Young & Ayata formed a partnership in New York in 2008 to explore the conceptual and aesthetic possibilities of architecture and urbanism. The practice is dedicated to both built commissions and experimental research. The practice views the reality of contemporary building as a provocation for architectural form, material and technology. In following these trajectories it is necessary to understand architecture in its historical processes. Both principals teach and view the educational experience as crucial to the continual development of architectural ideas.
Young & Ayata are the recipients of the 2016 Design Vanguard Award from Architectural Record. The Apartment building DL1310 designed in collaboration with Michan Architecture received the 2019 Progressive Architecture Award from Architect Magazine. In 2015 they were one of two first prize winners in the International Competition for the New Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, Germany. They were finalists in the 2015 MoMA YAP Program in Istanbul, Turkey. In 2014, the partners were the recipients of the Young Architects Prize from Architectural League of New York, and their entry in the open international competition for the Dalseong Citizen’s Gymnasium in South Korea received an honorable mention. A manifesto titled The Estranged Object: Realism in Art and Architecture, written by Michael Young with the projects of Young & Ayata was published in the Spring of 2015 by the Graham Foundation. Recently, the firm’s work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Istanbul Modern, the Graham Foundation, Yale University, SCI-Arc, and Princeton University.