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Headshot of Yiran Zhang outdoors.

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Yiran Zhang

  • Architecture Fellow, Architecture

Education

  • MArch, Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2022
  • BS, Architecture, Minor in Art, Washington University in St. Louis, 2017

Biography

Yiran Zhang is an architect, artist, and researcher. Anchored by materiality, tectonics, and narratives, her practice captures the enigmatic beauty and socio-spatial tensions of contemporary life.

Zhang is the co-founder of Y+Y Studio, an interdisciplinary practice operating within the expanded field of architecture and art, primarily through adaptive reuse, public art, and exhibition design. Driving imagination into everyday experience, their work often experiments with frictions of weight, tactility, and light, and transforms common materials such as earth, rock, and textiles. Her projects have been featured in Divisare, Architizer, and Gooood, and her work has been exhibited at ETH Zurich, KSWAT Tokyo, and the Shanghai Power Station of Art.

Zhang’s research investigates how built spaces emerge as "empathic environments" through actions of caring, foraging, and aging. She speculates on the hybrid ecological and technological realities of the post-Anthropocene and proposes a resilient cohabitation with the more-than-human.

Zhang holds a Master of Architecture I from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis with a minor in Art. In addition, Zhang has studied at ETH Zurich and worked professionally in Switzerland.

y-y.studio

Recent & Selected Works

Split image showing a minimalist interior with exposed timber rafters and built-in shelving beside a brick courtyard entrance framed by angular rooflines.
Z House, Adaptive Reuse, Beijing, China, 2024. ©Zhu Runzi
Single-story brick-and-stone building with a dark metal roof, warm interior lights, and a landscaped courtyard backed by wooded hills.
Z House, Adaptive Reuse, Beijing, China, 2024. ©Zhu Runzi
Curved plywood exhibition wall with exposed framing in a white gallery, featuring display niches, wall text, and a visitor walking nearby.
Exhibition design for Carrier Bags from the Peripherals (“Next Cultural Producer” Season IV) at Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China, 2026. Y+Y Studio. ©Chen Hao
Minimalist gallery interior with a curved concrete wall, long wooden bench, white display plinth, and oval skylight overhead.
Artech Gallery, Gallery Interior, New York, NY, 2025. Y+Y Studio. ©Yan Jin
Visitors sit among crumpled paper-like sculpted forms in a warm, amber-lit installation that resembles a landscape of rolling hills.
Earth Unearthed, Public Art, Concept, Taipei, Taiwan. Y+Y Studio, in Collaboration with OOIS. 2023
Architectural model with steel beams, angled trusses, seating, tables, and stone elements arranged on a white display platform.
Empathetic Encounters, Shared Housing, M.Arch Thesis, Los Angeles, 2022.

Built Works

  • Zhang, Yiran. Z House, 2024, Beijing, China
  • Zhang, Yiran and Yalun Li. Artech Gallery, 2025, New York, NY
  • Zhang, Yiran and Yalun Li. Exhibition design for Carrier Bags from the Peripherals (“Next Cultural Producer” Season IV) at Power Station of Art, 2026, Shanghai, China

Creative Works Published/Cited by Others

  • Y+Y Studio. "Z House." Divisare, May 14, 2025, divisare.com/projects/531211-y-y-studio-fusion-photography-zhu-runzi-z-house.
  • Y+Y Studio. "Z House." Divisare Journal, no. 1178, June 2, 2025, divisare.com/journals/1178.
  • Girot, Christophe, et al., editors. Bodies of Water: A Swiss Landscape Trilogy. gta Verlag, 2021.