Xue Xuan
Research Fellow
National University of Singapore
Dr. XUE Xuan is a Research Fellow at the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore. She is engaged in the study of vernacular art and architecture in both urban and rural settings across Asia. Apart from academic research, she is also an architectural designer and actively participated in the practices of rural revitalization in China, completing the design and construction of the Sofa Pavilion on the Bridge for Yangdeng Town, Zunyi, China in 2020, the Suspended Pavilion for Chayuan Village, Zhejiang, China in 2018.
From the Private to the Public
The Case of the Market Museum Project
This study probes the ways in which participatory spatial interventions perforate social boundaries in China. We present the case of the Market Museum project (2018-2021) in Guangzhou, initiated by Jason Ho, an educator from the Department of Architecture at South China University of Technology (SCUT) and director of the non-profit art institution FEI Arts. Through public-engaged workshops, Ho and university students collaborated with vendors in Nonglin Market, alongside FEI Arts, to co-create a series of interactive scenarios inside and around the market, connecting people from all walks of life. We use archival research, participant observations, and in-depth interviews to analyze the case. Findings capture the intimacy embodied in these practices—photographing working hands, co-cooking shared produce, and collectively negotiating displacement. By acknowledging and leveraging the blurring of public and private spheres in China, these intimate practices can foster the revival of the moral subject and facilitate an affective public life, ultimately evolving into a porous social realm that connects migrants, residents, and placemakers.
Keywords
Urban social permeability, participation, public-private relationship, moral subject, affective public, China
Chun (Pure) Zheng
PhD in Design
Suzhou City University
Chun (Pure) Zheng holds a B.E. in Landscape Architecture from Tongji University, a Master’s in Urban Design, and a Ph.D. in Design from Carnegie Mellon University. She has also served as a guest lecturer at Penn State University and the University of Pittsburgh. Trained as a landscape architect, urban designer, and transition designer, her practice and research focus on participatory design and urban commoning practices that foster social, spatial, and ecological resilience. After two years of community-based work in the U.S., she returned to China to explore the emerging commoning practices in the Yangtze River Delta.
Commoning at the Threshold
KIC Garden and the Negotiation of Urban Public Life in Shanghai
Amidst the rapid spatial restructuring of contemporary Chinese cities, the KIC Garden in Shanghai exemplifies a growing grassroots response to reclaiming public life through urban commoning. Initiated by the NGO Clover Nature School, the garden emerged within the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) area as a community-anchored space that transforms fragmented urban land into a vibrant site of ecological learning, collective stewardship, and neighborly interaction. ​This case study examines the KIC Garden as a microcosm of a broader movement in China, where community gardens serve as material, symbolic, and social footholds for democratic experimentation within a post-socialist urban design regime. Anchored in the principles of “reclaiming–empowering–repositioning,” the KIC Garden interweaves physical place-making with participatory design, shared governance, and knowledge exchange, offering new forms of tactical urbanism. ​By unpacking the garden’s spatial and social infrastructures across micro, meso, and macro levels, this case contributes to ongoing conversations about how commoning practices navigate the tensions between state-led governance and civic agency. The research situates the garden within a politics of spatial thresholds—neither fully public nor fully private—and reflects on the challenges of scaling, co-optation, and sustainability. ​Ultimately, it argues that urban commons like the KIC Garden offer valuable insights into how fragmented urban fabrics can be re-stitched through shared practice, generating porous socialities and situated forms of collective life.
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​Keywords
Community garden, urban commoning, tactical urbanism, Shanghai, participatory design
Wong Wei Ping & Tey Tat Sing
Founders
Tetawowe Atelier Sdn Bhd
Wong Wei Ping
Bsc(hons) B Arch Cardiff
2000 graduated from Cardiff University with Bsc(hons) B Arch Cardiff
2000-2002 worked with Sow, Allan and Pital Architect
2003-2008 worked with Architectural Project Team and later with The Architectural Network
2009 to Present founded Tetawowe Atelier Sdn Bhd.
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Tey Tat Sing
Bsc USM, B Arch Cardiff
1997 graduated from Universiti Sains Malaysia with Bsc USM
2000 graduated from Cardiff University with B Arch Cardiff
2000-2003 worked with Q Jade Saw Architect
2003-2008 worked with Architectural Project Team and later with The Architectural Network
2009 founded Tetawowe Atelier
Commoning Initiative of Old Klang Road
A Perspective from a Design Practice
This sharing is about the account of how a hybrid use of space starting with a linked-house weaved itself into the surrounding fabric, how local resources is being stitched together, how a sense of place is being sewed, narrated in the point of view of a small design practice, Tetawowe Atelier, in the context of Old Klang Road and Klang River parallel to it, where they call home base. ​Based on self-believe idea of Hotel di Bumi, Tetawowe Atelier's design works is often informed by their narrative, honesty and poetic approach. There is always an effort of rediscover or reuse (the resources from earth) within the projects. This team treads the fine line of design path between formal and guerrilla, day-to-day projects and extra curricular effort, so much so that they hope their work could ultimately benefit a bigger general public.
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Keywords
Hybrid programmes, multi-disciplinary, co-sharing, finding mutual goal and embracing differences
Rie Mishima
Executive Managing Director
Japan Kodomo-Shokudo Support Center "MUSUBIE"
"One of three founders of Musubie.
Communication adviser of Japan Fundraising Association.
I am working to create a society where people support each other."
Innovation Through Children's Cafeterias
"Children’s cafeterias are places where children can go in groups or on their own to enjoy a free or low-cost meal.The concept started as a voluntary private sector initiative and has morphed into a variety of formats. Most cafeterias are not exclusively for children, but are open to people of all age groups, both young and old, as a place to interact, while some focus on addressing child poverty. Children’s cafeteria essentially have two functions, to be a base for community interaction and to fight child poverty. The number of children’s cafeterias continues to grow and there are currently estimated to be more than 10,000 nationwide."
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Keywords
Activities, community, relationships
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Chu A-Yong
Co-founder
Do You A Flavor
Co-founder of Do You A Flavor and curator of Poor People's Taipei, with works including A Guide to Living on the Street and The Home and Homeless Women: Gender, Intimacy, and Working Poverty. Dedicated to urban poverty and social exclusion, actively working alongside the community and alliance as a curator, designer, organizer, and kitchen captain.
Should I Give That Homeless Person Some Change?
One Way to Drive Social Change with People Experiencing Poverty
The homeless, waste pickers, and marginalized street vendors—groups often associated with urban poverty—stand in stark contrast to the image of a thriving city. Yet, they are frequently ignored or kept at a distance by the general public. This alienation may not stem from indifference but rather from a sense of helplessness—an uncertainty about how to engage. Traditional top-down welfare systems and neoliberal social policies often portray impoverished individuals as weak and incapable, stripping them of agency and further isolating them. This talk explores a different possibility: by fostering more equal, inclusive, and even fun forms of collective action and advocacy, we can create spaces for interaction and connection across social divides. In doing so, we open new pathways for solidarity, transforming the city into a place that truly embraces diverse lived experiences.
​Keywords
Be water, Inclusive city, Precarious, Plurality, Nomadic subject
Didi Kyoung-Ae Han
Research Fellow
Seoul National University
Didi Kyoung-ae Han is a research fellow at the Asian Center, Seoul National University. Conducting ethnographic research from a relational comparative perspective, her primary interests lie in understanding biopolitical dynamics of urbanization, precarity, and urban commons in East Asian cities, especially in terms of subjectivity production relating to normative and alternative practices surrounding home, work, care, and finance.
Performing Urban Commons for Reclaiming Vie
Revisiting Freeter Movement in Tokyo
This study reexamines freeter activism that emerged in the late-capitalist city of Tokyo, Japan, from a spatial perspective. In particular, Dameren (League of the Good-for-Nothings) sought to reclaim what Lefebvre called "everyday life" as difference through their unique resistance to wage labor. They positively reinterpreted "uselessness" in opposition to labor-centered society, and injected heterogeneity into urban space through "mixing" and "talk". Their movement, which rejects capitalist value systems, represents a form of cultural resistance practiced in everyday life, demonstrating how attempts to overcome oppressive and repetitive everydayness in modern urban life can revitalize reproduction as the center of life and constitute urban commons.
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Keywords
Urban commons, everyday life, everydayness, space production
Vincci Mak
Senior Lecturer
The University of Hong Kong
Vincci Mak is a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Landscape Architecture at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and was the Program Director of the HKU Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Studies (BA(LS)) Program. She is specialized in experiential learning; her “Shaping the Landscape” course is a key teaching project in this pedagogy. Her research interests include land art, cultural landscape, and village revitalization. Her recent projects are “Village, Tree, Heritage” (2022-24) funded by the HKSAR Lord Wilson Heritage Trust and “Village Commoning: Developing a Community-led Model in Countryside Revitalization” (2021-23) supported by the HKSAR Countryside Conservation Funding Scheme.
Old Commons, New Commons
In our Village Commoning project, research has been done in identifying traditional commoning practices in villages in Hong Kong. While they were vital in the old days in allocating resources and coordinating collaborative efforts, these “old commons” faces challenges to survive and sustain due to social and economic changes nowadays. Through our project observation, we realised some village communities linger on these “old commons” as social and symbolic bonds but contemporary land and property rights, as well as judiciary mechanisms may not allow them to manage these resources as before, leading to a kind of disconnection between such “old commons” to the contemporary context. Nevertheless, through our project observation it is also observed that some village communities derive “new commons” from their old ones to meet their current needs and community contexts. Such transformation of old commons to new is seen as a phenomenon critical to villages’ survival and continuation of their tradition and heritage. This presentation hence aims to share examples of transformation of old commons to new, to examine how such evolution of commoning practices may reveal changes in social perspectives on collective resource management and collaborative systems.
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​Keywords
Old common, new commons, village, commoning, Hong Kong
Koichiro Mukai
Lecturer
Wako University
Koichiro Mukai is a lecturer and activist. While his intellectual background is rooted in biophysics, he now researches how the urban lower class produces commons, based on a decade of personal experience as a construction worker and his involvement in homeless activism in Tokyo.
Worlding Precariousness into the Urban Commons for Freedom
Labor Experiences of Tokyo's Homeless as Earth laborers
Drawing on twenty years of experience in day labor and homeless advocacy, extensive archival research, and in-depth interviews, this study analyzes the formation of urban commons through the experiences of construction workers called 'dokou (土工, earth laborers)' among Tokyo's homeless and day laborers. In the process of Tokyo's development as a modern capitalist city, these lower-class workers—historically marginalized, used as disposable labor, and who became homeless after the collapse of the bubble economy—developed a shared sense of pursuing 'freedom' through distinctive labor practices and mutual cooperation while being alienated from capitalist and state systems. Their community is based on 'distanced mutual aid' rather than intimate relationships, constituting an alternative urban commons by maintaining autonomy and avoiding dominant-subordinate relationships. The researcher describes this as "the improvisation and horizontal attitude of the poor (commoners)." To elucidate this aspect, the study examines the historical relationship between homeless people who continue to live in urban public spaces and dokou, who were seen as un-skilled manual laborers among construction workers, and analyzes the mechanisms through which egalitarian and anti-authoritarian relationships developed within the dokou community.​
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​Keywords
Urban Commons, Homeless, Day Laborer, lower-class workers
Emi Kiyota
Associate Professor
National University of Singapore
An environmental gerontologist and consultant with 20+ years of experience, Dr. Emi Kiyota specializes in person-centered care and organizational culture change in long-term care and hospitals worldwide. She has led global initiatives to improve aging services, particularly in low-middle income countries, collaborating with organizations like the World Bank and WHO. In 2010, she founded Ibasho, creating elder-led community hubs in Japan, Nepal, and the Philippines. Her work encompasses socially integrated, resilient cities, aging in place, brain health design, and the intersection of aging and climate change. She has published widely and advised on pre-design programming for hospitals and senior housing.
Ibasho
Empowering Older Persons and Enhancing Social Capital Through Place
Rapid aging and climate change underscore the critical role of "Ibasho" in enhancing social capital and empowering older persons. This session explores how intentionally designed and adapted environments can significantly foster meaningful social connections and promote agency among older adults. Integrating Person-Environment (P-E) fit allows us to create spaces that go beyond mere physical accommodation, actively encouraging participation, interaction, and a strong sense of belonging – their Ibasho.
Examining lessons learned from case studies across Asia, this discussion highlights effective strategies for transforming existing and creating new places in true partnership with older persons. These examples demonstrate how co-design processes can yield age-friendly communities, intergenerational spaces, and nature-integrated environments that combat social isolation, enhance well-being, and build social capital. Ultimately, this session discusses how we can shift our mindset to recognize older persons as active co-creators in shaping empowering places that enrich society.