Shanghai-based designer Zhang Zhongyu believes that by studying cultural nuances as towns develop, a designer will discover the texture and emotion that flow within the ordinary. Her research-based design approach combines the qualities of different materials to generate new objects that can be integrated into everyday settings to enrich our daily routines.
A graduate of the Royal College of Art, where she gained a major in Product Design in 2018, she worked for several years for local furniture manufacturers on her return to China before establishing her own practice in Shanghai at the end of 2021. Naming it MMR, which stands for Materials, Modality and Routine, Zhang says, ‘I treat materials as a kind of grammar; they reveal variations in different modalities and daily life. Throughout my journey of creation, I've realised that I need to deal with all sorts of information and a designer’s job is to figure out the relationship between them and make the most applicable design decisions.’
