3. She Ji in the Chongming Sustainable Community Project
Using the tool of She Ji, this project is designed as a system composed by a series of subprojects with different
focuses. Each project is a starting point of network problem solving, working simultaneously bottom-up and topdown
from the contexts of urban-rural, local-global, government-community and business-consumer. (Figure 2)
The subprojects include the creation of identity stakes and bridging prototypes. Stakes are based in agriculture
including city gardens, eco-tourism, organic food, a creative agriculture park, and research fields. Bridge
prototypes include the renovation of a village factory as a creative industry for international and local exhibitions;
educational facilities for residents along with research offices for universities; energy efficient kitchen design
and products; mobile communication; among many more possibilities. Design is publicly participative and based
in the idea of ‘designing without a product, as a process or way of living in itself’.3 These projects can be
connected as a framework in which each project is overlapped and supported by others.