Hello, I’m Rachel, an architect, building scientist, and creative leader.

Rachel (Yi) Lu is a building scientist, architect, and educator whose work explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, building performance, indoor environmental quality, and carbon emissions analysis. She is dedicated to architecting a series of imaginary worlds in 3D, as she believes that imagination can stimulate progress and give birth to evolution.

Before her terminal degree, Rachel earned a Master of Architecture with an integrated Product Design Certificate from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Environments from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her works have been published in a wide range of design media, including Arch-Daily, suckerPUNCH Daily, the Young Archs, the Best New Architects, the Design Void, Pressing Matters, etc.

Throughout her career, Rachel has collaborated with renowned practices, institutions, startups, and media platforms worldwide on projects of multiple scales, such as the Millbrae Station Biotech Lab Campus with WRNS Studio in San Francisco, the winning proposal for the UNSW Tower with 3XN in Sydney, the Central High School Theatre with MGA Partners in Philadelphia, the Hotel Wind with DnA in Xiamen, the Residential Interior Aging Study with Tsinghua University in Beijing, the Architecture Shapes Behavior Interview with Kim Nielsen and Gooood.cn in Copenhagen. Rachel led the product development and brand building for Exio Biosciences, Flectothink, Ziran Education Foundation, Creaflex, etc.

Determined to empower fellow designers and foster stronger connections with clients and investors, Rachel has received a MBA degree at Carnegie Mellon University, which strengthens her leadership abilities in the creative and technology sectors.

awards

- International Muse Design Award (Architecture | Sustainability) / 2025 / Church of Root

- WRNS Scholarship / 2022

- Winner of Wharton Tangen Hall Furniture Competition / 2020 / Let’s Go Surfing

- Honorable Mentioned, Trees! Design Competition / 2020 / Living Thresholds

- Most Popular Design, Urban Meal Mine Competition / 2019 / Sustainable Urban Funfair

- Nominated for PennDeisgn Year-End Design Awards / 2018

- E. Lewis Dales Fellowship / 2018

- PennDesign Merit Scholarship / 2016-2020

- Melbourne Global Scholar Award / 2015

- Architectural Association Best Askar Award / 2015

- National Scholarship / 2011

publications

- ARCC / AI-Driven Dual-Scale Building Energy Benchmarking for Decarbonization / 2025

- ASHRAE / Estimating Monthly Building Energy Consumption with Satellite Imagery at Different Zoom Scales / 2025

- Developments in the Built Environment / Generalized building energy and carbon emissions benchmarking with post-prediction analysis / 2024

- Applied Energy / MEBA: AI-powered precise building monthly energy benchmarking approach / 2024

- ASHRAE / An Innovative Building Energy Analysis by Unsupervised and Supervised Models / 2023

- Prometheus: Human Behavior, Performance, and Built Environments / 2021 / A Review of Hybrid Mode of Inpatient Care and Homecare Design based on IoMT Technology

- suckerPUNCH Daily / 2020 / Saline Dreams

- Pressing Matters IX / 2020 / Saline Dreams

- Pressing Matters IX / 2020 / The Jungle

- the design void / 2020 / Momento

- The Young Archs / 2020 / Momento

- Arch-Daily / 2019 / UNSW Tower in Australia

- Gooood / 2019 / gooood Interview NO.24 – Kim Nielsen

- Pressing Matters VII / 2019 / Living Thresholds

- The Best New Architects / 2018 / Living Thresholds

- suckerPUNCH Daily / 2018 / Living Thresholds

- Pressing Matters VI / 2017 / Greenhouse Stories