Malcolm Rio

Education

• PhD Candidate in Architectural History and Theory, Columbia University
• Master of Philosophy in Architecture, Columbia University
• MS, Architecture Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Master of Architecture, Rhode Island School of Design
• BS, Philosophy, Towson University
• BFA, Graphic Design, Towson University

Biography

Rio (he/him) is a Chicago-based designer, historian, and educator. His work examines architecture’s public life across international exhibitions, counterpublic formations, nightlife, and popular media. He is a PhD Candidate in architectural history and theory at Columbia University, where his dissertation traces Haiti’s architectural production at world’s fairs and its entanglements with race and transnational identity.

Rio has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, Columbia University, the University of Southern California (as the Paul R. Williams Archive Fellow), the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the Maryland Institute College of Art (as an AICAD post-graduate teaching fellow). His writing appears in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Architecture and Culture, Avery Review, Azure Magazine, and the recent volume In the Daylight of our Existence (gta verlag, 2025). He is a founding member of the Queer Educators in Architecture Network (quean) and co-founder of the design-research studio obey//rio.T.

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