Doctoral Candidate
Columbia University
Chicago, Illinois
Rio is a Chicago-based designer, thinker, and educator. He is a PhD candidate in architectural at Columbia University, where his dissertation examines Haiti’s architectural production at world’s fairs and its relation to race and transnational identity. His work engages exhibitions, counterpublics, nightlife, and media. He has taught at RISD, Columbia, USC (as the Paul R. Williams Archive Fellow), the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and MICA (as an AICAD fellow). His writing appears in JSAH, Architecture and Culture, Avery Review, Azure, and In the Daylight of Our Existence (gta verlag, 2025). He co-founded the design-research firm obey//riot with Aaron Tobey.
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FRI-FS-12: Celebrating La’s Alternative Public Space: From the Macabre to the Historic
Friday, September 18, 2026
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM PT