Rob Williams, AIA

Rob is an award-winning architect and an expert in sustainable design and low-carbon residential housing.  He earned a M.Arch from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2010 and a B.A in Philosophy and Physics from Cornell University in 2005. He is currently licensed in Massachusetts and a certified passive house consultant.

Rob’s research and professional practice centers on decarbonization in residential design and construction. He pursues this work through built projects, practice-based research, and explorations of alternative material construction systems. He is interested in the questions across a variety of scales from the city to individual buildings to building technology and details. His research and design work has been widely published. 

At UMass, Rob teaches a variety of studio design courses and supporting technical courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level. Courses taught include Graduate Design Studio II, III, and IV, Undergraduate Design Studio II, III, and V, Integration studio, Tectonics I and Analysis and Representation I. Rob is also a co-founder and lead instructor for UMass DesignBuild, a new design-build program that brings together interdisciplinary teams of design and construction students to design and build small houses for regional affordable housing providers. 

Rob coordinates the department's Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) program to support students interested in taking their architectural registration exams while in school. The current pass rate for the Architectural Registration Exams is 68% compared to a national average of 55%. 

Alongside his teaching and research, Rob maintains a professional affiliation with Truth Box Architects, a small, nationally recognized architecture and development firm based in Providence RI that specializes in sustainable, energy efficient design, and urban infill projects. During his almost eight years with Truth Box, he led the design of a series of high-performance mixed-use, multi-family buildings in and around Providence, including what is anticipated to be the first certified passive-house multifamily building in the state. Prior to Truth Box, Rob worked at Stempel Form PC in rural Utah on a series of energy efficient homes and site design in a fragile desert landscape.

RESEARCH AREAS

                  Sustainability, decarbonization, housing, design-build, net-zero.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Williams, R. L. 2024. "Containing Carbon: Assessing the Carbon Impacts of Repurposed Shipping-Container-Based Housing". Technology|Architecture + Design, 8(1), 143–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/24751448.2024.2322926

Williams, Robert. 2023. “Relationships between Embodied, Operational, and Life Cycle Carbon in Passive House Multifamily Residential Buildings”. Journal of Green Building 18 no 3 (Fall): 81-103.

Williams, Robert and Jordan Kanter. 2023. “From Integration to Embodiment: An evolving approach to teaching design and building technology”, In Proceedings of the Building Technology Educators Society 2023 Conference. Beyond the Artifact: Constructability, Complexity, and Constraints, June 1-4, 2023, Tempe AZ.

Williams, Robert. 2023. “Boxed-In: Comparative Analysis of the Environmental Performance of Recycled Shipping Containers”. In111th Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Annual Meeting Proceedings: In Commons, March 30 – April 1, 2023, St. Louis, MO, 34-40. https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.111.5

Williams, Robert. 2022. “Accessory Carbon Units”. In Resilient City: Physical, Social, and Economic Perspectives, Proceedings of the ARCC-EAAE International Conference, March 2-5, 2022, Florida International University, Miami FL, 779.

Williams, Robert, 2022. “Ghosts of Borges: The Evolving Role of Scale in Architectural Imagination, Representation, and Building” in Blatant: Latent: Proceedings of the 37th National Conference on the Beginning Design Student (NCBDS), April 1-2, 2022, Ball State University Muncie, IN,

Williams, Robert. 2022. “Backyard Carbon Sinks: A prototype for a net-negative carbon accessory dwelling unit”. In 110th Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Annual Meeting Proceedings: Empower, May 19-20, 2022, Virtual.

Williams, Robert. 2021. “Redevelopment of 95 Cranston Street: Innovative Models for Sustainable Urban Development”. In Proceedings of the 52^nd Annual Conference of the Environmental Design Research Association. EDRA52 Detroit: Just Environments: Transdisciplinary border crossings, May 19-23, 2021, Detroit MI (virtual).

Williams, Robert and Carl Fiocchi, “The Hygge House: design-build as a model for interdisciplinary and integrative architectural education”, In 109th Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Annual Meeting Proceedings: Expanding the View, March 24-26, 2021, Virtual.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

2024        New Faculty Teaching Award. Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). 

2022        Western Massachusetts AIA Honor Award (top award). Project: 1492 Westminster Street Passive House (w/ Truth Box Architects)

2022        Rhode Island AIA Honor Award in Sustainable Architecture (top award). Project: 1492 Westminster Street Passive House (w/ Truth Box Architects)

2020        Most Innovative Design Award, Triple Decker Design Challenge, MA Clean Energy Center. Project: (re)Facing the Future (with Ajla Aksamija and Travis Anderson)

2020        Western Massachusetts AIA Honor Award (top award). Project: Cranston Street Redevelopment (with Truth Box Architects)

RECENT COURSES

Analysis and Representation I

Undergraduate Design Studio III

Tectonics I

DesignBuild DESIGN