Storytelling for Equitable Urban Futures

Robin Abad Ocubillo is a dedicated public servant recognized internationally as a leading civic innovator in public space design, planning, evaluation, and policy.  He recently served a 3-year term as Director of Shared Spaces San Francisco, helping communities leverage the public realm for economic recovery, social and psychological wellbeing. The Shared Spaces program builds on Places for People, San Francisco’s local placemaking ordinance for which Robin was the City’s lead policy planner; and is the first ordinance of its kind in the country to streamline government processes and lower barriers for communities creating and stewarding public spaces in underutilized streets and lots. 

Over the last decade, Robin has led several of the City’s placemaking programs during periods of intensive growth; doubling the parklet population, expanding partnerships to cultural and community institutions, and overseeing the development of an award-winning Parklet Manual. He has extensively developed research methods and metrics for human-use evaluation of public spaces and is co-author of the Global Public Life Data Protocol. 

Robin also works intensively in spheres of arts as social praxis.  Aside from his role as producer and curator with the San Francisco Urban Film Festival (SFUFF), bringing communities together around civics and storytelling, Robin has served on the screening committee for the SF International LGBTQ Film Festival (Frameline), and is Senior Curator with the International Filipino Cine Festival (FACINE). 

With SFUFF as part of a residency at the YBCA, Robin curated “Echo Location: Cultural Geopolitics in the South of Market,” a multi-media exhibition centering the experience of two historically marginalized groups essential to the heritage and future of SoMa: Filipinx and LGBTQIA+ communities. Featuring visual and digital arts, film, and theatre, Echo Location reflected on the power these communities hold, overlapping both culturally and geographically over time.With SFMOMA, Robin edited an edition of Open Space Magazine titled ‘Participatory Urbanism,’ which interrogated the promise and problematics of public space; asking who participates — and how — in constructing urban places. He was also Project Advisor to ‘Take Part,’ a collaboration between SFMOMA’s public programs, the SF Public Library, and the artists Bik Van Der Pol.

Robin also brings extensive experience on governance and fiduciary boards, policy and organizational strategy.  He currently serves on the board of the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts, and of Illuminate the Arts.  He is board member emeritus Youth Arts Exchange and has held executive roles on the boards of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC). Other committee service includes Dreaming Spaces with the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, and the Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza.

Robin has served on international juries for the Creative Bureaucracy Festival (Berlin) and the Society for Experiential Graphic Design Awards (Washington, D.C.); and locally with the American Institute of Architects San Francicso Chapter Community Alliance Awards. He has delivered keynote and plenary addresses at the Global Cultural Districts Network Congress (Montreal, Canada), Placemaking Week Europe (Pontevedra and Valencia, Spain), the Australian Placemaking Summit (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), and the Forum for Urban Perspectives and the Digitalization of Territory (Guadalajara, Mexico).