Shelley McNamara cofounded Grafton Architects in 1978 with Yvonne Farrell, having graduated from University College Dublin in 1974. They are Fellows of the RIAI and International Honorary Fellows of the RIBA. In 2018, they were the curators of the Venice Architecture Biennale with their manifesto: Freespace. They are professors at the Accademia d’Archittettura, Mendrisio, Switzerland and have previously held the Kenzo Tange chair at GSD Harvard and the Louis Kahn chair at Yale University. Their practice has received numerous awards including: the RIBA International Prize for the UTEC in 2016; the RIAI Gold Medal for Bocconi University, Milan in 2018, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2020 and the 2021 RIBA Stirling Prize for the Kingston University Town House. Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara were the 2020 recipients of the Pritzker Prize.