Rael's research examines the convergence of digital, industrial, and non-industrial approaches to making architecture. He was the recipient of a Graham Foundation Grant for "Constructed Topographies: Earth Architecture in the Landscape of Modernity"; winner of the Architectural League of New York's Deborah Norden Competition for "Wadi Hadramut: Cities of Earth"; and is author of Earth Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), which examines the contemporary history of the oldest and most widely used building material on the planet—dirt.