FAN CHEN
Fan Chen is a designer and researcher whose practice investigates how co-design with community green spaces can foster ecological, social, and cultural resilience for urban sustainability. Her PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, positions community gardens and urban commons as living laboratories in which design becomes a tool for ecological stewardship, collective care, and policy prototyping.
Her research explores how everyday acts of cultivation can generate insights into how we might live well together across human and more-than-human worlds. She is particularly interested in how co-design methods, including participatory practice and digital platforms, can bridge the gap between grassroots initiatives and wider frameworks of urban governance.
Fan has been actively involved in different organisations such as Sydenham Garden, Deptford Railway Meadow, and the London Wildlife Trust, where she co-creates workshops including bee-friendly and community-based hives, cyanotype-printed textiles, and naturally dyed products, working with diverse communities, including children, LGBTQIA+ groups and people living with dementia.
She holds an MA in Design: Expanded Practice (Communication & Experience) from Goldsmiths and is co-editor of the forthcoming publication POPS (Privately Owned Public Spaces) vs Commons.
@hi_fanchen