Emily Xintong YanEmily Xintong Yan is an inter-disciplinary designer and researcher based in Cambridge, Massachusetts passionate about spatial design and place narratives. Trained as an architect and multi-displinary artist, she is currently pursuing a history- and theory- focused degree (MDes, Narratives) at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Committed to an interdisciplinary practice, she splits her time between multi-disciplinary research, filmmaking, as well as architectural and literary theory. Marked by her deep love for people and humanism, her work strives to hold meaning and create empathetic understanding for the lived experience.

She was born in Singapore, raised in China, grew up in the UK and educated in the US. 



TypeProjectYear
Research, ExhibitionNuclear AlphabetOngoing
Research, DocumentaryIn Praise of Waiting RoomsOngoing
Set designStudio Wenjüe Lu x telos.haus2025
Architectural design
Residence for a jeweler family2025
Concept
Light-Haus2024
Arcihtectural design
Residence for two musicians 2024
Arcihtectural designStephen Friedman Gallery 2023
Concept, DesignIn Search of Settlement
2022
EditorialPostmarked
2022
Concept, Design
House for the Blind
 2021
Concept, Design
Archiving the Archives
 2021
Photography
Stones Feel, Trees Fly 2020
Photography
Space/Place
Ongoing
Concept, Design Archiving the Archives
2021

This project proposes an adaptive reuse of the demolished Georgia Archives Building. Once sited between the Georgia State Capitol building and important interstate highways, the building was remarked for its preservation of history of Georgia and as a neo-classical modernist landmark. However, the building was also an embodiment of injustices serving antiquated ethics shown through extremely low ceilings in worker-occupied spaces, racially segregated bathrooms, a windowless concrete facade. 
The adaptive reuse strategy focuses on breaking apart the original parking spaces below ground and implanting new typologies of archival and exhibition spaces. In doing so, the original building above is rendered as a memorial monument for its glory and infamy.

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