Jie Chen
I am a designer with a background in Product Design and professional experience in education. My practice focuses on user experience and explores how design can respond to complex social and everyday challenges.
Through Transformation Design, I have expanded my approach from designing individual products towards understanding wider relationships between people, places, services and systems. I use user research, participatory methods and systems thinking to translate insights into practical and meaningful interventions, with a particular interest in participation, accessibility and people-centred experiences.
A Living Canal, A Long Conversation
The Glasgow Canal is more than a route through the city. It is a place shaped by movement, history, everyday encounters and an existing network of community organisations, creative spaces and local activities. However, through observation, interviews and place-based research around Speirs Wharf, I found that many of these opportunities are not always visible or easily accessible to the people who live nearby or pass through the area.
A Living Canal, A Long Conversation explores how design can help people discover what already exists, participate in local activities and share their own knowledge, skills and experiences.
Developed through a Transformation Design approach, the project uses field observation, interviews, stakeholder mapping, case-study research, participatory methods and iterative prototyping to understand the relationships between people, place and existing community resources. Rather than creating a new community infrastructure, the project focuses on making local opportunities more visible, approachable and easier to participate in.
The final proposal combines a mobile Community Toolkit with a supporting digital platform. Presented through a small community cart, the physical toolkit includes a Discovery Map, Community Activity Board, Skill-Sharing Cards, feedback tools and simple participatory activities such as Fold & Share. Together, these elements create a three-step experience: Discover, Join and Share. People can discover nearby organisations and activities, participate in small social interactions, and contribute their own skills, interests and local knowledge.
The digital platform extends this experience by bringing together information about local places, activities, community stories and opportunities to get involved, while connecting people with existing organisations and resources around the canal.
The project does not attempt to create community from scratch. Instead, it builds upon the relationships, knowledge and initiatives that already exist and explores how design can make them easier to encounter, participate in and sustain.
The idea of a “long conversation” reflects a vision that extends beyond a single intervention. Over time, repeated moments of discovery, participation and sharing could help strengthen local relationships, encourage a greater sense of belonging and make community resources more accessible. As this network continues to grow, the canal has the potential to become an increasingly active, inclusive and supportive social environment, contributing not only to stronger community participation but also to everyday wellbeing and healthier ways of living together.
A Living Canal, A Long Conversation therefore imagines the Glasgow Canal not as a finished place, but as a living community landscape that can continue to evolve through the people who use, shape and care for it.
