Yini Chen – Project Designer
Notes
Yini attained her bachelor's degree from one of the top two schools of life sciences in China. Rigorous academic training in science helped Yini better understand the ecological challenges of climate change, sea level rise, habitat deterioration, and heavy pollution. With a desire to materialize her knowledge of ecology, she chose to study landscape architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There, she explored contemporary landscape issues in China, India, Canadian North, and the Midwest. Her experience includes designing urban parks, public recreational spaces, academic grounds, and historic sites.
Yini’s research approach – data analysis/speculation, case studies, art experiments, and community engagement – has become integral to her ability to understand problems and offer potential solutions. She is a design activist who enjoys learning by doing. She is especially interested in the relationship between materials, construction techniques, and local cultural and geological history.
For Yini, the highest value of design thinking can be realized in real-world community design. Her belief for the future of landscape architecture is a richer kinship among all three "ecological registers" in each locale: the environmental, the social, and the mental.
Education
- University of Illinois
Master of Landscape Architecture - Fudan University, Shanghai, China Bachelor of Science in Life Sciences
National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Exchange Student in Biological Science and Technology