Ted Ngai

Ted Ngai is a Visiting Associate Professor at Pratt Institute School of Architecture and Director of Technology Solution under Pratt IT. He has taught at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and Politecnico di Torino and was a Principal Research Faculty at the Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology, an RPI and SOM joint initiative.

Ted’s primary research focus is on active building systems to mitigate climate risks. He was the lead system designer of the Phytoremediation Wall System (AMPS) that is part of NYPD’s PSAC II building, which actively generates fresh air from inside the building. The design won the Good Green Design Award and the R&D Award. His current research involves integrating deep learning, digital twin, and robotic automation.

Ted has been invited to present his research on BIM and built ecologies at conferences at Harvard, Yale, and Pratt. His prior research includes the remediation of distressed ecologies via the self-assembly of nanomaterials and the intersection between energy and material systems—the physiology of form—exploring how organisms develop formal and material strategies to metabolize locally available energies.

As an architect, Ted’s work achieved 2nd place in the international architectural competition for the Butakovka Housing Development in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He was a co-founder of UNI, a Cambridge-based design-build firm. His work there received global recognition and won awards from the Boston Society of Architects and the New York Architectural League.

B. Arch, SCI-Arc; M. Arch, Harvard University Graduate School of Design