RAY GASTIL
Director, Gastilworks Planning & Design
I’m a writer, city planner, teacher, and urbanist whose professional work includes serving as Commissioner, planning for the Seattle Design Commission, teaching as affiliate faculty in the urban design and planning program at the UW, and consulting on urban planning and design.
I grew up in Seattle, and am glad to be back, finally, after many years in New York City, Pittsburgh, and a few universities in between. Also glad to have a desk at the Cloud Room, in one of my favorite places in the city. At the Cloud Room, I’m usually getting ready for teaching a class, organizing a civic board meeting (American Planning Association, City as Living Laboratory, Riverlife), or editing a report on transit-oriented development.
During a week, I can be speaking (in one of the Cloud Room phone booths) at an international panel on the sustainability of cultural institutions, studying mobility in unincorporated Pierce County, or writing the PNW food, art, and environment novel that the world doesn’t yet know it's missing. Not my first rodeo as a writer, but fiction is complex and new, where I’m fortunate to learn from peers and nearby Hugo House luminaries.
Quick summary of past endeavors: city planning director roles in Manhattan, Pittsburgh, and locally; non-profit leadership role as founding director of Van Alen Institute, teaching roles at Carnegie Mellon (heading Remaking Cities Institute), U. Penn, Penn State, Pratt, and Berkeley, and fellowships and grants for writing and research from Dumbarton Oaks, MacDowell, and the Graham Foundation.