The finalists for the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1’s 2019 Young Architects Programme (YAP) have been officially announced. Pedro & Juana, Low Design Office (LOWDO), Oana Stanescu & Akane Moriyama, Matter Design, and TO will compete in the 20th annual YAP. Each finalist will now organize a preliminary proposal for PS1’s outdoor courtyard before the winner is chosen and revealed in early 2019.
YAP is dedicated to recognizing young and emerging architectural talent. Each year, approximately 50 firms composed of recent graduates, junior faculty, or architects working with experimental styles or techniques are nominated by past YAP winners and scholars. The finalists are then chosen by a panel, which this year included Glenn D. Lowry, Director of The Museum of Modern Art; Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director at MoMA; Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1; Peter Reed, Senior Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs; Martino Stierli, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture & Design at MoMA; and Sean Anderson, Associate Curator of Architecture at MoMA.
Past YAP winners have included Dream the Combine in 2018, Jenny Sabin in 2017, and Escobedo Soliz Studio in 2016. The following, though, is a snippet about this year’s finalist and what they bring to the table.
Pedro & Juana
Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo and Mecky Reuss are a Mexico City-based architectural duo. Having met in 2005 while attending the Southern California Institute of Architecture, they founded Pedro & Juana in 2012. Galindo and Reuss tend to focus on furniture- and architecture-driven designs and they have shown off their designs in the 2015 and 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial as well as 2016’s Design Miami.
LOWDO
This architectural firm, located in Austin, Texas, is committed sustainability, technology, and geopolitics and the links between each issue. Organized by DK Oesseo-Asare, the young architect creates eco-friendly homes and living systems in collaboration with design partner Ryan Bollom. In 2017, LOWDO created the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform which aims to help ‘maker ecosystems’ in Africa through education on recycled materials.
Oana Stanescu & Akane Moriyama
Stanescu, who has held positions at MIT, Columbia University, Yale and Harvard, has recently set out to forge a practice under her own name after successfully co-founding the New York-based architecture firm, Family. In addition to Family, Stanescu co-founded the Friends of +Pool, a nonprofit that created a water-filtering pool, which floats in the New York harbor.
Meanwhile, Moriyama is a Stockholm-based artist and designer who brings architecture and textiles together. She has developed her own unique style by incorporating the practice of dying, knitting, sewing, and printing into her creations. In 2013, she won the Center for American Architecture and Design’s CURTAINS competition.
Matter Design
Brandon Clifford is the experimental director and co-founder of Matter Design firm located in Boston. The firm focuses on research and design, while working towards a better understanding of new architectural and fabrication techniques in collaboration with ancient craft techniques. In 2013, Matter Design was honoured with an Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers.
TO
A second firm hailing from Mexico City has found its place on the finalists list. Founded in 2015 by Carlos Facio and Jose G. Amozurrutia, TO unites architecture and fine art. By blending craftsmanship with architectural ideas, the firm highlights architecture’s more sublime qualities.
