Rice Lipka Architects

Rice+Lipka Architects (RL) is a New York City-based design studio with a focus on creating cultural and public works with an enduring sense of place. Recognized for bringing a civic-minded intelligence and resourceful vigor to a range of building, planning and research projects, RL embraces complex contexts and constraints, actively teasing out new design potential latent within everyday requirements. The practice, directed by Lyn Rice and Astrid Lipka, has its roots in the art world. Rice served as a design partner and architect-of-record for Dia:Beacon, one of the world’s largest museums of contemporary art. Internationally recognized for its expansive, daylit art spaces, the project set a new benchmark for the adaptive re-use of industrial space. RL’s range of cultural projects, from small-scale installations, artist collaborations, exhibition work, and gallery design, has extended to include influential performance venues such as Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Choicirciati Cultural Center and The Kitchen. Committed to innovation in the public realm, RL is actively rethinking the role of one of our last civic spaces - the public library - with new building and renovation projects in development for New York Public Library and Queen’s Public Library. RL’s Hamilton Grange Teen Center in Harlem, designed for NYPL, broke new ground as the first library floor dedicated to teens. The studio brings a civic sensibility to all its work, including nationally recognized works, such as the Sheila Johnson Design Center at Parsons, which breaks down barriers between public and institutional domains. Subsequent educational projects for Parsons/The New School include the Making Center, School of Constructed Environments and School of Art, Media & Technology. Ongoing institutional projects for NYPD include the award-winning new Bomb Squad headquarters building and 48-acre tactical campus masterplan at Pelham Bay Park in New York City.