At “Connecting Start-up Cities” at the Asia Pacific Weeks in Berlin on May 14th, 2019, Iris  talked about the opportunities for a new shared economy in the countryside. The village of Wufang Cun at the fringe of Shanghai served as a case where demographic transformation and economic restructuring open possibilities to rethink the way people live and work together. Iris presented ideas for programs and building designs, that accommodate such forms of collective living and working and gives an overview of a start-up model that can be compatible with the local set-up of actors. Part of her presentation featured material from the design studio “Collective Living at the Periphery” which she taught earlier this year in her capacity as Assistant Professor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University’s  in Shanghai.