Tommy is a multi-disciplinary HMoob designer, teacher, and founder of locating.matter studio. Tommy’s design research and teaching focus on bridging the disciplines of architecture, ecology and the humanities through storytelling and ethnography. His works unpack how ordinary stories and rituals cascade into architectural and urban changes using methods in fieldwork, oral/public history, material landscapes, vernacular wisdom and construction, in addition to visual narratives.
He is currently a Special Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in the School of Architecture. Prior to his appointment at CMU, he taught at Parsons School of Design at The New School.
Tommy’s research and community empowered projects have received multiple recognitions and support including the PJ Dick Innovation Fund Faculty Grants Program, National Endowment of the Humanities, Wisconsin Historical Society, Urban Systems Lab at The New School and Urban Field Station Arts. These works have included embedded research on Hmong refugees re-making their homes in Wisconsin, Thai villagers maintaining their worlds within the rapidly urbanizing city of Chiang Mai, Thailand, and the morphogenetic growth of immigrant communities in New York. His design research has been published in dense, Nature-Based Solutions for Cities, The Nature of Cities and exhibited internationally, including in Wisconsin, New York, Chiang Mai University and Chiang Mai City Heritage Centre.
Tommy received his professional Master of Architecture degree with distinction from Parsons School of Design at The New School and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.
Portfolio and Curriculum vitae are available upon request.
Updates
Upcoming; Symposium Paper in collaboration with Kailin Chen, Jiaxin Lin, Lu Hak Lukas Yao - “(Re)calibrating by Hand: Tools, Love, and Collective Futures at the Scale of 18 square feet". 11 Sep. 2025. Future Normals Symposium - Carnegie Mellon—Architecture. Pittsburgh, PA. Keynote by Arturo Escobar.
Upcoming; Exhibition - “A Field of Secrets”. 11 Sep - 02 Oct. 2025. Allen Priebe Gallery
Upcoming; Conference Paper - “Worlds Multiple In the Hands of Grandmothers at the Scale of a Mango Seed". 03 Sep - 05 Sep. 2025. 4S (Society of Social Study Science) Conference “Reverberations” Seattle, WA.
Invited Peer Reviewer - "Work in Progress: BANI WORLD" 13th Rangsit University International Design Symposium 2025
Workshop - 2025 KDI Burst: Drawing Material Kin-The Planet at the Scale of a Page in the Body of a Book, Kusske Design Initiative (KDI) Burst 2025, University of Minnesota
Honorable Mention - Compoundologies, 2024 ACSA Timber Education Award, Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
Workshop - Community Powered Series, Wisconsin Humanities
Paper Presentation - Collective Wisdom from the Field: Learning from the Land of A Million Rice Fields, November 17-19, 2023 Teaching Beyond the Curriculum, AMPS (Architecture Media Politics Society) Research Conference - Louisiana, USA - Melbourne, AU - Wenzhou, CH
Paper Presentations - Making History Do Work for a Better Future: Publicly engaged urban history fieldwork in Milwaukee, October 26-29, 2023
Tenth Biennial Conference: Reparations & the Right to the City, Urban History Association (UHA)
Workshop Lecture - Being in the Field, August 22, 2023, Faculty of Architecture Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, TH
Public Workshop - DESIGN FUTURES FORUM: EXTRACTIVISM AND THE ARCHITECTURAL ACADEMY, Extraction Public Program – School of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Exhibition - Drawing Narratives. 09 Dec – 12 Dec 2022. The Frame Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA.
Online Archive Publication - Yang’s collaborative research on the HMoob Stories Project, supported by the National Endowment of the Humanities, Wisconsin Historical Society, and Wisconsin Community Funds, has been publicly published online.
Workshop - Materializing Urban Narratives: Guerilla Tactics In Storytelling Through Comic Making And Animation at Imagining America Gathering 2022
Interim Director - EX-CHANGE 2022 Exhibition & Catalog Opens August 29
Online Journal - Geraki, Palmyra. “S K Y L I N E: School's in Session.” S K Y L I N E | School's in Session - by Palmyra Geraki. New York Review of Architecture, August 12, 2022.
Workshop - Seeing Hearing Eating Drawing and All the Above, Architecture Beyond Capitalism “Studio”
Residency - Urban Field Station Artist in Residency 22-23
Publication - Traffic Patterns - 05/02/2022
Publication - Yang, Tommy, Brian McGrath and Cheng-Luen Hsueh, Islands and Territories, India China Institute, 2022.
Feature and Interview - You from Jersey? What ecology? - 04/10/2022
Grant - SAH Opler Membership Grant for Emerging Scholars and Professionals - 2022-2023
Publication - NJ Turnpike Pattern Book: Exits, Domains, and Ecologies - 11/2021
Preparing Urban Ecology to Contribute to Positive Urban Futures, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, 2020 - Present
Public Workshop School of Architecture National Cheng Kung University, 島與境 - 接觸地帶工作營 An-Ping Contact Zones, Taiwan - 11/08/2021 - 11/14/2021
Public Lecture School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon Da-Me to Bastards: Architectural Space as Matrix of Care - 11/01/2021
Public Workshop School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon Sensorimotor City Workshop: The Ecologies of Murray Ave, Squirrel Hill - 10/29/21-10/31/21
Federal Grant Award for Collaborative Project Cia Siab A HMoob Story NEH Announcement - 08/17/2021
Workshop Presentation Back to the Field? Community Design After COVID-19 - 08/14-15/2021
Joins Carnegie Mellon as Ann Kalla Visiting Professor - 06/2021-Present
Exhibit - The Battlefields of Memory - 04/05-04/25/2021
Feature - The COVID Memorial Project: Ghost Lights - 03/2021
Feature - Canadian Architect : Sudbury 2050 Finalist Announced - 11/2020
Roundtable Panelist - #UrbanismBeyondCorona - 11/2020
Finalist - Sudbury 2050: Pollinating Sudbury. 11/2020
Faculty Fellowship - Urban Systems Lab at The New School
Thesis Talk - Arch 501 NYIT: Memory & Emerging Prophecies: Architecture of the Experience Economy, Architecture, Storytelling, and Cartography, 10/2020
Collective Work and Exhibition - ARCHLEAGUE - REIMAGINE , 10/2020
Feature - SCE PARSONS REMOTE - Featured Student Work in Quarantine , 09/2020
Joined Parsons School of Constructed Environments as a Part-Time Faculty, 09/2020
Mention - SCE PARSONS - Archinect Talks to Tommy Yang , 08/2020
Interview - ARCHINECT - Parsons M.Arch Graduate Tommy Yang Converts New York City's Train Stations into "Nuanced-Topias", 08/2020
Mention - The Architects News - The Architecture Newspaper : …end-of-year student exhibitions to peruse , 06/2020
Recipient of Alpha Ro Chi Medal Award 2020, 05/2020
Judged by the faculty of each school, the medal is presented to the graduating student who has shown an ability for leadership, performed willing service for his or her school or department, and gives promise of real professional merit through his or her attitude and personality.
Recipient of Eileen Gray Thesis Prize - Conceptual Distinction, 05/2020 • Critic: David Leven
Recipient of NYCxDESIGN Architecture Graduates Showcase 2020, 05/2020 • Critic: David Leven
Recipient of Department of SCE Architecture Honors Award 2020, 05/2020
Graduate Student Speaker for Department of SCE Design Awards Ceremony, 05.2020
Panelist on Climate Justice and Pandemics: A Roundtable on Reflections, Personal Experiences and What we do Going Forward. 04/2020
Student Researcher and Organizer of Reimagining Justice: NYC Without Rikers. 11/2018
As a student design researcher, I in collaboration designers designers, activists, and other students planned and implemented a day-long discussion about the closing of Rikers Island. How do we re-imagine Justice in today’s environment? How do we begin to talk about the long and corrupted justice system in the United States? How do we move forward?
Recipient of Urban Edge Design Award, 10/2017 • Critic: Nikole Bouchard
The Urban Edge Award is an advanced Research & Design Seminar that will bring together Students, internationally recognized Design Professionals and Local Stakeholders to develop fresh, innovative and effective design proposals at multiple scales that blur the boundaries of Art, Architecture, Landscape and Urbanism
Recipient of McNair Scholar Fellowship, A Place to Belong: Contested Narratives of Identity, 2016-2017 • Mentor: Arijit Sen
“The McNair Scholars Program is designed to prepare undergraduate students for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities. McNair participants are either first-generation college students with financial need, or members of a group that is traditionally underrepresented in graduate education and have demonstrated strong academic potential. The goal of the McNair Scholars Program is to increase graduate degree awards for students from underrepresented segments of society.
Coordinator and Presenter at Imagining America 2016 University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. 10/2016
Finding “Home”: Formulating Creative Civic Engagement in Community Health : Website
Interview - UWM. Click Here to See an Interview for IAMUWM
Student Presenter at National Conference of Undergraduate Research Presentation. University of North Carolina Asheville 04/2016
Student Presenter at American Multicultural Student Leadership Conference Presentation. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee 04/2016
Recipient of SUPPORT FOR UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOWS (SURF), Hmong Cultural Landscapes and Community Engaged Research. 2015-2017 • Mentor: Arijit Sen
© 2020 TOMMY YANG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.