Blaine Brownell | Professor and Director of the Raven’s School of Architecture, UNC Charlotte “UNC is all about Charlotte” shares Blaine Brownell, during our recent recording. As the Director of the Raven’s School of Architecture, UNC Charlotte, he emphasizes that Charlotte is poised for amazing success and is highly optimistic about the future, our talent, and our ability to adapt, but cautions us about the danger of assumptions. REBIC has been working on adding peripheral opinions to our podcast, working to share information about the entire landscape of disciplines needed to maintain our cities and our success. In advocacy we talk a lot about the size of home and the size of the lot, and the size of the price tag. But Professor Brownell puts it all in perspective when he tells us we must get out of our own way to continue to thrive. And shares that learning how to become a great architect is as much about collaboration as it is design.
Pointing to his years in studying and living in Japan, he shared freely his fascination with their culture. And admires their efficient, clean, and innovative approach to design and to renewal. It’s a theme he refers to throughout the episode, and frankly, it’s the best reason to listen to our latest episode of Getting Real with Rob. Blaine Brownell is an architect, author, and leading thinker on how emerging materials are reshaping the built environment. His work focuses on the intersection of material innovation, environmental performance, and design—exploring how buildings can move beyond static systems to become dynamic participants in ecological processes. He is the author of ten books, including the forthcoming Radical Green, which advances new material strategies for regenerative and net-positive architecture. Since 2009, he has written the “Mind & Matter” column for Architect magazine, contributing over 800 articles on the frontiers of material innovation. In addition to his academic work as Professor and Director of the School of Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Brownell advises leading organizations—including 3M, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Mayo Clinic, and the Danish Architecture Center—on material futures, sustainability, and design innovation. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Nature, and other international publications. He speaks globally on the future of materials, climate-responsive design, and the evolving role of architecture in a rapidly changing world.
Brownell earned a B.A. in architecture with a Certificate in East Asian Studies at Princeton University in 1992, and a Master of Architecture from Rice University in 1998. He practiced for seven years at NBBJ in Seattle, Washington. In 2006 he became a Fulbright Scholar to Japan with a focus on emergent materials and applications in architecture and design. After a visiting professorship at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Brownell taught at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture, Minneapolis starting in 2008, eventually serving as director of graduate studies and interim department head. In 2020 he became the Director of the School of Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
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