Michelle Lee

Michelle Lee researches the relationship between energy, form, materials, and culture in the age of climate change with a focus on adaptive reuse, healthy materials, intergenerational living, solar geometry, and facades.

For over a decade, Lee practiced at Behnisch Architekturbüro in Boston, where she specialized in designing for daylight, natural ventilation, and solar rhythms and worked with leading fabricators of metal, ceramics, tensile membranes, glass, and mass timber for large institutional projects. Prior to Behnisch, she worked in Paris and Los Angeles on cultural projects with unique building envelopes such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Foundation Louis Vuitton, and the Broad.

Born in Hong Kong, Lee grew up in Maryland and studied art and history at Swarthmore College, and earned her Master of Architecture and Master in Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has taught digital design and fabrication workshops at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, École nationale supérieure d'architecture Paris‑Malaquais, and Northeastern University in Boston, and has been a guest critic at Harvard, MIT, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.