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Who

A prominent member of the city's architectural new guard, Roy presides over Roy Design.

Backstory

South Africa native Lindy Roy had an awfully tough time holding down a job after graduating from Columbia's School of Architecture: She ricocheted between 18 architecture firms over the following two years. Disillusioned, Roy abandoned New York and turned to teaching, first at Tulane and then at Rice University. In 1998, she was still living and teaching in Houston when a friend commissioned her to design a luxury spa that straddled a river in a remote part of Botswana. Her work on the Okavango Delta Spa ended up making her career: Following epic praise from critics, including NYT architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, Roy quickly earned a rep as architecture's Next Big Thing. She returned to New York in 2000 and founded her Meatpacking District-based architectural practice, Roy Design, shortly thereafter.

Of note

One of the first of Roy's designs to see the light of day was the SoHo outpost of Vitra, the high-end European furniture retailer. Soon after, she was tapped by Andre Balazs to design his "upscale hostel" Hotel QT in Times Square, which opened in 2005 (and changed ownership in 2008). These days Roy is finishing up work on a buzzed-about building in West Chelsea, the 11-story building called 519 High Line featuring 11 floor-through condos. She's also working on—and has received a lot of press for—an "extreme heli-ski" hotel in a remote part of Alaska, although it's unclear if the project will be completed.

Habitat

Roy lives in an East 87th Street apartment, and also owns a home in Boston. Both her residences contain pieces from her collection of antique surgical equipment.