From an extreme skiing outpost in Alaska's Chugach Mountains to a stylish condominium near the High Line park in Manhattan, Lindy Roy's design approach combines fluid, folding forms with innovative responses to context and construction.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Roy received a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Cape Town in 1985. Feeling removed from architectural discourse and motivated by an interest in seeing other cultures, Roy moved to New York City shortly after finishing her studies. In 1988 she returned to school and received a master's in architecture in 1990 from Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, under the new direction of Bernard Tschumi.

Remaining true to her credo, "If things are not happening for you, then move to where they can happen," by the end of 1993 Roy had already traversed the country once to work for Franklin D. Israel in Los Angeles before returning to Manhattan to spend two years with Peter D. Eisenman. In 1994 she left for New Orleans to teach at Tulane University's School of Architecture, and a year later she moved to Houston for three years for a position at Rice University's School of Architecture. In the fall of 1998 Roy returned to New York, and she founded ROY, her own design studio, in 2000. While in New York, she has taught at the Cooper Union, Princeton University, and Columbia University.

In 2001, as the winner of the second annual MoMA/P.S. 1 Young Architects Program, she created the installation subWave for P.S.1 in Queens. ROY was also a winner in the 16 Houses invitational competition, sponsored by the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation in Houston, which led to an affordable housing project there.