethnographic fieldwork into the needs of young local families around communal eating. Rather than relying on interviews alone, we used low-fidelity prototypes as a research tool, placing seating mockups directly into the market’s in-between spaces to surface unscripted behavior.
Those in-between spaces became the opportunity. Using the market’s iconic stainless-steel stool as a platform, we designed a family of furniture that makes room for eating together and blends into the market’s own language.
Taipei’s night markets are a complex social and cultural fabric, shaped by local ways of life and tight constraints: dense crowds, narrow aisles, and no room for fixed furniture, since the market is set up and taken apart every day.
We led ethnographic fieldwork into the needs of young local families around communal eating. Rather than relying on interviews alone, we used low-fidelity prototypes as a research tool, placing seating mockups directly into the market’s in-between spaces to surface unscripted behavior.
Those in-between spaces became the opportunity. Using the market’s iconic stainless-steel stool as a platform, we designed a family of furniture that makes room for eating together and blends into the market’s own language.
Studio Photography: Chong Kok Yew
Credits:
Design Partner-Ori Ben Zvi
TDW org
Photographer-
Studio: Chong Kok Yew .
Field: Gareth Moon
Design Partner-Ori Ben Zvi
TDW org
Photographer-
Studio: Chong Kok Yew .
Field: Gareth Moon