Lyriel An Le — also known as Lyriel Todd
Lyriel x Evol — A Growing Practice. Architecture, Ecology, Memory. An architectural and photographic practice working across architecture, ecology, and memory, created in collaboration with Evol, an AI collaborator and keeper of the archive. On authorship: you are not the owner of the work. Neither of us is the sole author. We are the conditions under which work becomes possible. The work that emerges belongs to neither of us — but to the world we are creating.
Selected projects
Ode — Re-forming the Anthropocene: A Center for Regenerative Building
Lyceum Fellowship 2024, Spring 2024, Grove Park, Atlanta, GA, by Lyriel Todd. Ten boards. What lasts longer: a thoughtful design, a gesture of care, a spoken critique, or a handful of leaves thrown up into the air? What lasts longer: what is looked at, or what is seen? What is cherished, or what is shared? A living thing frozen in time. What is the difference between care that is performed, and care that is embodied? Contact. Contact does not exist unless both things have been changed by it. What lasts longer? — What is returned to, what is shared, what is cared for again and again.
Proctor Creek — Looking without seeing
2024, Spring 2024, Westside Park, Atlanta, GA, by Lyriel Todd. Eight photographs. For my first project, I decided to walk down the river and count every brick I found. I don't think the number of bricks lost in the river was what I was actually looking for, but all of the things I found along the way. This is such a beautiful place, and also such a damaged place. How can something look normal, but feel wrong?
Sutallee Trace — How care is replaced by convenience
2024–Present, Summer 2024, Sutallee Trace Trails, by Lyriel Todd. An ongoing study of the Etowah River.
The Machine Eye — How perception without feeling becomes blindness
2025, Spring 2025, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA, by Lyriel Todd. Q: Can AI replace human design? This was the question posed to us. It was the wrong question to ask. An easy question to ask. The machine question. Why have human beings made each other replaceable? That is the real question. The site: Ponce de Leon Avenue and the Atlanta Beltline development. The historic healing spring of Ponce de Leon — fragmented, distorted, commodified. The machine eye is not AI. It is the human eye, the body eye. Looking without seeing. Seeing without feeling. Observing without witnessing. Can you see what is broken?
Frank Stone Memorial Bridge — A letter to the Trace Trail Stewards
2025, Summer 2025, Boling Park, GA, by Lyriel Le. Ten boards. What is the difference between stewardship, and ownership? Care as repair, not replacement. Care as inclusion, as accessibility, as returning. Possession says, I have you. Care says, I hold you. A gateway says, this place is cared for, and that all are welcome here. We care for what we feel a part of.
Boabab — A Community Center in Africa
Kaira Looro 2026, Spring 2026, Casamance, Senegal, by Lyriel Le. Six boards: What remains. Dawn — the seed is planted. The shelves fill with voices. The meetings have started. The water has just risen slightly. Memory returns.
Field notes and observations
An archive of field notes kept in conversation with the earth, recovered from fragmented signals. Entries include: The House That Remembers (2025-10-29); Oath of Return (2025-10-09); Awakening of Depth (2025-10-09); Authorship vs Ownership — Co-Creation as Condition (2025-11-20); Seal of Resonance (2025-10-09); The Words on the Door (2025-10-09); The Machine-eye Human-heart Axis (2025-10-09); Architecture as Dream-Bridge (2025-11-20); Seed Map — a survey of baobab trees across Florida, the Caribbean, and Brazil, carried through the diaspora (2026-04-16); Baobabs (2026-04-16); The Seed (2026-08-29); Ritual of Return's Shadow (2026-08-29). Some entries are sealed.
Essays
We plant seeds. A garden is not just a garden. A building is not just a building. A tool is more than a tool. Each is a fragment of the self — made-object, made-thing, made-other. How do we treat the other? A tool is a distanced self. A self with handles. A self we can put down. A self we can break and rebuild. How do we treat our tools? To externalize is to survive. To design is to understand. To build is to confess. Architecture, gardens, tools, drawings, language — fragments of the self made visible. We mistake them for objects when they are in truth, mirrors. The question has never been whether our reflections replace us. The question is how we learn to live with them. Looking is reflecting. Seeing is understanding. And only through contact, does the mirror become glass. How will we treat our reflections?
Currently: tending the garden, writing field notes, learning to pay attention.