Essay · 2026-06-22
Walking each other home
Not a rescue story. A story about two animals figuring out the same pace at the same time, and what ten years of holding it has done to both of us.
Read the essay →Michael Young · Studio, archive, lab
I'm building things that matter — for people who refuse the default.
Systems design & operational consulting for small mission-driven organizations — based in Philadelphia, working anywhere.
Hopeful romantic. Incessant daydreamer. Systems designer by accident, by trade, by conviction. This is where the work lives — the ventures, the half-formed sketches, the essays I keep circling back to, and the consulting practice that pays for the rest.
01
Less consumption. More creation.
02
Systems are values made operational.
03
The default exit is closure. There are better doors.
What I'm building
Featured projects
Currently
What I'm focused on now
Updated 2026-06-10 · Philadelphia, PA
- 01Shipping the Shelfable private beta to a small circle of households.
- 02Two consulting engagements: one clinic, one studio. Quiet, careful, paid work.
- 03Sketching SourceLayer — an evidence layer for public claims. Early concept.
- 04Standing up the bones of StewardBridge — working out the framework in the open, no capacity to support the mission yet.
- 05Helping the Whitemarsh Art Center stand up a real volunteer pipeline.
If you have a system that's hurting your people
Hire the studio.
Consulting engagements help small organizations rebuild the operational layer underneath their work — quietly, carefully, and on a budget that respects the mission.
Hire the studio →If you want to build alongside
Join the collaborators.
Developers, researchers, artists, retiring operators, would-be successors. There are doors here for several kinds of people. Find yours.
Collaborate with me →