about
CoEvol Project — Designing Wellbeing for Urban Everyday Life
Carolina Cárdenas Fernández
FOUNDER & guardian of the vision
Who is Carolina?
CoEvol is founded and led by Carolina Andrea Cárdenas Fernández, a psychologist, early childhood educator, and independent researcher based in Santiago, Chile. With over a decade of clinical practice since 2011, Carolina’s research emerges directly from therapeutic work — the observation that certain brief practices, when supported by simple visual reminders, could be maintained and activated by people in the ordinary contexts of everyday life outside the therapeutic space. This clinical insight became the seed of CoEvol.
The project
CoEvol develops the Wellbeing Practices in Waiting Spaces (WPWS) Framework, a Research through Design project proposing that urban waiting spaces constitute latent infrastructure for everyday mental wellbeing. The framework was developed through four interrelated research phases: qualitative clinical exploration (N=8); iterative prompt design and urban prototyping in Amsterdam, Milan, and Barcelona; exploration of everyday appropriation with participants from seven countries (N=41); and comparative analysis of public space interventions. The WPWS Framework is currently presented as a preprint on PsyArXiv (https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/tv3qc_v1) and has been accepted for presentation at three international conferences: Healthy City Design 2026 (England), Urban Transitions Global Summit 2026 (Spain), and the International Conference on Urban Health 2026 (Mexico).
Formation
COLLABORATORS
ROB M. SCHWARTZ
Design and Education Consultant
Alfredo Rates L.
Strategy, Management & Production
Catalina Hernández Fernández
Catalyst for Connections and Content
María Valentina Fernández
Advisor and Guide to the Vision
