Wanze (Zoe) Cheng

Architecture (MA)

Cruel Optimism: Domestic Fantasy as Self-Healing (Grassland) — Players create visually appealing works for themselves while also building a shared culture together. Through this process, they rebuild their identity while healing themselves.

Cruel Optimism: Domestic Fantasy as Self-Healing (Mushroom forest) — This dreamlike yet absurd dreamcore world carries a sense of "Cruel Optimism" - where people trapped in dreams fantasise about unattainable ideal lives. It's a romanticised form of resistance.

Cruel Optimism: Domestic Fantasy as Self-Healing (Fish tank) — Virtual spaces aren't just playgrounds for online players - they also motivate the homeless residents who inhabit here. They are ordinary people affected by systemic failures, living both in harsh reality and dreamlike fantasy in this place. Here, dreams become their way out - because when you have nothing left, the hardest thing is "daring to dream".

The Nomadic Pleasure Garden - A Self-build System for Temporary Structures in Hong kong — The self-build bamboo system gives oppressed women and migrant workers—like Hong Kong's Filipino domestic workers—a space to be seen, turning their transient presence into lasting visibility.

About

Wanze (Zoe) Cheng is a multidisciplinary designer exploring spatial narratives across architecture, art, and digital media. Her work focuses on social inclusion, addressing marginalised communities’ spatial relationships through innovative design, while also examining traditional culture’s contemporary role. Through virtual technologies, her works critically reflect on reality while poetically reimagining future ways of living.

Her works can be found here.

Final-year project, Cruel Optimism: Domestic Fantasy as Self-Healing, imagines a “Chinese Utopia” by merging physical and virtual spaces in Beijing’s abandoned hutongs, engaging homeless day labourers and nostalgic online players. The “occupiable framework” grants the homeless autonomy to reshape derelict spaces with scavenged materials, fostering identity and resistance, while online players co-construct a surreal dreamcore museum through collective nostalgia, enacting self-healing and romanticised escape. Through “accumulation”, it bridges both worlds to examine belonging and “Cruel Optimism” – persisting in hope despite adversity.

First-year project, The Nomadic Pleasure Garden, transforms Filipino domestic workers’ Sunday gatherings in Hong Kong into meaningful urban interventions through tactical design. This self-build bamboo system merges traditional craftsmanship with social needs, creating adaptable shelters that foster community connections while preserving local bamboo techniques and reimagining urban inclusivity.

Contact: zoe_cheng_wanze@163.com

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