Lydia Kallipoliti is a Greek architect, engineer, architectural historian, action researcher, and scholar. Her work examines interdisciplinary studies involving architecture, technology, and environmental politics. Her research has contributed to the way architecture engages with ecological pedagogies, by confronting waste, recycling, and closed-loop systems.
Kallipoliti grew up in Thessaloniki where she graduated from Anatolia College in 1994. She studied at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and graduated with a diploma in architecture and engineering. She has a Master of Science in architecture studies from MIT, a Master of Arts and a PhD from Princeton University.
Lydia Kallipoliti is currently the Director of the Master of Science degree in Advanced Architectural Design and an Associate Professor at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York. Additionally, she directs ANAcycle a design studio and thinktank in New York. Kallipoliti was a visiting fellow at the Canadian Center for Architecture, the University of Queensland, and a visiting critic at the University of Technology Sydney. Additionally, she was an assistant professor at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, and an assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Syracuse University.
In 2016, she curated the Closed Worlds exhibition at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, supported by grants awarded by the Graham Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts in 2015. Other editions of the exhibition were held at Woodbury University School of Architecture's WUHO Gallery, and at the University of Technology Sydney's Art Gallery.
In 2022, Kallipoliti was appointed head co-curator or the Tallinn Architecture Biennale with Areti Markopoilou, following an international competition by the Estonian Museum of Architecture. Their exhibition, "Edible, or, The Architecture of Metabolism," was consequently selected as the winner of the year in universal design in 2023 by the Design Educates Awards. In 2024, she curated the exhibition "Histories of Ecological Design" at Cooper Union in New York in relation to her published book "Histories of Ecological Design: An Unfinished Cyclopedia".
Lydia Kallipolti is the author of The Architecture of Closed Worlds (2018), published by Lars Müller Publishers and reviewed by the Journal of Architecture, Idea Journal, The Architect's Newspaper, Abitare, Archinect among other journals and media platforms. Additionally, The Architecture of Closed Worlds (2018) was featured in HBO's The White Lotus Series, Season 2.
In 2024, Kallipolti published Histories of Ecological Design, published by Actar Publishers. Translated in Chinese by Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press (2025).