Lawson is an interdisciplinary artist, architect, and active collaborator in community projects. In 2021 he founded Shenzhen's first 706 Living Lab, and since then he has been continuously and deeply involved in developing and carrying out numerous community activities and initiatives in the Shekou district of Shenzhen. In 2026 he was elected independent councillor of the Shekou Heritage Restart philanthropic fund of the Shekou Community Foundation.

Lawson's research and writing focus on how shared living can become a container capable of extending individual identity and sociality. In his view, the "anti-workflow" collaborative path experimented with in shared-living practices offers — for cooperation among individuals, communities, and institutions from different cultural backgrounds — a paradigm able to move beyond power hierarchies and procedural control. At the same time, it also creates the fundamental social conditions for collective action and consensus-building in public life.