John Wray IV

Born originally in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, PA, USA, John was educated as landscape architect and urban designer from Harvard's Graduate School of Design & West Virginia University between 2011 & 2017. Presently, John is a Washington D.C-based practicing designer, educator and craftsman.

John also teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses on digital design technologies and construction at the University of Maryland. With one foot in academia and the other in professional practice, John’s research is geared towards leveraging imaginative technology to challenge conventional design & construction processes in placemaking.

With much of his time focused on creating in a digital space, John spends weeknights and weekends creating tangible objects with his own two hands. Pulling from a family history of building and making things ranging from custom hand tools to barns, John began amassing his own fully functioning modular wood & metal shop on his rooftop apartment after moving to the nation's capital in 2018. It is here that all of the vessels, furniture, mobiles and other assorted objects he makes are created by hand using many of the heirloom tools inherited from the rest of the John W. Wray lineage and family.