FoxCode is a London-based speculative research and urban wildlife advocacy organization dedicated to reshaping the relationship between humans, foxes, and cities.
FoxCode was founded on the core belief that urban wildlife should not be defined by fear, complaints, and stigma. The organization explores a more equitable future for London foxes through science, design, ethics, and public engagement.
FoxCode's current core project is a planned controlled pilot project in Greenwich. This project, combining limited biooptimization, disease resistance enhancement, and long-term public feedback monitoring, aims to alter the appearance and immune system of London's urban fox population, improve fox welfare, reduce human-fox conflict, and challenge the institutionalized label that perpetuates foxes as an "urban problem."
We hope to explore the core question:
"How are the lives and deaths of urban animals, as beings dependent on human-centric urban life, controlled by human emotions and aesthetics?"
Our mission is to move London foxes from fear and misunderstanding to coexistence, from conflict to care, and from being classified as "pests" to being protected urban residents, advocating for a more stable quality of life and right to survival for foxes.
FOUNDER
& PROJECT LEADER
Youyou ChenFoxcode2026@gmail.com
Youyou is a London-based designer and speculative researcher whose work focuses on urban wildlife, non-human-centered design, and the implicit systems that determine how different life forms are allowed to coexist in cities.
As the founder and project lead of FoxCode, Youyou is responsible for the organization's research direction, public narrative, and pilot proposal development. Her practice focuses on how animals are categorized, perceived, and governed within human-established institutions, with a particular focus on the social identity of foxes in London.
Through FoxCode, Youyou proposes a bold vision of the future: using design, ethics, and emerging biotechnology as tools to question why some animals are protected while others are feared, controlled, or removed. Her role combines critical design, policy imagination, public communication, and multi-species ethics to attempt to establish a new model of urban coexistence.
Youyou is currently studying Design at Goldsmiths, University of London, and her work has long focused on speculative futures, ecosystems, and the relationship between humans and non-human life.