Various Associates is a multidisciplinary studio dedicated to experimental, social and innovative design and research in fields of architecture, interior and products. The studio excels at applying pure architectural structural languages to space, draws on local cultural context, and explores ever-lasting aesthetics, inclusiveness and flexibility for design projects, with the hope to make every work irreplaceable, remarkable, valuable and sustainable.

Co-founded by Dongzi Yang and Qianyi Lin in 2017 and based in Shenzhen, Various Associates is a team of designers from an international background with professional expertise in architecture, interior design, material design, graphic and interaction design. The studio also offers artists and designers a platform to collaborate and reimagine new ways to innovate.

Various Associates thoroughly analyzes brand character, site, cultural context and environment, with the goal of seeking more design possibilities and characteristic symbols unique to each project. Major completed projects include: HAYDON Hangzhou (2021), a multi-brand retail store full of fantasy and poetry rendered by free arc-shaped blocks; (SO)What Chengdu (2021), a fashion boutique store which takes the design concept “stage” from local traditional play-watching culture and brings in giant dynamic screens; SND Sanya (2021), a retail concept store shaped by layered wave-like structures echoing the local surfing culture; Man Chao Hui Shenzhen (2021), a restaurant conceived on the concept “a wooden boat hidden in the sea”; ATLATL Restaurant in Shanghai (2020), which adopts the storyline of “future waiting hall” to reinterpret retro style and fashion; Voisin Organique Shenzhen (2019), an immersive aesthetic catering space which takes the design concept of “wandering in valleys” to respond to the organic brand values; Vanke Nantou Gallery Shenzhen (2020), which links the old and the new of Nantou Ancient Town through the form of “corridor”; MORPH Shenzhen (2019), a novel socializing destination where local traditional elements collide with modern structural forms; FIUFIU Gallery Shanghai (2018), a mixed-use urban space that offers infinite possibilities in a white “box”.

Various Associates also studies and develops materials, especially the reuse of waste materials. In 2020, the studio was entrusted by Shenzhen Institute of Interior Design to conceive the pavilion for DESIGN IN BAY AREA Exhibition. Various Associates chose panels made from waste plastic and wood as main materials, and meanwhile referred to traditional mortise-and-tenon joints, the way that wooden furniture is assembled and the flowing form of ocean waves, eventually working out a group of flexible wave-shaped modular units, which could be flexibly shifted among modules, space and architecture, creating abundant variations and possibilities. After the exhibition ended, those modular units were reused at the Shenzhen Art School in Blue & White, hence realizing sustainability.