Intelligent design

Chen has also strived to bring his passion for languages into his design.

He says that he considers design to be a language, which has origins, depth and history.

"It stays open and evolves over the time. It expresses life in all aspects, and becomes the essence of it," he says.

His goal is to find the Chinese language in the world of design.

"Our Chinese characters are symbolic with profound meaning, and they have historical origin, but for many Westerners, they are just a pattern," he says.

"I want to show the interesting things that Westerners can't see in the strokes of a Chinese character through three-dimensional form."

In order to make Westerners understand Chinese characters, he has applied their form to pieces of furniture with great practical value.

The Chinese language is composed of characters, and characters are composed of strokes. This is how Chen uses materials, as strokes, to create his gong-shaped furniture series, from tables to shelf systems. The Chinese character gong means "tool" in this context, Chen says.

He also made clothes stands that resemble the Chinese character mu, which means "wood".

"The form expresses the essence of the shape of a tree. When you put two mu together, they become the character lin, which means 'woods'," Chen explains.

Last year, Chen launched a new project, where he invited and organized senior and young designers from home and abroad to re-create Chinese handicrafts that are on the verge of disappearing.

Chen took them to traditional art workshops to see the most primitive materials and get a feel for the local environment.