Ling Fan is a speculative designer, educator and urban entrepreneur. Trained as an architect, he works at the boundaries of architecture, design, urban theory and media technology. He is the co-founder of Tezign, a startup bridging creative talents with real-world social and business problems. In addition, he founded FANStudio in 2010, a practice straddling art and architecture, and was the Founding Innovation Director of C-Pod (Crystal Platform for Open Design), the design think tank for Crystal CG, from 2008-10. Fan currently teaches architecture, media art, human-environment interaction, urbanism and interdisciplinary design at China Central Academy of Fine Arts and the University of California at Berkeley.

Fan has received numerous awards, including the ‘Contemporary Young Art Criticism’ prize from Art Observation journal; the ‘Focus on Talent Award’ from the Martell Art Foundation and Today Art Museum; and the ‘National Art Special Project’ grant from the China National Scholarship Council. His work has been exhibited at prestigious events and fairs including Beijing Design Week, the Gwangju Biennale, Shanghai Art and Design Biennale, and Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale. Fan received a Doctor of Design from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, a Master of Architecture from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Tongji University.