Robin Swartz
Architecture MA
Royal College of Art
Graduates: 2026
Specialisms: Architecture / Design for Social Good / Sustainable Design
My location: London, United Kingdom
Robin Swartz
First Name: Robin
Last Name: Swartz
University / College: Royal College of Art
Course / Program: Architecture MA
Graduates: 2026
Specialisms: Architecture / Design for Social Good / Sustainable Design
My Location: London, United Kingdom
About
Robin is a South African designer from Johannesburg whose work explores the relationship between architecture and geopolitics. Guided by a belief that design can contribute to a more just and resilient world, his practice engages with complex geopolitical realities through research, storytelling, and spatial design. His work investigates themes of migration, displacement, belonging, cultural identity, environmental change, and resilience, seeking to understand how the built environment can respond to contemporary global challenges and foster more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable futures.
Ports of Return: Rerouting value in the afterlives of extraction
Côte d'Ivoire grows much of the world's cocoa but captures little of its value. This project transforms the cocoa warehouse from a point of extraction into a place of return. Combining processing, assembly, trade, and agroforestry, it enables farmers to add value locally while restoring degraded landscapes. The proposal explores how architecture can support collective ownership, ecological repair, and new relationships between land, labour, and value. It asks the question 'what would happen if the infrastructure that currently extracts value from farming communities could instead be used to keep value within them?'
Competitions
