Directory

Gabriel Cira is a licensed architect based in Massachusetts. He is an assistant professor in the History of Art at MassArt (since 2019), where he teaches architecture and art history seminars. Gabriel’s architectural work, teaching, and research focus on historic preservation, vernacular/popular histories, ecology, accessibility, and infrastructure. He was educated at Princeton University (MArch ‘14) and MIT (BSA ‘08), is a founding member of The Architecture Lobby’s “Cooperative Network” initiative, and leads the architecture practice ARCH CIRA.

ARCH CIRA is invested in construction, details, materials, techniques, and the interactivity of the built environment and people. However, the orientation of ARCH CIRA as a professional architectural practice is toward the public dimension of space in the city and against the rush toward privatization; within the profession of architecture and in all other avenues of life under capitalism. ARCH CIRA works with people that are making things more public—infrastructure, institutions, places—and uses architectural tools to help envision and enable the remaking of the built environment for open-access social and public life. This involves collaborating with many types of people, often community groups, non-profit organizations, scientists, advocates and activists, artists, students, and friends, in order to build collective power and knowledge toward these larger objectives.

Industry Experience

• 2017 – present – ARCH CIRA, Cambridge MA
• 2015 – 2017 – EJA, Cambridge MA
• 2014 – 2015 – Isozaki, Aoki & Associates, Tokyo
• 2009 – 2011 – R&Sie(n) Architects, Paris
• 2008 – 2009 – dECOi, Cambridge MA
• 2007 – 2008 – Höweler+Yoon, Boston MA

Built work

• 2022 – Secret Garden, new 1500sf greenhouse and community-use classroom and landscape/exterior spaces in East Boston MA (with Jena Tegeler)
• 2022 – Black History In Action, historic preservation of a 1886 Black church in Cambridge MA, adaptation for use as arts and culture space

Exhibitions/Research

• 2021 – The Architects Collaborative 1945–1995: Tracing a Diffuse Architectural Authorship with James Heard and Emma Pfeiffer — Exhibition at Pinkcomma Gallery sponsored by The Graham Foundation and Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown
• 2019 – Bizarro Beach, Boston MA — Architectural installation commissioned by the ICA Boston
• ongoing – The Emerald Tutu — scientific research, prototyping, advocacy, and community work around nature-based infrastructure for coastal climate resilience

Publications

• 2022 – Face to Face (introduction to Wendy Jacob and Jeffrey Mansfield), Boston Art Review #8
• 2022 – Less than Heroic (interviewed by Dan Roche), New York Review of Architecture #25
• 2021 – Architectural Camouflage and the Class Dynamics of Housing, Art Papers 44.03
• 2020 – Template for a Cooperative Network of Small Architecture Practices, MAS Context
• 2019 – Loitering, Legibility, Disability with Emily Watlington, Art Papers online
• 2019 – Spaces of Labor, Architectural Labor #2
• 2019 – Performing Arts Access, Art Papers, 42.04
• 2018 – Signs and Architecture, Pre-Vinylite Society Journal #1
• 2018 – The Emerald Tutu, project profile, Boston Art Review #2
• 2018 – Blueprint for Counter-Education , Big Red & Shiny online
• 2018 – Semiotic Structure as Context: Inscriptions at Harvard GSD , Big Red & Shiny online
• 2017 – Lobbying for Value with Peggy Deamer and The Architecture Lobby, ARQ #97
• 2012 – 2014 – Reverse History, Mixed Metaphors, The A and the E, Nova Organa #1, #2, #4

Awards

• 2019 – American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) innovation award in Sustainable Engineering for The Emerald Tutu

Professional Affiliations

• American Institute of Architects
• Boston Society of Architects
• The Architecture Lobby

Connect

• arch-cira.com
• Instagram: @arch_cira