gray_matter(s) is a award winning design collective spanning the fields of architecture, urban design, user experience, installation art, performance, and digital media.  

We are choreographers of social experiences, engaging the physical and virtual performance of material, media, and bodies in space. As why-askers and yeasayers, we shy away from either/or to embrace the both/and. 

Our recent projects engaging housing, community, gender, data, reuse, climate, and race have offered us opportunities to hone our design process and envision an elevated future. Our extensive experience in cultural, residential, and media developments give us the expertise to see our visions into reality.

  • gray: adjective: 

           1. of a color between black and white

          matter: noun/verb:

          1. a thing that takes up space and has inertia

           2. an affair or situation under consideration

            3. be of importance; have significance

          gray matter: noun:

            1. brains, intellect

            2. our body’s location for narrative production

          (s): plural

Merica May Jensen, Architect, Artist
Soerynn Kim, Architect

merica may is dedicated to her studio practice, research, teaching, and community. Building on her first career as a ballet dancer, she is interested in bodies, time, movement and the power of architecture as a social agent.

Merica May gained her architecture experience during a decade at the multi-disciplinary studio Diller Scofidio and Renfro (DS+R). There she led and helped build a range of cultural and institutional projects, including the 250’ sculptural Park Union Pedestrian Bridge in Colorado Springs, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum, the top-floor event space at the Shed in New York City and the winning competition entry for the Adelaide Contemporary in Australia.

She is committed to her community, serving on the boards of Citygroup (a city-activist-art-space that was recently awarded the ArchLeague Prize), the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, and Junior Boards of American Ballet Theatre and Kaatsbaan (a cultural arts center and artist residency space in upstate New York). She is a steward in 6BC and La Plaza Cultural community gardens and teaches architecture at the City College of New York and the Pratt Institute. She is a licensed Architect in New York State.

soerynn kim is a licensed architect with a wide range of experience working on civic buildings internationally.

After graduating with Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, Soerynn began her career at Skidmore Owings and Merrill designing the base building and public spaces of New York's One World Trade Center, extensively researching and developing its bespoke external-inner cladding systems with focus on optical properties of architectural materials.

At Diller Scofidio and Renfro (DS+R), she was an Associate and a senior architect for the Shed, a movable art and performance space, throughout design and construction seeing it to completion. Thereafter she took on the role of lead designer and project manager for Microsoft's multi-programmed workplace center, a complex and accelerated project for its tech campus in the Seattle region.

Prior to DS+R, Soerynn worked with Pritzker awarded architect Renzo Piano at his Paris and Genoa workshop, gaining significant exposure to practicing in Europe. She is teaching courses in architecture and design at Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design.

obj is a 12+ year collaboration between Yushiro Okamoto, Ryan Botts and Merica May Jensen, emerging from their work together at Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). At DS+R, they took projects — ranging from cultural and institutional projects like the award-winning US Olympic and Paralympic Museum, the Shed, and MoMA, to residential homes — from concept to construction. Together as obj, they won NYC’s Small Lots Competition and were finalist for Atlanta’s Legacy Maker’s Memorial.

other collaborators - Paul Laroque, Angie Widjaja, Bo Liu, Soerynn Kim, Andrea Solk, Alice Colverd, Patrick Di Rito, Drew Tyndell, Sophie Pennetier, Shota Vashakmadze, Emily Martin, Alessa Rogers, Travis Fitch, Lindsay Kunz, Andy Kim, Massi Surratt, Keshav Ramaswami, Matthias Peltz, Olen Snow, Mike Robitz, Alice Chai, Andrew Beck, Lot-ek, Zach Mulitauaopele, Helena Urdaneta, Only Egbochue, Michelle Shin, Alexsa Ortiz-Reyes, Kuki, Jorge Ramirez-Escudero, Leeland McPhail, Kim Wadelton, Theodore Ullrich, Rui An, WenJun Song, Jennifer Rogers, Ash King, and others.

WOB (women owned business) since 2022.

Licensed Architects in New York State