Gary Bates co-founded SPACEGROUP in Oslo, Norway in 1999. As architects and planners, SPACEGROUP originally made its mark with complex urban projects such as the Prostneset Ferry Terminal, Vestbane National Library, Filipstad Masterplan and the Louisville 25-year Vision Plan.
DEEP is the research arm of SPACEGROUP managing the collective intelligence in the the discourse between development, planning, politics, social equity and architecture. In 2018, Bates founded Extrasolar, with the perspective of building alternative design-thinking business models within the ’start-up’ environment.
Most recently (2021) Bates co-founded Make Make, a NYC-based design agency that unites architectural thinking and making in a contemporary framework.
In parallel to practice, Bates teaches and lectures at various universities, including Syracuse University, Cooper Union, the University of Texas in Austin, the University of Kentucky, The Oslo School of Architecture, and the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands.
Bates studied at Virginia Polytechnic University and State University (1985–1990). He began his collaboration with Rem Koolhaas in 1992 at OMA where he became a director and, from 1995-1998, a principal in charge of the Asian desk.
