School of Architecture College of Architecture + Planning

Hannah Vaughn, AIA is an architect and educator based in Salt Lake City, Utah. In collaboration with Scott Yribar, she founded VY Architecture, with offices in Utah and Idaho. Hannah’s practice is centered around the primacy of making, craft as an expression of the value of things, the necessary resourcefulness of making and building, and a critical spatial practice. The connection to material, people and place are expanded with a mission in practice to generate architecture that is both pragmatic and poetic: high-performance, sustainable buildings that are responsible to the community and the future; buildings that silently frame meaningful human experience and have a positive impact from beginning to end. Hannah also frequently engages in peri-practical studies that explore the connection to place, the intuitive and learned manipulation of materials, and the physics and techne of details. These studies culminate in the form of art installations, organized discussions, remote performance installations, and various other permutations of inquiry.

Hannah has taught design studio at the University of Utah School of Architecture since 2013. Her teaching ranges from pre-major workshop courses to undergraduate capstone studios to comprehensive graduate studios. She regularly serves on design juries –both academic and professional –and is active in the creative and design communities of Utah.