Shared Ground: Urban Futures of Coexistence, Commons, and Repair

You are cordially invited to attend the research seminar by Wang Nai Huei, Casey:

Date: 16 September 2025

Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Venue: SDE3 Level 4, LT421

Shared Ground:  Urban Futures of Coexistence, Commons, and Repair

The ground of cities and buildings are often seen as stages of everyday urbanism —supporting informal economies, religious practices, social gathering, and political expression. These performative dimensions are often marginalized in dominant planning paradigms, which prioritize formality, efficiency, and regulation over lived spatial experience.
In the seminar, the topic will focus on examining how shared public realm systems can shape the more equitable, adaptable, and culturally resonant urban futures. It will combine spatial ethnography, experimentation of urban commons and building typologies that generate design knowledge that is both grounded in context and scalable in application.

Projects experience in Southern China will be shared in the seminar demonstrate how to tackle today’s urban challenges head-on — from designing adaptive reuse strategies and building optimizations to rethinking slow mobility systems and integrated private development with civic shared space in fast-growing Asian urban context. The projects are emphasising cross-disciplinary collaboration to aim for the goal: catalyze social vibrancy and ecological resilience — shaping urban environments where people, places, and systems can thrive together.

Casey Nai Huei Wang is an architect, urban designer, and educator whose work bridges professional practice, academic research, and cross-cultural design. She teaches in the Master of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design programs, focusing on sustainable mobility, civic space, and urban regeneration. As Founding Director of BLEND Architecture, Casey has led major projects across Asia, including the Slow Traffic and Mobility System Planning of Songshan Lake High-tech Zone (China) and the award-winning Dogness Headquarters Campus (Dongguan). Her practice has been recognized with honors such as the Greater Bay Area Urban Design Award (2022) and the Perspective 40 Under 40 Award (2019).

Her career was shaped at world-renowned firms including OMA, where she contributed to the Taipei Performing Arts Center and Tencent Beijing Headquarters; Foster + Partners (London), where she worked on the Yale School of Management; and J. Mayer H. (Berlin), with the landmark Metropol Parasol in Seville. In parallel, Casey has taught for over 14 years at the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and through collaborations with universities worldwide. She co-edited Factory Towns of South China and Villages in the City, and her teaching emphasizes design as a catalyst for inclusive, liveable, and resilient urban environments.

An active voice in global discourse, Casey has spoken at the UIA World Congress of Architects (Rio, 2021), MIPIM Cannes (2019), and the Salzburg Global Seminar (2021). With professional roots in Taiwan, academic training at Harvard GSD, and an international career spanning Asia, Europe, and the US, she brings a global perspective to urban design—exploring how mobility systems, cultural anchors, and regenerative frameworks can shape more liveable and inclusive cities.