Kris Yao is the founder of KRIS YAO | ARTECH, an Asia-based architectural firm with offices in Taipei and Shanghai. He obtained a Bachelor of Architecture from Tunghai University in 1975, and a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978. Yao’s projects are mainly located in the Greater China area, and can also be found in the United States, Europe, and South Asia.

Throughout Yao’s four decades of practice, he has received numerous awards and recognitions. In 2007, he was awarded the National Award for Arts, which is the highest honour given by the National Culture and Arts Foundation.

In 2014, he received the prestigious Honorary Fellowship from the American Institute of Architects. The AIA praised him as an architect who “demonstrates his humanity with the development of physical elements that hold true to human emotion and conditions, cultural and historical context, and a sense of scale and place. His architecture has a poetic nature, using his native eastern aesthetic and spirituality with a sense of natural light, interplay of surfaces and forms and executing all with a high level of innovation and professionalism.”

Yao’s portfolio presents the richness and variety of his architectural practice. His works are often published in international architectural magazines and professional journals. In 2002, he was invited to participate in the 8th Venice Architecture Biennale for the solo exhibition NEXT EXIT, following with many other international architectural events since then. In 2016, he had a solo exhibition titled Within. Without at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai. In the same year, ARTECH won the Best Firm in Asia honours at the New York Architect A+ International Architecture Awards.