Deborah Moelis, AIA

Principal

Deborah Moelis AIA is a Principal and a founding member of Handel Architects. She has lectured extensively on the principles of Passive House design, including presentations at North American Passive House Network, AIANY, Greenbuild DC, nZeb in Wexford, Ireland and the International Passivhaus Institute conference in Vienna, Austria.

Ms. Moelis served as Principal in Charge for Sendero Verde, a new 709-unit residential building in New York City, which opened in 2024 and is now the largest fully affordable Passive House building in the world. She also managed the design and construction of the Grand Street Residences, a 100% affordable development designed for Grand Street Guild on the Lower East Side; a second building is planned which will focus on seniors, and she is leading that effort as well. Ms. Moelis served as Principal in Charge of Harmony Commons for the University of Toronto Scarborough, which is the largest Passive House dormitory in the world. She served in a similar capacity for Cornell Tech’s new residential tower, The House, in New York City, which was the largest building in the world built to Passive House standards when it completed in 2017.

Previously Ms. Moelis managed the design and construction of Aire, a 42-story 315-unit residential tower on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, as well as Millennium Place, a 256-unit residential building in downtown Boston. She has also led numerous teams through successful entitlement processes in NY City as well as Jersey City and Boston, MA. Ms. Moelis' projects have been extensively published and received numerous awards, including honors from AIANY, ULI, USGBC, and the Chicago Athenaeum.

Prior to joining Handel Architects, Ms. Moelis received her Masters of architecture degree from Columbia University and Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Michigan. She is a licensed Architect in New York and California and received her Certified Passive House Designer credentials in 2016.