Gary in Mexico City
Gary with Berdelle Campbell and the Civic Design Center Annual Luncheon
Gary with Majora Carter in NYC
Gary Gaston is the CEO of the Nashville Civic Design Center, and serves as Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Architecture + Design. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from UTK, and a M.Ed. in Community Development and Action from Vanderbilt.
Gaston helped lead numerous planning and design efforts for the Civic Design Center during his nearly 20-year tenure, including its visionary The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City, published in 2005. Gaston served as executive producer of the National Endowment for the Arts funded documentary film Design Your Neighborhood, and co-authored two books, Moving Tennessee Forward: Models for Connecting Communities (2012), and Shaping the Healthy Community: The Nashville Plan, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2016.
Gaston is a TEDx Nashville Fellow, his talk on “Improving Public Health Through Community Design” can be viewed here. He was named 2022 “Leader of the Year” by the Young Leaders Council. He received the Tau Sigma Delta Honor Society Silver Medal “for extraordinary efforts to advance the field of design in the region” in 2016, and was recognized as a “Next American Vanguard” by Next City Magazine in 2010.
Gaston is a native of West Tennessee where serves as the beekeeper for his family farm. He is passionate about preservation and enhancement of public spaces and expanding opportunities for youth through design-based education in public schools. Gaston serves on the Board of Directors of The District and is a member of the Rotary Club of Nashville.