Robyn Reed

Robyn Reed is a designer, educator, and advocate for the practice of landscape architecture. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Robyn is a licensed landscape architect who joins the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture as an assistant professor after nearly twenty years in practice. Her research interests have emerged from her years in practice and focus on methods for better equipping cities and planners to integrate water into the urban fabric in more quotidian ways. Her work touches on material strategies as well as landscape theory to develop language and methods for cities to more proactively address climate change.

During her 20 years in practice, Robyn has worked at range of scales, from custom residential design in New England and San Francisco to community master planning in Chicago and Abu Dhabi. Her recent work has focused on the public realm in the Boston metro area, with built work in East Cambridge and the first phase of Fan Pier Park. A design leader, she has played a key role in several award-winning projects including the Collier Memorial at MIT and the Connect Kendall Open Space Framework Plan while at Richard Burck Associates and Southworks/Lakeside Community Master Plan and the Abu Dhabi University Education Park Master Plan while at Sasaki Associates.

Robyn has taught for many years as adjunct faculty at RISD. While there she focused her studios on urban waterfront and riverine landscapes. In her teaching, she emphasizes the importance of conceptual design thinking at an urban scale and seeks to help students find the analytic and representational tools with which to explore, develop and express their individual visions.

In addition to teaching at RISD, she has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and in the architecture department at Roger Williams University. She has served on design awards juries for the Boston Society of Landscape Architects and DESIGNxRI and spoken at the national USGBC conference, the Boston Society of Architects and the Boston Society of Landscape Architects.

Education

• MLA Rhode Island School of Design (1997 — 2000)
• University of Chicago (1991 — 1992)
• BA University of California, Santa Cruz (1986 — 1990)

Companies

• Assistant Professor Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture (2019)
• Principal and Owner studio cosmo (2017)
• Member Board of Directors Charles River Conservancy (2016 — 2019)
• Studio Instructor / Theory Instructor Rhode Island School of Design (2010 — 2019)
• Senior Associate Richard Burck Associates, Inc (2013 — 2016)
• Senior Landscape Architect Landworks Studio, Inc. (2013 — 2013)
• Associate Shades of Green Landscape Architecture (2011 — 2013)
• Senior Associate Sasaki Associates (2006 — 2010)
• Visiting Studio Critic Harvard University, Graduate School of Design (2008 — 2008)

Skills

• Land Use Planning
• Site Plans
• Sustainability

Other

Parks, Mixed-use, Landscape Design, Urban Planning, Design Research, Landscaping, Sustainable Design, Site Planning, Urban Design, Landscape Architecture