Weronika Nesh Yuan

Weronika Nesh Yuan is a trained architect researching the links between construction materials, society, and more-than-human interdependence. She completed her bachelor of arts in architecture at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, with an exchange at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) in Lima. She earned her master of science in architecture from HafenCity University Hamburg with a thesis on eucalyptus wood in northern Spain; used in the production of laminates for windows and doors. Through tracing the lived experiences of humans and non-humans involved in the production of laminates from a eucalyptus monoculture seed to a finished product, Nesh highlighted the spatial, social, and biological implications of the industry. Her PhD dissertation focuses on the practices of handling structural mass timber, engineered wood products increasingly used in urban construction. By ethnographically following a planning office and various stakeholders engaged in the material’s supply chain, she intends to identify shifts in professional decision-making, and the role of sourcing challenged by the uncertainty of climate change. Before joining the research training group ‘Urban future-making’, she worked on the Material Networks project, investigating aluminium’s role in maintaining exploitative neocolonial trade networks, and assisted in teaching at the HCU’s Department of Architecture, Space and Society. Nesh cofounded ‘slightly unstable’, a design studio specializing in interior objects and community event formats, and was a member of LU’UM, an open collective researching and building spaces of encounter.