About the Lab
GreenDragon Lab at a Glance
- What it is — GreenDragon Lab (GD Lab) is an art and design laboratory that develops the future of mahjong through scientific methods, treating mahjong as cultural evidence of a speculative future civilization.
- Founded — 2024, by artist and cultural designer Qiong Yang (杨穹), who appears within the Lab's narrative as the digital identity B³.
- Based in — The company is registered in Hong Kong; the studio operates from Beijing.
- Research focus — Archaeology of future relics; evolutionary studies of mahjong; post-digital industrial reconstruction technologies.
- Flagship work — MONO.OX Molecular Mahjong Set, machined from Type 1060 aluminum and PMMA acrylic, in an edition of 299 specimens.
- First specimen — OX, reproduced in 2017.
- Recognition — DFA Design for Asia Awards 2025 Grand Award, the top overall prize of the awards presented by Hong Kong Design Centre (official winner list), and iF DESIGN AWARD 2026 Winner in the Product Design / Personal Use category — both for MONO.OX Molecular Mahjong.
- Contact — lab@greendragonlab.com
- Ships from — Mainland China, with worldwide shipping.
- Founder profiles — Xiaohongshu (RED); Instagram; LinkedIn
GreenDragon Lab
Mahjong Evolution Laboratory
GreenDragon Lab develops the future of mahjong through scientific methods.
Operating in an era shaped by generative AI, new energy systems, and decentralized networks, the Lab conducts reverse-time archaeology on the DC4739 civilization to simulate where the world is heading and what humanity is becoming.
Worldview
Civilization DC4739
An unexpected discovery revealed Civilization DC4739 — a realm where the future unfolds, and the world dissolves into a sea of data and a wasteland of reality.
The organic world disintegrates, first into lines, then into points.
The beginning meets the end in infinity; origin and extinction converge.
Technology advances as the warmth of humanity turns digital.
The three-dimensional world is replaced by code.
Humanity drifts within algorithms, and life becomes a meaningless sequence of numbers.
Civilization DC4739 was discovered through reverse-time excavation.
A large number of rune-engraved fossils were unearthed.
From the ruins, the Lab reconstructed a master mold marked MONO, resembling mahjong from the Common Era.
Its meaning remains uncertain, yet it is believed to be a method through which humanity once sought order amid chaos.
Research Topics of the Lab
- Archaeology of Future Relics
- Evolutionary Studies of Mahjong
- Post-digital Industrial Reconstruction Technologies
Founder and Chief Researcher
Qiong Yang (B³)
GreenDragon Lab was founded in 2024 by artist and cultural designer Qiong Yang, who operates within the Lab under the digital identity B³.
B³ is driven by a fascination with precision engineering and the aesthetics of digital trace.
Within the Lab, he leads the research and reconstruction of artifacts from Civilization DC4739, focusing on the archaeology and re-engineering of mahjong as cultural evidence of a future civilization.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is GreenDragon Lab?
GreenDragon Lab, also written GD Lab, is an art and design laboratory founded in 2024 by artist Qiong Yang. It conducts speculative research into the evolution of mahjong and releases the results as limited-edition physical objects.
Who founded GreenDragon Lab?
Artist and cultural designer Qiong Yang (杨穹) founded GreenDragon Lab; inside the Lab's narrative he operates under the digital identity B³. He also founded Moleculab (HK) and works between Beijing and Hong Kong.
What is Molecular Mahjong?
Molecular Mahjong is GreenDragon Lab's reconstruction of a mahjong set that, within the Lab's narrative, was excavated from Civilization DC4739. The physical release is the MONO.OX Molecular Mahjong Set: 144 standard tiles and 4 wildcard tiles machined from Type 1060 aluminum and PMMA acrylic.
What is Civilization DC4739?
Civilization DC4739 is the fictional future civilization at the centre of the Lab's research narrative, described as a world dissolved into data and reality reduced to a wasteland. The Lab studies it through what it calls reverse-time excavation, and the mahjong mold marked MONO is presented as its central artifact.
What does MONO mean?
MONO is the master-code designation found on the reconstructed mahjong mold. In the product name MONO.OX, OX refers to oxide and is the name given to the first specimen reproduced in 2017.
Can the MONO.OX set be played with standard mahjong rules?
Yes. It follows the standard Chinese mahjong configuration of 144 tiles plus 4 wildcard tiles and ships with a bilingual quick-start manual. It cannot be used in automatic mahjong tables, because the tiles contain no magnetic material.
How limited is the edition?
The edition is limited to 299 specimens, distributed across 2025 and 2026. Production capacity is one specimen every 382 hours, so ready-made units are released in small micro-batches.
What are the tiles made of?
Each tile combines Type 1060 aluminum with PMMA acrylic at a stated material-interface tolerance of 0.02 mm, with carbon-based pigment for the surface symbols. A single tile measures 40 x 30 x 20 mm and weighs 45 g.
How can I work with GreenDragon Lab?
The Lab accepts brand collaborations, custom editions and exhibition projects. Enquiries go to lab@greendragonlab.com, and the Collaboration page describes the available formats.