W Gavin Robb

Gavin is an Associate at Machado Silvetti, and brings years of design research, and community engagement experience to the practice. As a designer, his work centers advocacy, policy, equity, and community empowerment around the collective right to the city. As an urbanist and educator, Gavin brings expertise in navigating complex networks of stakeholders engaging in institutional, multi-family residential, mixed-use, and civic projects.

Growing up in rural New England, Gavin developed an early appreciation for the threads that bind craft, materiality, and community. With roots in residential design, he brings a keen eye towards the tectonic and relational work of moving projects from design to built reality with material elegance and spatial sophistication. 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. His academic work centers decolonization, housing policy, and constructing the civic commons. As a queer designer living in Somerville, MA, Gavin is heavily engaged with local social justice, advocacy, and anti-displacement efforts towards building resilient and inclusive cities.

Gavin holds a Bachelors in Architectural History with Honors from Wesleyan University, and attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he received his Masters of Architecture with Distinction and the AIA Henry Adams Medal and Certificate of Merit for excellence in the study of architecture. While at the GSD, he co-founded the Geometry Lab, an advanced research lab working at the intersection of complex geometry and computational fabrication. His work has been exhibited at the 2016 Venice Biennale and the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial. His projects span typologies, from institutional libraries to placemaking pop-ups to international schools for disadvantaged communities in east Africa.

At Machado Silvetti, he brings an equity lens to community-forward projects, identifying key needs from often under-represented voices. He is an adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Northeastern University, where he teaches on spatial justice, social infrastructure, architecture, and urban design. He has developed courses and workshops at the Boston Architectural College, Merrimack College, and Virginia Tech and has served on panels and juries at multiple design schools. An accomplished urban photographer, his design and photography work has been shown in various exhibitions nationally and internationally, most recently at a solo exhibition at the McCoy gallery in North Andover MA, and as part of a group exhibition at the China Millennium Monument Art Museum in Beijing.

Contact: gavinr@machado-silvetti.com