Alex Yueyan Li is director of AYL, a Material Research division working at the intersection of architecture, computation, and material cultures. He is also a co-principal of 11x17, an architectural and design practice based in Boston and Toronto.
Li's work centers on historical and contemporary material techniques, the production of adaptive reuse, and how the preservation of buildings can be reconsidered as a full-scale rehearsal of existing materials and their extended lives. His experimental research leverages the real-time capacity of computational tools to develop material techniques that are sensitive to time, process, and other environmental conditions. His most recent exhibition, Particulate Signals, investigates the standardized protocols of concrete-handling—from formwork to labor practice—through the lens of calculability, predictability, and reproducibility.
Li has held teaching positions at Harvard University and Syracuse University. He is a recipient of the 2021-2022 Irving Innovation Fellowship at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he co-inaugurated the “All About This One Thing” (AATOT) program as part of GSD's graduate core curriculum. At Syracuse, he taught foundational design studios and graduate experimental seminar on material reuse. He has given lectures and served on juries at many institutions including Harvard, Cornell, SCI-Arc, the University of Toronto, RISD, CU Denver, Washington University in St. Louis, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Northeastern University. His work has been published globally and featured in PLAT, E-flux, Archinect, and New York Review of Architecture, DesignTO, AZURE, and ACADIA. In 2023, he was named J.E.D.I Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Denver, where he teaches advanced design studio and lecture courses on adaptive reuse and construction practices.
Prior to establishing his own practice, Li worked internationally in the United States, Canada, Japan, and China, including Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Höweler + Yoon, MILLIØNS, and Shigeru Ban Architects. He has led architecture and art installation projects in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Taipei, and France. This includes leading the renovation of I.M. Pei’s Everson Museum where he collaborated with ceramicists, conservationists, and contractors to develop material research and adaptive reuse strategies specific to the building scale.
Li received a Master of Architecture I AP with Distinction from Harvard GSD, where he was the recipient of the Clifford Wong Housing Prize and the Architecture Research Grant. He also holds a Bachelor of Architectural Studies with Distinction from the University of Waterloo, Canada, where he received the President’s Scholarship and the First in Class Award.
Contact:
info@alexyueyanli.com
857.285.0980
Address:
1726 Champa St.
Denver, CO 80202
