Innovation & Technology Product Design
Ziquan Wang
I am a passionate and curious designer who enjoys exploring user needs through empathy, observation, and research. I design based on a combination of personal preferences, user insights, and the imagined preferences of characters, especially in narrative-driven projects. My interest in comics has given me a deep understanding of character development, which allows me to design with emotional depth and purpose. I often imagine what a character would want, feel, or choose—this helps me design products that feel alive and personal.
I am committed to constantly experimenting with different tools and forms of design output, whether it’s through physical making, digital prototyping, or storytelling methods. Innovation, for me, means not only inventing something new but also finding the most suitable and expressive way to present an idea. I believe good design is iterative, human-centered, and full of empathy and imagination.
Projects
Collaborative Work
The Living Shore – Self Initiated Project
This project envisions a future where rising sea levels have reshaped the Irvine Beach, but instead of erasure, the beach has transformed into a place of resilience, creativity, and connection. Set in the year 2050, the design imagines how this familiar seaside location adapts through human care and environmental awareness.
Past structures are reshaped into zones for play and interaction. A former car park becomes a tidal pool where kids hunt for dragon eggs with dragon-shaped snorkel masks. The old coastwatch building reopens as a gift shop with gear and experiences all year round. Floating islands offer space to rest and party, while windproof jackets with air cushions keep visitors warm and cozy on the sea. A stepping-stone path leading toward the submerged Irvine Point Compass—visitors use Explorer’s Canes to spot engravings hidden along the way.
According to the unique past of Irvine and shaped by projections of climate change, this project turns environmental risk into a framework for design exploration. It is a speculative yet grounded proposal, inviting us not only to imagine a livable future but also to participate in its creation.
Econova – Creating Future Experience
Econova – Ke Kai, located in Hawaii, is a brand-new ocean-themed hotel that exists in 2035 that seamlessly merges marine biodiversity with sustainable innovation and immersive guest experiences. At its center is an open aquarium, a living ecosystem shared between humans and sea creatures. Each room is connected to the aquarium by a transparent Eco-Flow Tunnel, which not only serves as a visual spectacle but also supports marine life by maintaining optimal water temperature and quality. Guests can observe and even interact with fish as they swim through these tunnels, turning every stay into a unique moment of discovery.
The hotel offers a variety of activities—from guided diving tours and interactive glass wall panels that display live marine data to “Guardian’s Call” tasks placed in each room, inviting guests to contribute to ecological care. Ke Kai also features sustainable dining options using local, ocean-friendly ingredients and a treasure-hunt-like knowledge system hidden throughout the hotel.
Like other Econova destinations worldwide, Ke Kai encourages mutual understanding between species, promotes conscious living, and embodies a shared vision: building a future where hospitality and the planet thrive together in harmony.
Hotel Blueprint
All Being // Experience of Existence
Creating Future Experiences – Group Project
Our collective research gave us four key drivers informing our future world context; Full Circle Thinking, The Role of Scale in Creating Change, Human Growth at the Expense of Environmental Decline and Advancing Technologies vs Nature Based Solutions.
Our World Statement – Planetary Health Ecological
To combat the previous world in 2025 where divide between humans and other beings reached a destructive peak, our eating experience presents a snapshot of the way forward with our collective symbiotic system we are striving for maintaining in 2035. In order to counteract the immense negative impacts humans had on the environment, drastic steps had to be taken to create balance, enforce and maintain kinship between beings and planet.
The All Being branch aims to provoke, engage and immerse citizens within a familiar moment where the unseen, the micro and the living become interconnected within all aspects of life in the Experience of Existence.
