Blaine Brownell

Faculty Research Connections Profile

Blaine Brownell is an architect, educator, and researcher of emergent materials and applications. A former Fulbright scholar to Japan, he has authored eight books on advanced and sustainable materials for architecture and design, including the Princeton Architectural Press titles Matter in the Floating World, Material Strategies, Hypernatural (co-authored with Marc Swackhamer), and the Transmaterial series. He has written the “Mind & Matter” column for Architect magazine since 2009, and his work has been published in more than 70 architecture, design, science, and news journals, including The New York Times, The London Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Nature. Brownell holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and a Certificate in East Asian Studies from Princeton University and a Master of Architecture from Rice University. He was elevated to the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows in February 2020.

Brownell came to UNC Charlotte from the University of Minnesota School of Architecture, where he was a professor and interim head and served as director of graduate studies and interim director of the Master of Science in Architecture–Sustainable Design Program.

Explore HIS recent work