I’m Richie Chan 陈立起, a multidisciplinary creative, educator, and aspiring researcher exploring the intersections of design, urban/city futures, and human agency. My work spans creative practice, teaching, and writing–with the goal of shaping and empowering how we imagine, inhabit, and build better worlds together.
Below is my story in brief of who I am, what I believe in, and what I do. Hopefully maybe out of this I get clarity and coherence.
I find it hard to give myself a sharp title that wholly represents what I do, so I often make do with ‘multidisciplinary creative’. It’s intentionally broad and vague, that’s because I’m drawn to many things, so naturally find myself in diverse undertakings. Everywhere and nowhere as some like to say. A generalist if one contends to labels. But that’s because I can’t see myself pigeonholing to a certain specific area anyways. At first, I thought I’d end up a disaster, because from early on I’ve heard the common narrative that one should specialise (though there’s nothing wrong with specialisation), but looking at the world today–complex, interconnected, uncertain–it’s restrictive, if perhaps dangerous, to live by old rules and a single lens. Which I suppose then, my integral approach puts me ironically at an advantage.
My primary work is design-related. I spent formative years training as an architect and have built some houses over the course of my early career. I later ventured into other design disciplines–branding and marketing, UIUX design, editorial and publication work. While I no longer practise architecture, my foundation and training has served me well in other areas.
Today, I run a creative and design firm called WOWCARDSTUDIO, established in 2023. We are based in Singapore with a presence in Yangon. We’ve mainly been doing classical design work–providing creative solutions and designs for clients across industries globally. This year, 2025, I’m steering our work towards more applied design. We’ll continue with publication projects and expand into consultancy in design and futures. In time, these will include workshops. The reason for this shift (expansion) is to better align my teaching with practice. In fact, I began this expansion in 2024 with two recent works: (1) an installation for Re-Route: Orchard at Singapore Design Week 2024, envisioning the future of coffee culture; and (2) an ongoing book project for a global architecture firm where, beyond communicating its key message, we analyse emerging trends that will shape the firm’s positioning.
Growing up, I’ve always been inquisitive about things and people. Maybe that’s why I become critical all the time, sometimes to the point of extremity. My close people always notice with each meet the increasing glabella lines on my forehead. Ah that guy is wondering (wandering) off in thoughts again. Maybe that’s why I became interested in a lot of things, in general studies, multiple disciplines. It made me who I am today, as an advocate for general education and interdisciplinary learning.
Was it in 2016 that I discovered a passion for teaching? For me, teaching was a way to learn. I taught myself so I could better absorb and understand things. I still use this method today to help me access and familiarise myself with new fields. I’ve always tried to adopt autodidact mindset and heutagogical ways sometimes instinctively and organically. I’ve even attempted to give workshops to share such tools and meta-learning strategies with my former students and youths though there’s much to learn about their rationalisation with frameworks. That was then from 2016, when I taught at the American University of Yangon. In addition to workshops, I taught general education modules–subjects spanning economics to philosophy, art history to computer basics. At the time, the faculty believed that exposing Myanmar students to a broad range of subjects was essential–if not crucial–as the nation underwent educational reform. My valedictorian in 2018 when she graduated with her bachelors is now a doctorate holder.
Today, I remain connected and committed to education and literacy. I teach interdisciplinary design innovation at Singapore Institute of Technology as an associate faculty in the Business, Communications, and Design (BCD) cluster. In this module, we teach critical design futures thinking (a framework developed by my colleague Dr. Nayda Patel). I’m also hopeful that by introducing material from Designing Your Life (2016) by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans (2016), the tools help students design their futures.
Beyond SIT, I can sometimes be found at the National University of Singapore architecture school, where I contribute to students’ design research and thesis work.
In the near future, I’m contemplating pursuing higher studies in the field of critical urban futures. My interest first took root when I was critiquing architecture student theses. For the past three years or so, I’ve been drawn to and inspired by speculative futures. Side note: it’s been fascinating to observe the positions that the current generation takes with regard to the future–of architecture, cities, and humanity. Today, I’m building up my foundational knowledge in this domain, and hopefully, in time, I’ll be able to contribute through research and consultancy work.
When I’m not designing or teaching, I prefer to lead a quiet, solitude life. I dwell in my own world–reading, writing, fulfilling pet duties, going to the gym and on runs, taking nature walks, travelling, exploring arts and culture, drinking tea daily, keeping to routines, and reflecting on life. We won’t be able to take care of others in society if we can’t do so ourselves. And we ought not to burden future generations so we keep ourselves as best as we can in a top state of wellbeing.