Yen Ong, FAIA

Yen is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects under Object One: Design, an honor that is granted to architects who have produced extensive bodies of distinguished work that has been broadly recognized for its design excellence at the national level.

Yen advances architectural design at 5G, a responsibility he fulfills as the principal architect overseeing the entirety of 5G’s widely published award-winning portfolio, covering projects in the United States, China, Vietnam, and Indonesia. He directs 5G’s architectural research, is a contributing writer to design publications, and frequently serves on design award juries. Leading a practice culture that promotes curiosity, celebrates inclusivity, and empowers personal autonomy, Yen enables the discovery and application of the extraordinary into project conditions, entwining matters of context, typology, and craft into emotive works that are lucid, uplifting, and tactile with a nudge towards fantasy.

Born in Jakarta, Yen’s design perspective is multiculturally informed through his studies in Indonesia, Singapore, and Italy prior to earning his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Kansas State University in 1997. Since then, he has been honored as a 2012 ENR TX/LA Top 20 Under 40, a 2016 Dallas Business Journal’s Minority Business Leader, and the opening keynote speaker to the 2016 AIA Central States Conference.

Yen has twice led 5G, in 2017 and 2018, to be ranked 31st in the Design category among the Top 50 US Firms in the ARCHITECT 50 program run by the official publication of the American Institute of Architects. In the past nine years, Yen has won 11 AIA Design Awards at national, state, and local levels.