About | Bryan Robb

Hey, thanks for stopping by.

I’m Bryan. This site is where I write short posts about whatever has been occupying my brain lately. Sometimes that’s cities and architecture. Sometimes it’s photos from a walk. Sometimes a book, a piece of music, or a stray observation that felt worth writing down.

By profession I’m an urban planner. I spend a lot of time thinking about how places work and how they could work better. Transit, public space, architecture, and landscape design have a way of sneaking into how I see everything else.

Outside of work I mostly like making things. Writing, photography, gardening, music, cooking experiments, tinkering with personal websites. The internet used to be full of small strange personal sites and I still believe that’s one of its best forms.

I grew up in the Great Lakes region and still miss it a lot. These days I live in the Pacific Northwest with my family, where everything is greener, the forests are mossy, and the tomatoes in my yard get a little out of control by August.

Part of the reason I keep a site like this is that the internet can feel pretty mean and exhausting these days. I wanted a small corner that feels more personal and more enjoyable to return to. I’m still working on it, but that’s the idea.

Interests

urban design landscape architecture transit maps subway systems Detroit Toronto New York Philadelphia wandering neighborhoods wandering cities at dusk mossy Pacific Northwest forests cedar smell after rain photography walks maps of places I haven’t been yet dark satire psychological character studies unconventional love stories concert ticket stubs boxes of old letters and photographs Polaroids post-it notes homemade cards letters gardening tomatoes that take over the yard by August cooking experiments building and fixing things small personal websites RSS feeds strange corners of the internet soda water caramel potato pancakes Midwest nostalgia Italian genealogy rabbit holes pastoral punk dystopias the strange landscapes of American suburbia anti-sprawl Mies van der Rohe modernism desert mid century modernism Charles and Ray Eames Frank Gehry typography industrial design Tom Ford IKEA Cezanne post-Impressionism watercolors Murakami Vonnegut Dostoevsky Ray Nayler Ernest Hemingway Virginia Woolf Mitski Japanese Breakfast Angel Olsen Liz Phair Deep Sea Diver Cate Le Bon St. Vincent Lucy Dacus Pavement Interpol David Bowie New Order Joy Division Talking Heads The Smiths The Modern Lovers The Beatles Neil Young Gord Downie