Los Angeles–based architect Daria Yang Du approaches architecture as a medium that links body and city, memory and institution, crisis and recovery. From post-disaster digital platforms to educational and healthcare redevelopment, from cultural venues to the remote terrains of earth, her work spans multiple scales and systems—consistently expanding the role of spatial design in the public realm.

“Narrative is more than a design approach—it’s a civic duty,” she reflects. “Architecture must speak to the cultural, institutional, and ecological landscapes we all inhabit.”

Spatial Narrative and Cultural Interfaces
At the Art Omi Design Pavilion in upstate New York, Ms. Du choreographed a cultural sequence inspired by the rhythm of breath—expansion and contraction—interweaving galleries, lakeside platforms, and workshop spaces into a continuous visual and experiential path. The design was awarded the 2025 London Design Platinum Award and praised as “a civic spine connecting ecological immersion and cultural presence.”

In the black lava fields of Iceland’s Dimmborgir landscape, she designed a visitor center that emerges seamlessly from the terrain. The dark concrete volumes appear to grow from the ground itself, while openings oriented toward volcanic lakes and natural cavities invite reflection on the silent rhythm of geology. The project was honored with the French Design Platinum Award for its site-sensitive formal language.

Her experimental project, ARTS: Deconstructive Utopia, originates from the post-industrial waterfront of the San Francisco Bay Area. Through physical models, hand-drawn narratives, and virtual environments, the project explores architectural interventions that pass through urban ruins and mechanical remnants. Framed like cinematic storyboards, the design presents a series of “post-industrial scenes” and “narrative spots” that examine the tensions between memory, ecological repair, and cultural imagination in a technological age. The work has been selected for the UTOPIA × A’ Design 40×40 International Exhibition and will be on display in New York City this August, extending her presence at the intersection of architecture and visual art.

Reconstructing Edges: Architecture as Urban Healing
Whether addressing post-disaster reconstruction or reactivating urban leftover zones, Ms. Du’s work consistently engages in rethinking spatial boundaries and the repair of civic order.

In the aftermath of California’s 2025 wildfires, she led the design of the Wildfire Recovery Resource Platform at RIOS—a public digital tool that consolidates GIS data, legal frameworks, hazard mapping, and shelter systems into an accessible interface. The project has become a model for how design can intervene meaningfully in systems of civic recovery and spatial governance.

A similar systems-based approach informs her upcoming role in the adaptive reuse of a hospital complex in Los Angeles. Centered on wellness, commerce, and innovation, the project transforms a traditionally closed healthcare campus into an open, community-serving interface—introducing wellness centers, shared offices, and green corridors that reconnect the site with surrounding public streets and civic life.

In Shanghai, Ms. Du’s Suzhou River Grey Belt Revitalization proposes a network of “Points-Lines-Planes system” to re-stitch fragmented waterfront edges. The project challenges the river’s role as an urban divider and instead reconstructs it as a shared cultural spine and ecological memory space.

Her MUSE-awarded border proposal reimagines the militarized berm between Morocco and Western Sahara as a textile-based cultural passage and bilateral infrastructure—offering symbolic reconciliation through material, orientation, and shared use. Meanwhile, her JENGA+ housing scheme addresses vacant land in New York’s Rust Belt by deploying modular structures and community infrastructure to restore spatial dignity and social agency through design.

Ms. Du’s work does not adhere to a fixed formal style, but instead advances architecture as a structural language that engages social logic, ecological systems, and cultural transformation. Her trajectory points toward a future urbanism grounded in resilience, publicness, and mutual coexistence.

For more information and a full project portfolio, visit her personal website and independent studio, DD Studio: www.dariayyy.com