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City Design (MA)

Jialin Wang

Jialin Wang is an MA City Design graduate from the Royal College of Art. After completing her undergraduate study in Artistic Design (Environment Art) at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, China, she lived and worked in Shanghai for seven years as an interior architect. During the practice after graduation, she mainly engaged in space design such as office, catering, retail, etc., focusing on the realisation of humanistic communication in commercial spaces, and established a design studio in Shanghai (2015). In 2016, her Chinese tea culture space design won the Jintang Prize at the China Interior Awards. And her makerspace project - JIANGNAN 1535 won the International Space Design Award Idea-Tops in 2017.

During the study at RCA, her research projects are mainly based on the current situation of the population, housing, and employment issues in Wood Green (London), and critically considered the possibility of future collaborative life-work models from different scales. In addition to research in London, she visited social housing and public cultural facilities in Barcelona and Melbourne through field trips and international workshops, proposing collaborative community ideas from the perspectives of intergenerational and social care combined with previous architectural typological research. 

Degree Details

School of Architecture

City Design (MA)

Graftopia! - the manifesto from Wood Green

Graftopia! - the manifesto from Wood Green

Graftopia! - building scale

Graftopia! - facilities

Graftopia! - the city grafting system in the future

Graftopia! - the city grafting system in the future

Graftopia! It is an urban lifestyle in the future. The grafting system focuses on inspiring more people in the city to become active and productive identities, living and working in an inclusive and cooperative environment. From an architectural perspective, it discusses the future life-work system through a new and old building combination that could be grafted and grown. Based on the test site - Wood Green (London), it tries to preserve the typical Victorian residences while expanding the use of public space and integrates the expandable community working facilities into the living area to stimulate the inactive groups’ participation. At the same time, it responds to the affordable housing, population, and employment issues. Under this intervention, people could redefine their living and working spaces freely under the context of public facility sharing, knowledge exchange, skill development, and social care. Therefore, every identity would be unique and connectable in the urban system, spaces could be transformed and copied, interaction is diverse, and citizens’ high participation becomes a vibrant trigger for an active city.

The urban grafting system has three narrative boards. ‘Growable Tables’ – a plaza of diverse workspaces - people participate in outdoor planting and public performances here, obtain food and meet entertainment needs through collective activities. ‘Walkable Ground’ – common rooms on the first floor of houses - which is transformed from the ground floor of Victoria Terraces providing shared kitchens and educational facilities. The previous residents use ground floor in exchange for the right to use community shared facilities, and have the right to build rentable or self-use working areas on their roofs. ‘Negotiate Rooftops’ – inside-out display of personal work-life status, where people show, sell, rent and share their work products, personal facilities or space with neighbors for more benefits. The building structure on the roof could be connected or separated according to the openness of people’s work and life. In addition, some sharing resources could be distributed in the connecting bridges and the public square, and technical equipment supports the transportation and energy supply.

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