We thrive on solving complex urban problems in intelligent, pragmatic ways.
From theoretical issues that frame policy to the practical implementation of architectural commissions, we develop a rigorous, research-based approach to finding the best answers.
Our work yields fresh ways to think about how we develop and build our cities, presented with useful, compelling clarity (it’s why we’re called Utile).
Office




Contact
Boston Office:
115 Kingston St.
Boston, MA 02111
Providence Office:
110 Union St.
Providence, RI 02903
(617) 423-7200
utile@utiledesign.com
Staff


Rachelle joined Utile in 2021 as an Architect & Project Manager, bringing with her a decade of experience in a variety of project types and scales. She currently oversees a range of projects focusing on affordable, sustainable, multifamily housing for mission-driven organizations.
Rachelle previously worked at several boston-based architecture firms encompassing civic, institutional, residential, and educational projects. At Bruner/Cott, she was the project architect for the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine, a major community and cultural anchor for the redevelopment of Thompson’s Point in Portland, Maine. She was also the project architect for the Yale Divinity Regenerative Village, a multi-use residential development with 155-units on a 19-acre site that is targeting Living Building certification. Her project experience also includes adaptive reuse and renovation projects, planning, programming, and feasibility studies.
Rachelle holds an M.Arch from Harvard GSD, and is a lifelong advocate for sustainable design and healthier buildings, both of which she ties to social justice and equity. She is a certified practitioner for the Passive House Institute US and the International Well Building Institute. She currently co-chairs the Boston Chapter of the Carbon Leadership Forum and the BSA’s Women in Design ABX sub-committee.
Rachelle lives in Cambridge with her husband and two children.




Julia Barksdale


Kyle joined Utile in March 2016 as an architectural and urban designer. He is a key member of the design team for a mixed-use affordable housing development on Columbus Ave in Jamaica Plain for Urban Edge, as well as for a new mixed-use development at 380 Harrison in the South End for Related Beal.
Kyle previously worked at Jensen Architects in San Francisco, and CBT and Sebastian Mariscal in Boston. He was the project manager for the 2009 Solar Decathalon Competition, in which he built a solar-powered house that placed 3rd and was displayed at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. More recently, he co-taught a multi-disciplinary seminar at RISD in 2015 on the “African Institute of Healthcare Transformation,” sponsored by Mass General Hospital’s Division of Global Health. He traveled over summer of 2015 to Kenya with two of his students to oversee construction of a new type of collaborative space within the Sagam Hospital and Clinic.
Kyle is a graduate of the California College of the Arts and Harvard Graduate School Design with a Master of Architecture and Urban Design.
Selected Projects


Selected Projects
- Autodesk Boston Executive Briefing Center Architecture & Interiors, Interiors, Commercial
- The Billow Architecture & Interiors, Planning & Urban Design, Public Realm
- Boston City Hall Lobby Renovation Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Public Realm, Renovation
- Rethink City Hall: Boston City Hall & Plaza Master Plan Study Architecture & Interiors, Planning & Urban Design, Institutional & Academic, Institutions & Campuses, Public Realm
- The Park School Early Childhood Wing and Maker Space Renovation Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors
- Autodesk Boston Workspace Expansion Architecture & Interiors, Interiors, Commercial
- Malaysia Vision Valley Planning & Urban Design, International


Selected Projects
- Girard Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- Jamaica Plain Branch of the Boston Public Library Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Renovation
- Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library Renovation Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Renovation
- The Quinn & The Harris Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- 26 West Broadway Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily


Kathryn joined Utile in 2022 as an architect and project manager, bringing a broad range of design, detailing, and construction administration experience. She is passionate about good design and enjoys a successful collaborative process between the architect, consultants, contractor, and client.
Prior to Utile, Kathryn worked at firms in Boston and New York City. During her six years at Bruner/Cott Architects she worked on a range of project types, including Institutional, educational, mixed-use, and housing. She has also worked at Arrowstreet, Ruhl/Walker Architects, and held internships at William Rawn Associates and Hickox Williams Architects, all in Boston. She spent a brief time in NYC where she worked at Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects on high end retail across the US and internationally. She brings a valuable set of skills and a holistic design approach to all projects, whether new construction, interiors, renovations, or adaptive reuse.
Kathryn holds an M.Arch from Rice University and undergraduate degree from Northeastern University. She also sits on the Zoning Board of Appeals in her town, Malden, where she resides with her husband and two children. In her free time she enjoys traveling, spending time with nature, and coaching her kid’s soccer teams.


Selected Projects




Selected Projects
- One Beach Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Affordable
- 88 Hudson Street Condominiums Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily, Affordable
- Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library Entry Design and Programming Study Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Renovation
- Downeast Cider Production Facility Architecture & Interiors, Renovation




Selected Projects
- Envision Cambridge Citywide Plan Planning & Urban Design, Citywide, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets
- Imagine Boston 2030 Planning & Urban Design, Citywide
- Raymond Flynn Marine Park Master Plan Update Planning & Urban Design, Regulations & Guidelines, Waterfront
- Vision Haverhill 2035 Citywide Plan Planning & Urban Design, Citywide, Real Estate Development


Morgan Cook
Morgan Cook joined Utile in September 2019 after receiving her Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan, where she was runner-up for the 2019 Burton L. Kampner Award for Outstanding Thesis Project. Her thesis explored the intersectional domestic needs of abled and disabled users in order to broaden the way designers understand and design for accessibility. Morgan is part of our on-going JEDI initiative, focused on improving internal and external relationships and procedures.
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Morgan attended Ball State University for her undergrad. During her studies, she participated in a semester long study abroad where she traveled to thirty-two countries.
Prior to joining Utile, she worked in Indianapolis and Detroit and taught ArcStart, a summer architecture studio for high school students at the University of Michigan. In her free time, Morgan enjoys baking, traveling, and watching the latest binge-worthy Netflix series.


Jack Corriveau
Selected Projects


Cyrus P. Dahmubed joined Utile in 2018 after receiving his Master of Architecture from the School of Architecture at Northeastern University, where he received the Alpha Rho Chi Medal for Service, Leadership, and Merit. While at Northeastern, he served as the President of the school’s chapter of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), the founding editor and curator of the graduate colloquium series and publication, Common Ground, and in several other service and teaching positions. Prior to joining Utile, he worked at Hacin + Associates in Boston’s South End and was the Editor-in-Chief of CRIT, the national journal of the AIAS, for the 2018 term, overseeing the editorial and graphic overhaul of the publication.
His work and research, starting with his undergraduate capstone project at Harvard University, “Defining D.C.: The Separation of City and State” and culminating with his graduate thesis project on the Massachusetts city of Fall River and its historical foundations in granite, focuses on a reading of geology, ecology, anthropology, and etymology as a means of interpreting urban form and architectural design, and translating these into design narratives.
Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Cyrus has worked alongside Utile’s Director of People, Culture, & Equity, Tayler Morris, to oversee Utile’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Initiative, which has worked to rebuild the office’s operations and design output into action-oriented tools for anti-racism.
In June of 2021, Cyrus was elected to serve on the Board of the Boston Children’s Chorus, an organization he was a member of as a teen and that remains near and dear to his heart for its mission of advancing social justice through music. He was also selected to serve as a member of NCARB’s 2021 Licensure Candidates Think Tank. He has taught studio and seminar courses at Wentworth Institute of Technology and the Boston Architectural College.
Cyrus is a lifelong resident of the Boston area, apart from brief periods in New York City and Paris, where he enjoys attending design events, exploring the region’s hidden corners and rich landscapes by bike and by foot, spending weekends chopping wood (a favorite pastime), and tending to his many pets and plants, including four chickens.
Selected Projects
- City of Newton On-Call: Zoning Redesign, MBTA Communities Analysis, & Design Review Planning & Urban Design
- The Possible Zone Architecture & Interiors, Renovation
- Homegrown Courts Housing, Multifamily, Townhouses & Duplexes
- Boston City Hall Conservation Management Plan Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic


Alexander Davis is registered Architect and an Associate at Utile. He is currently managing 1005 Broadway, a 38-unit mixed-income residential development in Chelsea, MA seeking Passive House Certification, and a 3,500 linear foot infrastructural screening initiative in South Boston, MA. Alexander is a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC) with a passion for aiding mission-driven organizations in providing sustainable affordable housing. He recently served as project manager for Acadia, a 34-unit affordable housing development in Chelsea, MA, and has been involved in construction documentation for many of the firm’s affordable housing projects. Before his transition to affordable housing, he was involved in a number of the firm’s urban design and planning projects, including the Northampton Roundhouse Planning Study, the Candleworks Hotel in New Bedford, the D Street and Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC) Master Plan in South Boston, the BCEC Future Use Garage, and Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi.
Prior to joining Utile in 2012, Alexander received his Master of Architecture from Northeastern University, where his graduate thesis focused on the reintroduction of density within affordable and mixed-income housing. He subsequently worked at firms across New England, including as a craftsman in the Architecture Resources Cambridge model shop, a designer for Mackenzie Architects in Burlington, VT specializing in multifamily, multi-generational housing, and as an Intern for Joan Heaton Architects, a Bristol, VT firm specializing in contemporary-vernacular homes. He was born and raised in Vermont, and as a result enjoys hiking, stream fishing, Bank Barn sighting, and the liberal use of maple syrup. Alexander lives in Burlington, VT with his wife, son, mischievous Beagle, and two energetic Labrador Retrievers.
CPHC® is a certification mark of Passive House Institute US (PHIUS). Used under license.


JP Delgado Galdamez
JP Delgado Galdamez joined Utile in February 2022 as the Office/Tech assistant. Born and raised in El Salvador, JP attended Universidad Tecnologica for a few years before relocating to Boston, MA. Before joining Utile, JP spent 5 years working in housing, as an advocate for homeless elders at Hearth and as an occupancy specialist at the Boston Housing Authority. JP is a local artist and producer, often working with local venues to present exciting and fresh drag and nightlife events. They're an accomplished drag artist, having performed on stages all over New England. When not producing or assisting, JP spends their time with their cats while watching mindless reality TV.


Jeff Geisinger
AIA, LEED AP, CPHC®, Associate Principal, Director of Sustainable Design
Selected Projects
- Boston Coastal Flood Resilience Design Guidelines & Zoning Overlay District Planning & Urban Design, Citywide, Regulations & Guidelines, Waterfront
- Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library Renovation Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Renovation
- Providence I-195 On-Call Planning Planning & Urban Design, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets
- Everyone wants a home of their own Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Planning & Urban Design, Affordable


Steven Greenberger
Selected Projects


Ben Greer
Ben Greer joined Utile in 2013 as an architectural designer. He has worked on diverse number of projects, including a 160-unit apartment building in Boston’s South End and a 300-unit transit oriented mixed use development in Jamaica Plain. Although having a primary focus on urban mixed use housing, Ben has worked on institutional projects like Boston City Hall Lighting and the Jamaica Plain Branch Library, as well as larger planning projects in Lower Roxbury and Somerville.
Prior to joining Utile, Ben studied architecture at Northeastern University where he won the school’s annual design award his junior and senior year as well as received Northeastern’s RISE Medal for his work on coastal urban development. His independent work during this time has also received notoriety, including an award from the Boston Society of Architects for a multigenerational housing proposal for Sargent’s Wharf in Boston’s North End.
Selected Projects
- MetroMark Apartments Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- Girard Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- Boston City Hall Exterior Lighting Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Public Realm
- Jamaica Plain Branch of the Boston Public Library Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Renovation


Selected Projects
- Malden River Greenway Planning Study Planning & Urban Design, Regulations & Guidelines, Waterfront
- Detroit Brush Park Plan and Form-based Code Planning & Urban Design, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets, Regulations & Guidelines
- Eastern Market Neighborhood Framework & Stormwater Management Network Plan Planning & Urban Design, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets
- 1599 Columbus Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily, Affordable, Passive House




Chimaobi Izeogu joined Utile as an architectural designer in November 2019. Native to southern California, Chimaobi holds a BA in Architecture with concentration in History, Theory, and Criticism from Yale College and a Master of Architecture from the Rice School of Architecture in Houston, TX. While at Rice, Chimaobi participated in the Paris semester abroad program, studying French culture and traveling around Europe in the process. He also served as Co-Editor-in-Chief for PLAT Journal, a student-run, bi-annual publication, across two issues: PLAT 2.5 On the Bias, which explores the role of bias in representation, and PLAT 3.0 Collective Disruption, which mines the inherent opportunity following disaster or crisis to bring about impactful architectural and political change.
Prior to joining Utile, Chimaobi worked with numerous firms across several building typologies, including Epstein Joslin Architects in Cambridge, MA, focusing on performing arts, cultural, and civic endeavors, particularly, the Welcome Center at the Breakers and the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. He also worked at RDLR Architects in Houston, TX, specializing in education and community centers, and EYP’s embassy design studio in Albany, NY. Living in Cambridge, Chimaobi enjoys being active, walking and biking around the city during the summer months and playing indoor soccer during the winter.






Charles Kim
Originally from Canada, Charles holds a BArch from the University of Waterloo and MArch from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Prior to joining Utile in 2022, he had the opportunity to work at offices of different scales in cities such as Beijing, Paris, Rotterdam, and New York. His main interest is in how representation can be used as a medium to translate design to be more communicable to a broader audience.




Selected Projects
- Girard Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- The Quinn & The Harris Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- Jamaica Plain Branch of the Boston Public Library Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Renovation
- 26 West Broadway Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- Boutique Hotel at 248 Dorchester Avenue Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Public Realm
- Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library Renovation Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Renovation


Selected Projects
- Boston University BUild Lab Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Renovation
- Belmont Day School Barn Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic
- The Billow Architecture & Interiors, Planning & Urban Design, Public Realm
- The Possible Zone Architecture & Interiors, Renovation
- Pittsfield Tyler Street Development Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily, Townhouses & Duplexes


Selected Projects
- Imagine Boston 2030 Planning & Urban Design, Citywide
- MetroMark Apartments Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- Downtown Boston Waterfront Planning Planning & Urban Design, Regulations & Guidelines, Waterfront
- 88 Hudson Street Condominiums Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily, Affordable
- Upper Washington Street Housing Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Affordable
- Everyone wants a home of their own Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Planning & Urban Design, Affordable
- Boston Greenway Planning Study Planning & Urban Design, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets, Regulations & Guidelines


Selected Projects
- The Boston Conservatory Studio Building Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic
- Belmont Day School Barn Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic
- MIT Samuel Tak Lee Building Renovation Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Renovation
- Boston City Hall Lobby Renovation Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Interiors, Public Realm, Renovation
- St. Andrew’s School Master Plan Architecture & Interiors, Planning & Urban Design, Institutional & Academic, Institutions & Campuses
- Cranbrook Master Plan Update Architecture & Interiors, Planning & Urban Design, Institutional & Academic, Institutions & Campuses
- Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion Architecture & Interiors, Public Realm


Selected Projects
- Envision Cambridge Citywide Plan Planning & Urban Design, Citywide, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets
- Boston Complete Streets Design Guidelines Planning & Urban Design, Citywide, Regulations & Guidelines
- Detroit Brush Park Plan and Form-based Code Planning & Urban Design, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets, Regulations & Guidelines
- Weston Town Center Planning & Urban Design, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets
- Providence I-195 On-Call Planning Planning & Urban Design, Neighborhoods, Districts, & Streets
- BCEC Planning Study Planning & Urban Design, Institutions & Campuses, Regulations & Guidelines






Sam joined Utile in 2022 as a project architect. He has a particular focus on housing, crafting work that maintains a quality of beauty, dignity, and anonymity both from the scale of the bedroom to the block. Prior to Utile, Sam has worked at Placetailor, where he led the design of affordable and mixed-use multifamily Passive House projects in Boston. Previously, he has worked at Supernormal, NBBJ, Morphosis, Frederick Fisher & Partners, and the Small Center for Collaborative Design. He holds professional architecture degrees from Tulane University with honors and a post-professional design degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design with distinction. At Harvard he was awarded a long term travel fellowship to study how cooperative models of property ownership and maintenance can lead to innovative design solutions for collective housing. He recently co-founded a venture on collective housing maintenance at MIT Design X. In addition to practice, Sam has taught design studios on housing at Wentworth Institute of Technology, Harvard’s Design Discovery program, and Boston Architectural College. He was an editor at Open Letters, has been published in Paprika! and Pidgin, and is currently co-editing a publication on national housing design for the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.


Andrew Ngure


Evan Orf


Jonathan joined Utile in 2021. Prior to joining the firm, he worked at Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers in New York City, and NADAAA in New York City and Boston. He is a registered architect in both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the State of New York and brings extensive experience in the design of institutional and public realm projects at varying scales. Jonathan received his B.A. and B.Arch. from Rice University in Houston, Texas, where his projects explored the rapidly changing urban conditions of America’s fourth-largest city.
While at Rogers Partners, Jonathan was the lead designer for a new academic building for the School of Social Sciences at Rice University and a retrofit of a Civil War-era warehouse into a high-tech research and manufacturing facility in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the office’s first mass timber project.
Outside of the office, he can be found pleading with his houseplants to stay alive and reacquainting himself with the Boston area after ten years masquerading as a Brooklynite.


Selected Projects


Rahi Patel
Rahi joined Utile as an urban planner in 2021. Prior to joining Utile, Rahi worked as a transportation planner at the U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe Center, where he engaged with bicycle and pedestrian planning, sustainable operations, and transportation safety. He holds a BA in Urban Planning and Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his undergraduate thesis analyzing the urban form of Durham, North Carolina was awarded Highest Honors. In his free time, Rahi enjoys cooking, biking through Cambridge, and photography.


Selected Projects
- Rethink City Hall: Boston City Hall & Plaza Master Plan Study Architecture & Interiors, Planning & Urban Design, Institutional & Academic, Institutions & Campuses, Public Realm
- Boston City Hall Exterior Lighting Architecture & Interiors, Institutional & Academic, Public Realm
- 26 West Broadway Architecture & Interiors, Housing, Multifamily
- Cranbrook Master Plan Update Architecture & Interiors, Planning & Urban Design, Institutional & Academic, Institutions & Campuses


Selected Projects




Drew Powers
Drew joined Utile in 2021 as a project manager and brings a passion for smart and forward-thinking design. He earned his Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Architecture from Wentworth Institute of Technology. His thesis sought to explore idea of “the other side of the tracks”—to study how the infrastructure we build can serve as harsh barriers that divide communities along socioeconomic lines.
Prior to joining Utile, he worked for CUBE 3 where he specialized in the design and construction of multifamily and student-housing projects across the Northeast region. He has overseen residential projects ranging in size from 17–400 units; shepherding them from initial approvals, design and documentation, as well as through construction and occupancy. He designed and managed a 330-unit transit-oriented development in New Rochelle, NY that will open in 2022.
In addition to his experience in architecture, Drew has a passion for improving the built environment to align with a more sustainable and resilient future. His previous work includes designing thousands of residential solar arrays to help families transition to a sustainable form of energy, as well as managing projects integrating structural expansion joint systems into critical infrastructure across the mid-Atlantic.


Allison joined Utile in 2022 as the Director of Marketing and Communications where she leads the strategy and content of our business development and project procurement efforts. A Boston area native, Allison returns to New England by way of New Orleans, where she jointly pursued a Masters in Architecture and Sustainable Real Estate Development at Tulane University. Prior to joining Utile, Allison worked for a variety of architecture firms as a designer before finding her way into marketing. With a wide range of knowledge across the AEC industry, she is passionate about creative storytelling and supporting teams to do their best work. In her free time, she enjoys exploring her College Hill neighborhood in Providence with her family, watching Jeopardy, and doing the NYT crossword puzzle (always with a pen).






Lilit Revazian
Lilit joined Utile in 2019 as a designer. Prior to joining Utile she worked at Jacobs where she worked on large scale workplace interiors projects for leading financial, tech, and biotech clients. Lilit received her Master degree in Interior Architecture at New England School of Art & Design. In her thesis she explored transformational workplace design strategies and activity based working in the age of rising mobility. Her thesis project received Graduate Thesis Design Award. Lilit is an enthusiast of fabrication and maker culture. She taught classes on digital fabrication, Revit, and Dynamo at Boston Architectural College in collaboration with Autodesk BUILD Space. Originally from Armenia, Lilit has a broad experience in studying, living and working internationally including Russia and Eastern Europe. She received Bachelor in Arts at Yerevan State Academy of Arts where she studied industrial and graphic design.


Alessandro Ricciardi
Alessandro joined Utile in the fall of 2021 as an architectural and urban designer. He completed his M.Arch at Northeastern University in spring 2021. There, his thesis project focused on sustainable development of post-industrial spaces in East Boston, ultimately resulting in a neighborhood maker’s space and fabrication lab designed to socially and economically uplift the surrounding community. Prior to joining Utile he worked as an intern at Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in Manhattan, and as a research and design assistant for Ang Li Projects, where he developed installations as a part of Exhibit Columbus in Indiana, and a Boston Chinatown community project for the public arts organization Now + There. Outside the office, Alessandro enjoys traveling, cooking, taking care of his plants, and learning about new topics in the fields of science, agriculture, and design.




Avery Robertson
Avery Robertson joined Utile as a graphic designer in 2022 and has a range of experience as a designer, researcher, and writer centered in the intersection of the built and ecological environments. She hopes to use her skills here as a graphic designer to enhance Utile's research-driven design and community-oriented placemaking to create sustainable and equitable cities and communities.
She received a Master in Design in Sustainable Urban Environments and a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies with a sustainability focus, both from Northeastern University. Post-graduation, she worked as the copy editor on the book Lo-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism: a compendium of case studies of indigenous people's nature-based infrastructures. Prior to joining Utile she was an urban design intern at Scape in NYC, working on The Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan; and worked as a graphic designer and production assistant at the Stefan Beckman Studio, designing sets for brands such as Marc Jacobs, Adidas, and Coach.
Outside of Utile, she works with the nonprofit online platform Future Earth Catalog on education and engagement with the climate crisis; she is on the energy and environment commission in her city of Newport, RI; and she is a freelance writer. She also loves watching plants grow, climbing rock walls, and her cat Clovis.




Robert Schaffer
Robert Schaffer is a Master of Architecture graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated top of his class while receiving the Alpha Rho Chi Medal for leadership, service, and professional merit. Before coming to the East Coast, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a Bachelor of Science degree in Interior Architecture with a certificate in Sustainability. Before joining Utile in 2021, Robert worked on a diverse range of projects at all scales, including national and international commercial competitions. Most recently, he worked in offices such as Rockwell Group in Manhattan, Gensler in Dallas, and ERDMAN in Madison, Wisconsin.
He has received multiple awards, most notably the Samuel K. Schneidman Fellowship, Warren Powers Laird Award, and a nomination for the KPF Paul Katz Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Theresa A. Purnitun Top Portfolio Award and Abby Marlatt Scholarship from the University of Wisconsin. In addition, Robert has received the Wisconsin Architects Foundation - Out of State Scholarship and placed 2nd in the Department of Energy’s “Race to Zero” National Design Competition with a team from the University of Wisconsin. Robert’s work has been featured in the University of Pennsylvania’s publication Pressing Matters, Archinect, the Wisconsin Energy Institute, the UWM Report, the Department of Energy, the Ruth Davis Design Gallery, and the NAHR.
Robert lives in Boston, where he enjoys the endless food possibilities and old city charm. In his spare time he loves getting his hands dirty with fabrication and creative concept art.




Karno joined Utile in 2022 as a Building Performance Specialist, bringing with him experiences that bridge architectural design, building performance, and various sustainability initiatives. He has worked at several firms in Singapore, Hong Kong, Texas, and Boston. Most recently at Bruner/Cott Architects, Karno was the project architect for 288 Harrison Avenue, an affordable multifamily project that will add 85 units to Boston's Chinatown neighborhood. As a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC), he was an integral part in the projects' journey to achieving Passive House Pre-Certification. He was also the project designer on Frost Terrace, a 40 unit affordable housing development in the Porter Square neighborhood of Cambridge, MA that weaves together three historic houses, contemporary architecture, and human-centered landscape elements.
Karno was born in Singapore and holds a Master of Design Studies from the Energy and Environments program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University. Outside of work, Karno enjoys being a non snobbish foodie and trying out different cuisines. CPHC® is a certification mark of Passive House Institute US (PHIUS). Used under license.


Selected Projects


Katie Wirtz joined Utile in 2016. She grew up in northern Michigan, where she developed a love for wood-framed construction. This led her to the field of architecture. She earned her Bachelor and Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan, where she won the Raoul Wallenberg Traveling Scholarship as an undergraduate, and a Thesis Award as a graduate student. Her past academic and professional experiences have led her to strive for design solutions that are humane and support people in all phases of living.
Katie lives in Jamaica Plain with her husband, where they like to make plans for their yard, home, and city.
Selected Projects






Xiaoran Zhang
Xiaoran joined Utile in 2021 as an urban designer. She earned her Master of Urban Design from Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture, and her Bachelor of Engineering in Urban and Rural Planning from Nanjing Tech University in China. Xiaoran explores shaping urban environment in various scales, from community placemaking to city and district sustainable guidelines. As a George W. Anderson, Jr. Award recipient from Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture, she dived deep into her thesis on cooperative-based community system innovation with a focus on co-housing and public space typology research. Prior to joining Utile, Xiaoran worked closely with communities, and was working as an intern at Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition in Pittsburgh to assist community-based development in practice.
Born and raised in a community with affluent local culture from Xuzhou, China, Xiaoran has a deep-rooted understanding of community engagement and local culture conservation. Powered by interest, Xiaoran is a trained permaculture designer with an interest in volunteering in community gardens and farms. She also enjoys cooking, traveling, and various sports during her free time.