At SKU and Boyville, we believe in work that moves at its own pace. Thoughtful, considered, and shaped over time. The kind that takes root slowly and grows into something lasting.
For our second iteration of Well Worn, we meet LinYee Yuan of Field Meridians, a Crown Heights community leader whose work brings neighbors together through food, design, and shared space.
LinYee moves seamlessly between roles: parent, organizer, and founder of Field Meridians. Her work centers on bringing people together, often in the most familiar of places: the neighborhood park, a shared table, a patch of land that she finds potential in. What emerges from those gatherings is something much greater than the sum of its parts: a community.
LinYee’s work is based on the idea that meaningful change begins close to home. She brings together neighbors through food, design, and shared space, creating opportunities for people to gather, imagine, and build collectively. But her work didn’t start there. Prior to Field Meridians, LinYee founded and published MOLD, a print and online magazine exploring the future of food through the lens of design. What began as a platform for ideas, connecting a global community of thinkers, makers, and growers, eventually led her back to something more immediate: her own neighborhood.
The shift from publishing to both practice and publishing has come to define her approach. Today, her work moves between roles: organizer, parent, and facilitator of systems that encourage participation and care. Through initiatives like Sunday Seeds, a weekly community gathering working toward a publicly accessible food forest, and Nature School programming that invites neighbors to engage more deeply with the urban landscape, LinYee’s work is grounded in proximity. It’s less about scale in the traditional sense and more about what can happen when people show up consistently, over time.
Underlying it all is a perspective she often returns to: “tree time.” The idea that growth is layered, relational, and often slow—that the most enduring systems are those nurtured patiently, in connection with everything around them.
Tell us about how you conceived of Field Meridians.
I think one of the most important tools for our collective futures is knowing our neighbors. I used to publish an online and print magazine called MOLD about designing the future of food. I had this hunch that if I could get all the people who read our niche publication into one room, some magic would happen.
During the pandemic, I was organizing with my neighbors against a proposed development in our landmarked neighborhood. I realized then that I wanted to spend my energy and time putting into action the ideas we were advocating for on MOLD – the creation of hyperlocal food ecologies — in the neighborhood where I live and work.
Field Meridians is the actualization of this yearning for getting people who were interested in this intersection of food sovereignty and design into one room to see what magic would happen! I see this in action every week at our community visioning project, Sunday Seeds, where we gather neighbors together to strategize around how we might plant a publicly-accessible food forest in Crown Heights. A food forest is an edible forest garden—a biodiverse planting of perennial plants that mimic natural forest ecologies. Anchored by guilds of edible trees, the food forest layers functional ecological niches—shrubs, herbs, vines, and root crops—in space and time.
"One of the most important tools for our collective futures is knowing our neighbors."
We captured you at your local neighborhood park, Brower Park in Crown Heights. What does the neighborhood park stand for, in your eyes? What have you learned from the community?
In the early years of parenting, I would come to the park playground nearly every day. I really believe you can see the neighborhood by noticing who is using the playground. This ritual of going outside really cemented my love and commitment to my neighborhood.
I would make small talk with other parents with kids my own age. I would see the intergenerational basketball games happening on the courts next door. My toddler was obsessed with watching the skateboarders try new tricks out at the skate park next door. I love the elders who would play music on boomboxes or take out an accompanying instrument to serenade the squirrels and passersby.
Through Field Meridians’ Nature School’s Street Tree Walks with the landscape architect Michael Cafiero, I learned about the ring of oaks on the west side of the circle. And the Osage orange tree that anchors the southeastern corner of the park. There are so many trees in Brower Park that have lived here for 100 years. We’re so lucky to have tree neighbors like this. And the birds!! There are hawks that live in the park, and I love seeing their silhouettes against the blue sky during the Spring.
Where do your design influences come from?
We talk a lot about being on “Tree Time,” this idea that the shape of the things we build should remember and respect the many threads that are intertwined to make a living ecology. In this way, the way we design systems, programs, and facilitate dreaming tries to respect this fact.
"We talk a lot about being on 'Tree Time' — this idea that the shape of the things we build should remember and respect the many threads that are intertwined to make a living ecology."
What has informed your lifelong interest in food?
I am the child of immigrants, and food has always been a thread that connects me with my ancestors and serves as an excuse for gathering my family. My mother is a retired dietician, and my father is an avid fisherman and gardener.
This meant that food was always a topic of conversation at our tables. Most of our meals growing up were home-cooked, and so this is a value I bring into my current role as a parent of two young children.
To this day, my dad will bring a rolling suitcase of frozen fish he caught off the coast of Texas to New York when he comes to visit.
"Food has always been a thread that connects me with my ancestors and serves as an excuse for gathering my family."
In your winter edition of Field Meridians newspaper, you wrote about being “on Tree Time.” Can you tell us more about this perspective?
The idea of “tree time” weaves together two threads: the myriad rhythms that orient perceptions of time and the recognition that many environmental and community conditions have to align for ideas to take root.
It is also a way of reminding myself that although I might not taste the fruit of the proverbial and physical trees I hope to plant, planting those seeds and nurturing them in this lifetime is still some of the most potent and transformational work that I can do.
"Although I might not taste the fruit of the proverbial and physical trees I hope to plant, planting those seeds and nurturing them in this lifetime is still some of the most potent and transformational work that I can do."
What’s on the horizon for Field Meridians, and how can our readers get involved?
We are launching our Nature School programs for Spring this week – free, artist-facilitated programming in our neighborhood that invites our neighbors to connect with the nature that surrounds us in the city! Come and check us out! You can also donate to help support our work – we are fundraising to launch a high school garden internship program this summer to train the next generation of urban landworkers. And finally, sign up for our newsletter to stay in touch!
Images | Dan McMahon @imageheavy
Special thanks to LinYee Yuan
