Dong Nyung (DN) Lee
Dong Nyung (DN) is an M.Arch candidate at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, where he also earned his Bachelor of Science in Architecture.
His work explores the poetics and tectonics of materials across scales, from the fabrication of objects to the assembly of buildings. He is particularly drawn to their tactile qualities and the ways in which materials are shaped, joined, and transformed through making. Material histories and adaptive reuse have increasingly become central to his work, exploring how material circularity can support less carbon-intensive architectural practices while preserving the personal and collective memories embedded in the built environment.
He previously worked at Grimshaw in New York and Oualalou+Choi in Paris, contributing to concept development, design development, and visualization for large-scale transportation and hospitality projects, as well as international design competitions. Through these experiences, he explored architectural approaches informed by local vernacular traditions and site-specific conditions, while developing efficient, climate-responsive building assembly systems.
Instructor: Roi Salgueiro Barrio
This project proposes a biochar production facility and community farm in Galicia that rethinks what happens after harvest, when forestry residues are typically treated as waste to be cleared on site. Instead, low value branches and twigs left from silviculture are collected and transformed into biochar, a charcoal-like material produced by heating biomass in a low-oxygen environment. Mixed with compost, the biochar becomes a soil amendment that returns carbon and nutrients to the ground, linking forestry and agriculture in a cyclical local economy.
Instructor: Rafi Segal
This project aims to expand the Strand theater’s offerings while keeping its original purpose as a performance stage that has supported the residents and artists of Dorchester for decades. Based on the autobiographical memories of the Strand, this project focuses on recollections from people who were active in the theater decades ago. The theater’s strong connection with the local community rose particularly through educational programs that introduced local students to theater arts. Some of these students have since become theater artists and educators. Reflecting on this sustainable cycle, the project aims to extend the theater to provide artist residences and educational facilities managed by the artists themselves, while preserving its performance area.
Instructor: Daniel Marshall
Fenway Victory Gardens is defined by its irregularity and individuality. More than 500 garden plots make up the site, each distinguished by unique selections of vegetation and hand-crafted furniture. The project proposes a set of inclusionary spaces: the Seed Bank and the Exhibition Greenhouse. Each program has “Precious Objects”, discovered by the gardeners and the visitors: the seeds contained in the hanging jars at the Seed Bank and the plants placed upon the hanging tables at the Exhibition Greenhouse.
Instructor: Michael Stradley
The project consists of three parts, alterating between the digital and the physical realms. Each part is an extension of the previous, expanding its dimension (planar to volumetric, imaginative to real-world) and scale while demonstrating the interplay of colors and unique material qualities.
Modeling and digital formwork are not merely tools for representation but a source of inspiration itself, through which new materiality and form are tested. Color is taken as the central architectural protagonist of the project, expanding beyond its commonplace notion as the purely formal and the aesthetic.
