In the 400-year-old Shangwei Art Village in Longhua District, which is a traditional Hakka village and one of the few remaining ancient villages in Shenzhen, there stands a rustic courtyard garden in a peaceful corner of the village.

The courtyard garden, thriving and verdant with lush plants, was created by Huang Binling and his partner Yuan Zhenyu. It is also where their entrepreneurial journey started.

Young people’s “pastoral song”

Huang is a community architect and co-founder of Sketch. Action!, a design agency that is dedicated to teaming up with the public in the creation of spaces with both ecological and social value and exploring more possibilities in public life.

Many years ago, Huang and Yuan, who were pursuing master’s degrees in landscape architecture at Peking University, picked up hoes and shovels and spent two months renovating a small garden on a previously barren plot of land by Weiming Lake on the campus.

After graduation, they transformed run-down spaces into over 80 shared community gardens that serve a variety of purposes including horticulture, leisure, and creating social contact among residents.

In March 2022, Huang and Yuan moved their company to the Shangwei Art Village, where more than 20 young people on their team tilled the soil, selected seedlings, planted grass, and built pavilions, creating their own “utopia” in the city.

“Since the beginning of our entrepreneurship, our work and residential places have rarely been separated, and we have a nearly zero commute distance,” Huang told Daily Sunshine. “Living in a village now makes it easier to strike a comfortable balance between work and life.” 

Speaking of the original intention of renovating the small courtyard, Huang smiled and said, "We wanted to live in an ideal community.”

In order to test the differences in maintenance, climate suitability, and landscape effects of different plants, they have planted more than 60 types of plants in the garden, which has become a large “experimental field.”

A “shared paradise” for community residents

Beginning with the “experimental field” in the courtyard garden, Huang enjoys finding ways to mobilize and inspire residents to create communities that prioritize co-construction, co-governance, and co-sharing.

On March 12, China’s Arbor Day, the second phase of the “Old Friends Farm,” located in Longhua’s Guancheng Community, welcomed a new group of “l(fā)ittle friends” who tilled the soil and planted seedlings. These “l(fā)ittle friends” come from surrounding kindergartens.

The first phase of the “Old Friends Farm,” which is not far away, is vibrant and contains various vegetables.

“This used to be a wasteland with overgrown weeds where mosquitoes bred in the summer, which was a bit of a headache for the nearby residents,” Huang said. 

When he learned that the residents wanted a piece of land to grow vegetables on, the idea of a “shared farm” came to mind. Huang hoped to create a true farm that allows all residents to participate.

To establish a farm, the first step was to address the soil issue. Huang and his team members guided the residents through land reclamation and repair. In just a few days, the “Old Friends Farm” transformed from a barren grassland into a community farm that everyone can grow and harvest food in.

“From sowing to harvesting and eating the vegetables I have grown, I feel like I have truly integrated into this city,” said Wen Ya, the deputy leader of the farm.

Now, the community has started the farm’s phase II development, with an area twice as large as before.

Another farm located in Zhangge Community in Longhua is the land that Huang has been tracking for the longest time. Over the past few years, residents have participated in the farm’s maintenance, planted vegetables, and harvested together.

Five kilometers away from the farm, a new shared farm is also under construction. Not long ago, after the Spring Festival, the farm held its first neighborhood council meeting where 18 growers met for a vegetable and fruit growing project.

So far, Huang and his team members have led residents to build more than 10 shared farms where community consciousness is gradually growing and receiving nourishment.