{"id":38450,"date":"2025-05-05T10:49:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T10:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/muse.international\/?p=38450"},"modified":"2025-05-06T10:00:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T10:00:35","slug":"how-the-choy-team-is-cultivating-unity-through-shared-culturally-rich-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/muse.international\/index\/how-the-choy-team-is-cultivating-unity-through-shared-culturally-rich-gardens\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Choy Team Is Cultivating Unity Through Shared, Culturally Rich Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A team of four designers from China\u2014Yiran Mao, Zaiying Li, Qianyue Yuwen, and Hongming Li\u2014share a deep belief in design\u2019s power to foster meaningful connections, bridging people, communities, and their environments. This conviction inspired Choy, a project born from their curiosity about how design can help people reconnect with place and culture, especially in urban spaces where these ties are often lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Q1. Congratulations on winning the NY Product Design Awards! Can you introduce yourself and share about what inspired you to pursue design as a career?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re a team of four designers from China, all graduates of ArtCenter College of Design. While we share similar roots, each of us brings a unique design background\u2014from environmental and visual design to interaction and strategy. Our diverse perspectives enable us to approach challenges from multiple angles, blending empathy, culture, and systems thinking into our work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re united by a shared belief: design can be a powerful tool for fostering connection\u2014between people, communities, and the environments they inhabit. This belief led to the creation of Choy, a project born from our curiosity about how design can help people feel more rooted in place and culture, especially in urban spaces where those ties often fade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q2. What does being recognized in the NY Product Design Awards mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This recognition is incredibly meaningful\u2014it\u2019s not just a celebration of design, but also of community, sustainability, and cultural identity. Choy started as a small idea rooted in shared memories of homegrown vegetables and the warmth of neighborhood ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being honored by the NY Product Design Awards validates the emotional and social values behind the project. It tells me that human-centered, culturally sensitive design has a place in shaping future cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q3. How has this achievement impacted your career, team, or agency, and what opportunities has it brought so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This recognition validated not just the outcome of our work, but the values and process behind it\u2014how we collaborated, challenged one another, and stayed grounded in community needs. It reminded us that it\u2019s possible to do work that is both conceptually ambitious and personally meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of our careers, it gave each of us a stronger sense of direction. It reinforced that the kind of design we want to do\u2014work that bridges culture, sustainability, and systems thinking\u2014does resonate with others. And for our team, it strengthened our trust in each other and our approach, encouraging us to keep exploring, questioning, and growing together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q4. What role does experimentation play in your creative process? Can you share an example?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Experimentation has been a foundational part of our creative process. In the early stages of Choy, we explored a wide range of approaches to community interaction. One particularly speculative experiment involved designing social media profiles for plants, complete with chatbots that embodied distinct personalities. The idea was to give plants a “voice” and make their presence more relatable in digital spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as the project evolved, we found ourselves returning to the core of the problem: not how to humanize plants, but how to create meaningful experiences for people through their interaction with plants and each other. This shift redirected our focus toward user experience, specifically how gardening could become a medium for casual, inclusive, and culturally rooted social engagement. Each experiment, even the more whimsical ones, brought us closer to that goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q5. What’s the most unusual source of inspiration you’ve ever drawn from for a project?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One key inspiration for Choy came from a familiar yet often overlooked practice in Chinese households\u2014growing vegetables at home. Whether it’s scallions in a jar or chili plants on a balcony, this everyday habit reflects care, resourcefulness, and a quiet form of self-sufficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building on this, we were drawn to the communal spirit of community farms. We wanted to reimagine this experience as a more lightweight, shareable, and socially engaging activity in urban settings\u2014something that encourages people to step outside, connect with others, and find joy in small acts of planting together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choy – Community Garden Sharing Hub<\/a><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Explore the journey of Krittika Bhekasut<\/a>, the Silver Winner in the 2025 NY Product Design Awards. She runs a design-focused studio that creates handcrafted, foldable vintage bicycle helmets, merging heritage with modern functionality. What started as a small home studio project has sparked a global conversation about style, memory, and protection. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A team of four designers from China\u2014Yiran Mao, Zaiying Li, Qianyue Yuwen, and Hongming Li\u2014share a deep belief in design\u2019s power to foster meaningful connections, bridging [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":38550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[372,540],"tags":[360,492,488,382],"yoast_head":"\nHow the Choy Team Is Cultivating Unity Through Shared, Culturally Rich Gardens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Winner interview with Yiran Mao, Zaiying Li, Qianyue Yuwen, Hongming Li for Choy, the Silver Winners of the 2025 NY Product Design Awards.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/muse.international\/index\/how-the-choy-team-is-cultivating-unity-through-shared-culturally-rich-gardens\/\" \/>\n<meta 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