Lanjiaxie Reimagined: A Design Education Project and Framework to Foster Rural Cultural Entrepreneurship

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-620-3_12How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Indigo Dye; Lanjiaxie; Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage; Product Design Education; Rural Entrepreneurship

Abstract

This paper presents a practice-based design education project that protects, innovates, and popularizes lanjiaxie, a traditional Chinese craft using indigo dye and carved wooden blocks to create decorative fabrics known for their intricate blue and white patterns. Conducted at an international university in Wenzhou (Zhejiang, China), the project challenged a group of students to design original products using lanjiaxie as their primary source of inspiration, innovating with alternative and contemporary colors, shapes, forms, scales, materials, production techniques, applications, and meanings. Their learning experience included connecting with a well-known master artisan, developing a concept, and prototyping it by hand or collaborating with local factories. Besides its educational scope, the initiative aims to facilitate the sustainable development of rural areas by engaging students with artisans, exploring commercialization strategies, and proposing new product ideas that craft-based micro-enterprises can adopt. The outcomes demonstrate how design education can empower young creatives to develop business-relevant solutions that preserve and evolve intangible cultural heritage. The manuscript addresses design educators and students considering experimenting with indigo dyeing, local community leaders, and small entrepreneurs, by proposing a set of actionable guidelines and a design framework for cultural entrepreneurship rooted in innovation, education, craftsmanship, and industrial production.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Maurizio Vrenna
AU  - Lisa Perrine Brown
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/31
TI  - Lanjiaxie Reimagined: A Design Education Project and Framework to Foster Rural Cultural Entrepreneurship
BT  - Proceedings of the ATLAS International Design Conference 2025 (AIDC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 187
EP  - 204
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-620-3_12
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-620-3_12
ID  - Vrenna2026
ER  -