Gabriel Vergara is an architect and graduate of the Architecture and Urban Design program at Columbia GSAPP, where he serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor. He has also taught landscape and urban design at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Universidad Andrés Bello, and Universidad de Talca in Chile.
Gabriel is co-founder of Friends Making Work, a design collective based in NYC. His practice uses a multi-scalar approach, combining material interventions, architecture and urban design. Through collaborative research and practice, he explores alternative narratives to the status quo of building. His most recent projects and exhibitions have been presented in Prague, Providence, Bangkok, Ciudad Juárez and New York. He has also contributed to major exhibitions, including Center for Architecture Lab Residency, XXII Bienal de Aquitectura y Urbanismo de Chile, and the 12th Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Previously, he co-founded Susuka, an architecture studio based in Chile and the local branch of Supersudaca in Santiago, his work has been published in Domus, Arquitectura Viva, Arquine, and The Architectural Review, among others. Gabriel has collaborated with organizations across the U.S. and Latin America, including the Center for Justice Innovation and Asia Initiatives in New York, as well as AriztiaLAB in Santiago. He has also worked with architecture and urban design firms such as 51-1 Arquitectos in Peru and One Architecture & Urbanism in New York, where he contributed to coastal resiliency projects and the publication Building with Nature: Creating, Implementing, and Upscaling Nature-Based Solutions.