W Gavin Robb

W Gavin Robb is an architectural designer, scholar, maker, and educator. He is currently an associate at Machado Silvetti, where he leads design work centered on equity, advocacy, and the collective right to the city. He is interested in the edge of design, where the sublime joins with the everyday. His work explores the boundaries of digital tools, the prosthetic relationship of the tool to the hand, and the role of the architect in civil society.

As a queer designer living in Somerville, MA, Gavin is heavily engaged with local social justice and anti-displacement efforts towards building resilient and inclusive cities. His work maintains an interest in descriptive geometry and advanced digital fabrication as sophisticated tools but is rooted in social impact and spatial justice. As a scholar and architectural historian, he approaches acts of architecture with a long view—as socio-political objects engaged in constant dialogue with their social contexts, which persist and evolve over time. A historian by training, Gavin makes work centering decolonization, housing policy, and community empowerment.

He holds a MArch with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he received the AIA Henry Adams Medal. In addition to RISD Architecture, he frequently teaches at Northeastern University and has developed courses and workshops at the Boston Architectural College, Merrimack College, and Virginia Tech. His work was exhibited at the 2016 Venice Biennale and the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial. He holds a BA in Architectural History and Theory with honors from Wesleyan University.