Ruchika Modi

Ruchika Modi is a Principal at PAU and a registered architect in the state of New York. Ruchika guides all aspects of the design process in the office. She is currently overseeing the design of Princeton University’s newest residential college, Hobson College. Most recently Ruchika spearheaded the design of the Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn, NY; an adaptive reuse project to transform a factory into offices with a mixed-use ground floor, and the master plan and design of forty-one buildings as part of a mixed-use new development in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Prior to joining PAU, Ruchika was a Senior Associate at Standard Architects, where she worked on several institutional projects for clients like the New York Presbyterian Hospital, Royal Chartered Properties, The Robin Hood Foundation, and the UJA-Federation of New York. Ruchika was a founding partner of Studio r&star, a practice that focused on a range of residential and institutional projects throughout the City. Prior to starting her own business, Ruchika worked at Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects, where she worked on the design of a low-rise, multifamily residential development in Manhattan and was the job captain for the flagship Emergency Medical Station for the Fire Department of New York, a Design Excellence project run by the NYC Department of Design and Construction. Ruchika was born in India where she received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Delhi in 1994 and a second B.A. with distinction in Interior Architecture from the California College of Arts in San Francisco in 2003. She completed her Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation at Columbia University in 2006. At Columbia, she was awarded the McKim Prize for Excellence in Design & Saul Kaplan Traveling Fellowship, the highest honor presented by the school for design work; the William Kinne Fellows Prize for Study and Travel Abroad; and the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize. Her work has been exhibited at the Center for Architecture in New York and the International Architecture Biennales in Rotterdam and Beijing. She was selected as one of City & State’s 2022 Real Estate Power 100.