‘Cripping Architecture’: Shaina Yang reimagines the world for a different body type
Our Next Generation 2022 showcase shines a light on 22 outstanding graduates from around the globe, in seven creative fields. Here, we profile architecture graduate Shaina Yang from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, USA

‘Cripping Architecture’, the powerful thesis of Shaina Yang, reimagines our world for a ‘different assumed “neutral” body type’. Yang received her master of architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2021, where her thesis project was jointly awarded the James Templeton Kelley Prize for best final design project and the Clifford Wong Prize for best housing design project.
‘Cripping Architecture’ subverts the world’s current, predominantly exclusionary spatial designs, and asks: ‘What does architecture designed for a completely different archetype of body look like?’ Yang explains: ‘As a verb, reclaimed from the slur, “crip” has been in use by the disabled community since the 1960s to describe the act of applying a disability lens to able-privileged spaces, conversations, and practices.
‘The discomfort the term can spark in able-bodied people is exactly the kind of space I wanted to put them in, as they were assessing the project: acknowledging the radicalism behind designing explicitly for a community that has long been excluded from the entire practice of architecture,’ she says.
‘I dreamed of what the world might look like if it was designed to different assumptions,’ she says.
Drawing from her own experience as an able-passing person and rejecting the imposed universalisms of what bodies should be, she carves out an architectural language centred on the ramp, ‘the crux of wheelchair accessibility’ as ‘a tool: for empathy, for liberation, for dialogue, for wonder. By rejecting “access” altogether, it creates a cripped architecture for us, by us.’
Yang’s route to architecture is a less conventional one. ‘I applied to the MArch programme whilst working full-time in London as a trends analyst and insights consultant,’ she says.
It was during that time that she became interested in architecture's relationship to various networks of power, particularly in housing. ‘It’s inseparable from other core issues of class, racial inequality and environmental crisis,’ she says.
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
For Yang, architecture ‘means being extremely judicious and equitable with one of our most precious finite resources today: space’. She wishes to work ‘carefully and collaboratively’ with a range of organisations, from Nasa to her peers from both the architecture and development fields, but also communities that exist outside of these establishments, such as mutual aid networks and marginalised communities.
Today, Yang works as an architect at Adam Sokol Architecture Practice and lives with her husband in Los Angeles. She has also co-founded a design research collective and mini-studio called yangboydvu. Dream collaborator: Nasa
INFORMATION
Our Next Generation showcase of outstanding new talents appears in the January 2022 issue of Wallpaper* (W*273). Subscribe today!
-
Meet Minnette de Silva, the trailblazing Sri Lankan modernist architect
Sri Lankan architect Minnette de Silva is celebrated in a new book by author Anooradha Iyer Siddiq, who looks into the modernist's work at the intersection of ecology, heritage and craftsmanship
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
The Honda HR-V is a car for those who don’t care too much about brands or bold design
A small but sophisticated hybrid that wears its tech lightly, the Honda HR-V will probably work perfectly forever even though it can’t raise a thrill
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
New York Fashion Week A/W 2025 highlights: Christopher John Rogers to Calvin Klein Collection
Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss picks the best of New York Fashion Week A/W 2025, starting with Veronica Leoni’s confident opening act at Calvin Klein Collection
By Jack Moss Published
-
A wavy roof tops this Accessory Dwelling Unit's cabin-like form: all miniature charm
This Californian Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) by Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW), offers an aesthetic and functional answer to housing shortages and multigenerational family living
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Palm Springs Modernism Week 2025: let the desert architecture party begin
Palm Springs Modernism Week 2025 launches on 13 February, marking the popular annual desert event’s 20th anniversary, celebrated this year through more midcentury marvels than ever
By Carole Dixon Published
-
On the shores of Discovery Bay, this wooden house is the ultimate waterside retreat
Dekleva Gregorič’s Discovery Bay House is a structured yet organic shelter that blends perfectly into the surrounding Pacific Northwest landscape
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
The 10 emerging American Midwest architects you need to know
We profile 10 emerging American Midwest architects shaking up the world of architecture - in their territory, and beyond
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
A light-filled New York loft renovation magics up extra space in a deceptively sized home
This New York loft renovation by local practice BOND is now a warm and welcoming apartment that feels more spacious than it actually is
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
Inside Bell Labs, the modernist vision behind Severance's minimalist setting
We explore the history of Bell Labs - now known as Bell Works - the modernist Eero Saarinen-designed facility in New Jersey, which inspired the dystopian minimalist setting of 'Severance'
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Zaha Hadid Architects’ new project will be Miami’s priciest condo
Construction has commenced at The Delmore, an oceanfront condominium from the firm founded by the late Zaha Hadid, ZHA
By Anna Solomon Published
-
A West Austin house invites you to commune with nature
Westview Residence by Alterstudio, a West Austin house among trees, makes the most of large windows and open-air decks in a verdant setting
By Ellie Stathaki Published