City of Taipei takes the first hurdle towards becoming the next World Design Capital in 2016

Taipei has high hopes of becoming the next World Design Capital (WDC) designated city in 2016, and so far, it's looking pretty good: The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) announced from its Montreal headquarters today that "members of the selection committee identified the City of Taipei as the only municipality to move on to the next phase in the process towards becoming the WDC 2016."

Past cities to hold the designation include Torino (Italy) in 2008, Seoul (South Korea) in 2010 and Helsinki (Finland) in 2102 whilst preparations for Cape Town (South Africa) are underway for 2014.

World Design Capital - Call for Applications 2016 Video

From the Council's official press release:

"The Selection Committee convened on 5 August to discuss the merits of the application brought forward by the City of Taipei with the aim of evaluating its contents against the stringent criteria that awards this designation to a qualifying city on a biennial basis. Having passed the initial scoring, it was decided upon careful consideration that the application would move on to the next phase, which would involve a two-day onsite evaluation.

The site visit will enable further information to be gathered in an attempt to provide the WDC Selection Committee with a more thorough understanding of the proposed programmes, as well as aim to address questions raised during the first round of evaluation.

The 2016 designation will mark the 5th cycle for the WDC programme established by Icsid as a yearlong platform demonstrating the value of design when utilised by cities to empower revitalisation strategies from a social, cultural and economic perspective.

The WDC Selection Committee was not discouraged by the one bid submitted but rather leveraged this opportunity to focus its assessment on the viability of the application. The same rigour will be applied to ensure that the proper evaluation metrics are enforced to determine whether the City of Taipei will meet all criteria.

A comprehensive report on the findings will be compiled by members of Icsid’s WDC Organising Committee and shared with the WDC Selection Committee following the city visit. The final deliberation and official announcement is expected to take place in September 2013."