Exceptional Growth explores the concept of incompleteness as a design strategy, positioning time and nature as co-authors of a functional object.
Created in collaboration with Huixian Chen, the project proposes a site-specific checkers table placed within an ecological park — carved from a locally sourced wooden stake, embedded with preserved botanical specimens in resin, and seeded with live moss around its base. Shichen led the conceptual direction and material research, investigating how living matter and environmental conditions could gradually transform the object beyond its making. By introducing an unfinished state into functional furniture — where moss spreads and the surface weathers with use — it examines how designed objects can enter into a relationship with their surroundings over time, positioning incompleteness as a form of ecological and social participation.