W Gavin Robb is an educator, activist, instigator, dreamer, architect, and advocate. His work centers advocacy policy, equity, and community organizing around the right to the city and the cultivation equitable social infrastructure. Spanning design disciplines, his work considers architecture, fabrication, urban design, urban planning, policy, and community engagement as overlapping components of holistic design practice. He is studio lead at Kin Design Studio, a radical design practice which focuses on transformational social justice through community-building, placemaking, and rapid design deployment.
Prior to Kin Design, Gavin worked at Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects in Atlanta, Georgia, where he contributed to several major projects from 45-story residential towers to university library interiors. His work has been exhibited at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale and the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial.
He received an M.Arch with Distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 2014. While at the GSD he co-founded an advanced research lab focused on complex geometry and fabrication, co-designed a proposal for MoMA PS.1’s young architects program, and developed discursive research on application of digital tools to the re-interpret the Baroque. He received a B.A. in Architectural History and Criticism from Wesleyan University, where his research work focused on the de-colonizing semiotic translation of British Imperial monuments in New Delhi, India.
He lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Departments
Architecture
Education
(M.Arch) Harvard University GSD
(B.A.) Wesleyan University
Research & Publication Highlights
Architecture and Capital [edited and co-authored volume, in development]
The Dream Work Does Not Think, invited lecture, Virginia Tech
MBCC Public Art Shortlist, DCAMM
Venice Biennale, A Liminal Blur, 2016 [with Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects]
Chicago Architecture Biennial, Baroque Machinations [with Cameron Wu]
MoMA PS.1 Young Architects Program Finalist [with Cameron Wu]
Awards
AIA Henry Adams Medal
M.Arch with Distinction, Harvard GSD
Cosutta Prize Nominee
Honors in Art History