Rachely Rotem will deliver the lecture “Indoor Urbanism,” presenting her new book Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism, which calls for a shift in environmental thinking, designing for exchanges between architecture and the city that are both outside-in and inside-out. At its core, the book asks designers to consider this question: in the face of the climate crisis, what is architecture’s capacity to change?

Rachely Rotem is the founding Director and studio futurist, at MODU, a New York-based design studio working in architecture, urbanism, and interior design. At MODU, she has directed numerous projects, notably the Cloud Seeding pavilion and the Heart Squared public artwork. Together with Phu Hoang, she was awarded the 2017 Founders Rome Prize in Architecture. In 2019, they were awarded the Emerging Voices award from the Architectural League of New York and in 2018 they received the US-Japan Creative Artists fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is co-author (with Phu Hoang) of Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism, published by Hatje Cantz in 2023. Rachely holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Technion in Haifa and a Master’s in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, where she was awarded both the LowenfishMemorial Prize and the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize. She is an associate professor of practice at the Knowlton School of the Ohio State University and teaches in the graduate programs at Columbia University. Rachely is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a licensed architect in Israel, and a LEED Accredited Professional in Building Design and Construction.