How Design Technology Improves the Sustainability of Intangible Cultural Heritage Products: A Practical Study on Bamboo Basketry Craft

The sustainability problem of many intangible cultural heritage (ICH) products stems from the shrinking of the core practitioner group, which is also the case for bamboo basketry craft. We believe that the problem in bamboo basketry originated in the lack of labor division between design and manufacturing, which prevents professional designers from entering this industry and results in the absence of several key stakeholders related to innovation and R&D. The lack of labor division is due to the technical difficulties associated with expressing the design concepts. The complexity of basket weaving structures makes it difficult to communicate between designer and manufacturer without precise expression tools, thus binding design and manufacturing into an integrated role. Guided by the user innovation theory, our team studied the design technology of bamboo basketry and developed a series of aiding tools, including the modeling of basic over–under structures and free weaving structures, automatic mapping techniques from 2D to 3D and several frequently used weaving skills, such as connecting, wrapping, plaiting and knotting. This technology enables designers to quickly design and express weaving structures with full details in digital models rather than to make samples. The application of the software shows that the technology considerably improved the designer interest and confidence. This technical solution makes designers, rather than programmers, able to do the development work, which also helps to create a sustainable ecological environment of technological research, also avoiding the difficulties associated with attracting business investment for such niche demands in the starting stage. Our practice shows that the sustainability of ICH products and the sustainability of the industry are closely related and that solving the latter supports the former.