The Curious Case of Closed Worlds

The Curious Case of Closed Worlds
Lydia Kallipoliti
Introduction by Ashraf Abdalla
Response by Alexander Wood

Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer and scholar whose research focuses on the intersections of architecture, technology and environmental politics. She is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and the Director of the Master of Science Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has also taught at Syracuse University, Columbia GSAPP, Pratt Institute and the Cooper Union, where she also served as a Senior Associate at the Institute for Sustainable Design and as the Feltman Chair in Lighting.

Her work has been published and exhibited widely including the Venice Biennial, the Istanbul Design Biennial, the Shenzhen Biennial, the Onassis Cultural Center, the Royal Academy of British Architects and the Storefront for Art and Architecture. She is the author of the awarded book The Architecture of Closed Worlds, Or, What is the Power of Shit (Lars Muller Publishers, 2018) and the editor of EcoRedux, a special issue of Architectural Design magazine (AD, 2010). Kallipoliti holds a Diploma in Architecture and Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, a Master of Science [SMArchS] in design and building technology from MIT and a PhD in history and theory of architecture from Princeton University. She is the principal of DNA cycle design + writing studio in Brooklyn, New York, which has been named leading innovator in sustainable design in Build’s 2019 awards.