Roberto Villasante

Roberto E. Villasante is an Architectural Designer. Influenced by a passion for art and architectural history, he has dedicated his career to the preservation, restoration, and reuse of existing and historic structures. Before joining BBB, Roberto worked for an architecture firm in Florida where he primarily managed residential projects, including a complete knockdown and rebuild design and a preservation-focused project that combined two historic properties into a single home. For his master's thesis, Roberto explored Cuba's UMAP (las Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción) forced labor camps, which detained more than 30,000 men labeled as “anti-socials” and counterrevolutionaries—many for being homosexual—between 1965 and 1968, examining these erased histories through a queer lens and proposing innovative preservation methods. He earned his Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and Master of Science in Historic Preservation from Columbia University. Roberto joined BBB in 2024.