Hi, I’m Richie Chan Li Qi 陈立起.
I navigate across disciplines to explore how design, education, and futures thinking can empower people—especially emerging voices (youths/students) and those often unheard—to participate in shaping their own environments and destinies. This belief grounds my work as a creative practitioner, educator, and now, an aspiring researcher in critical urban and futures studies.
The rest of this page shares my story: how I got here, the work I’ve done, and the questions that continue to guide me.
Every so often, I find it hard to explain what exactly I do. So, I shall say I consider myself a multidisciplinary creative. It’s vague–and intentionally so. I’m drawn to many things, and naturally, I find myself in diverse areas. The thought of pigeonholing myself into any one specialisation limits what I like to do. At first, I thought this would be a downfall–to be everywhere and nowhere–especially growing up with a narrative that one has to specialise (and there’s nothing wrong with specialisation). But looking at the world today–increasingly complex and interconnected–it’s hard to imagine how we could stick to a single lens to perceive what’s happening around us. I believe, therefore, that we ought to take an interdisciplinary and integral approach to understand the world. And in this regard, I suppose I now believe I have that advantage.
My primary work is in design. I spent my formative years training as an architect and have built some houses over the course of my career. I later ventured into other design disciplines–branding and marketing, UIUX design, editorial and publication work. I no longer practise architecture, but my training has served me well across 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 toward more applied design. We’ll continue with publication projects and expand into consultancy in design and futures thinking. These will include workshops. The reason for this shift (expansion) is to better align my teaching with my 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 key messages, we analyse emerging trends that will shape the firm’s positioning.
Growing up, I was always curious–eager to learn, absorb, and question. So I naturally became interested in general studies and education. I still believe in and advocate for 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. Today, I advocate for autodidacticism. I’ve even given workshops to share tools and meta-learning strategies with my former students and youths. That was from 2016 onwards, 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.
Today, I remain connected and committed to the world of education and to learning alongside students. I teach interdisciplinary design innovation at Singapore Institute of Technology as 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 glad we were able to introduce Design Your Life (DYL) material, adapted from Bill Burnett’s and Dave Evans’ book Designing Your Life (2016) using tools to 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 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 practise as a futurist.
When I’m not designing or teaching, I 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.