Caryn Brause, FAIA

Caryn Brause, FAIA received her M.Arch degree at the University of Virginia and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to teaching, Brause is the principal of SITELAB Architecture + Design. Her award-winning socially engaged design work has had broad impact in the region by addressing issues such as food insecurity, building material reuse, and youth empowerment.

Through her many activities, Brause connects the academy and the profession, and she works to translate research into practice domains. Her current research projects examine the relationship between spatial contexts and social and professional networks in the post-pandemic campus with a focus on equity, inclusion, and wellbeing.  She is author of The Designer's Field Guide to Collaboration (First Prize, 2017 BTES Book Award). Her applied professional practice course, Voices from the Field: From Design Concept to Reality, was recognized with a 2016 AIA/ACSA Practice + Leadership Award and a 2013 NCARB Award for the Integration of Practice and Education. Professor Brause’s leadership and service to the discipline include co-founding and serving as inaugural Design Editor for the journal of Technology | Architecture + Design, service on the AIA Higher Education Advisory Team (HEAT) and the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) Education and Awards Committees, as well as on the Board of Directors for the Western Mass AIA chapter. She serves as a Team Leader for Research on UMass ADVANCE Leadership Team.

PUBLICATIONS

• "Communal Provisioning and Community Abundance: Operationalizing Jewish Concepts of Gleaning" Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) (2023) with Madison DeHaven.

• “Cultivating Stewardship in the Next Generation of Designers: Employing an Experiential Case-based Method using Living Building Projects.” Journal of Green Building, 17:2, June 2022.

• “Pandemic Appropriations of Urban Space: Implications for Future Practice.” Proceedings of the 7^th Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning. Budapest, Hungary, 2022 with Carey Clouse.

• "Transferring visual methods from design to social science to advance built environment research,”Proceedings of the 2020 EAAE-ARCC International Conference, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain, 2020.
• "Creative Framing, Systematic Exploration." Editorial while serving as Issue Editor for the journal of Technology | Architecture + Design 4:1, Translation, 2020.
• Integration + Innovation: Proceedings of the 2019 Building Technology Educators’ Society Conference, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2019. Co-Editor with Peggi L. Clouston and Naomi Darling.
• The Designers Field Guide to Collaboration (New York: Routledge, 2017).
• ‘Collaboration: Propelling An Expanded Practice,’ Brooklyn says "Move to Detroit," Proceedings of the 105th Annual ACSA Meeting, Luis Francisco Rico-Gutierrez & Martha Thorne (Eds.) Detroit, MI, 2017.
• ‘Beyond the Visible: Skillsets for Future Interior Architecture Practice,’ The Interior Architecture Theory Reader, Gregory Marinic, editor. (New York: Routledge, 2017).
• "I-391 Gateway," Holyoke MA. A $50,000 National Endowment for the Arts "Our Town" Award with the City of Holyoke and Joseph Krupczynski, 2016.
• ‘Urban Gleaning: Promoting Food Security Through Opportunistic Design Strategies,’ Proceedings of the 5th Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning, Budapest, Hungary, 2016. (with Carey Clouse)
• ‘Intern architects in the academy: preparing for future practice,’ Future of Architectural Research Proceedings of the 2015 ARCC Conference, Chicago, IL 2015.
• "Arrivals," Holyoke MA, 2014. A $35,000 public art commission at the Mosher St. underpass in Holyoke, MA. Winner of a open competition for public art proposals (with Joseph Krupczynski)

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

• 2022 Boston Society of Architects Women in Design Award of Excellence
• 2021 Elevated to Fellowship by The American Institute of Architects (AIA)
• 2021 PROSE Award Finalist for best new journal in the Humanities & Social Sciences: Technology | Architecture + Design
• 2018 Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge Finalist, Project: El Corazon | the Heart of Holyoke (with the City of Holyoke, Joseph Krupczynski, and Nueva Esperanza, Inc.)
• 2018 Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation Travel Fellowship
• 2018 PROSE Award Honorable Mention: The Designer’s Field Guide to Collaboration
• 2017 Building Technology Educator's Society (BTES) Book Award, First Prize
• 2017 International Award for Excellence for The International Journal of the Constructed Environment, Volume 7 
• 2016 Western Massachusetts AIA Citation Award, Project: Arrivals
• 2016 AIA/ ACSA Practice + Leadership Award
• 2013 NCARB Award for the Integration of Practice and the Academy
• 2013 AIA New England Citation Award, Project: EcoBuilding Bargains
• 2012 Western Massachusetts AIA Merit Award and People’s Choice Award, Project: EcoBuilding Bargains

COURSES RECENTLY TAUGHT

• Student Health, Wellbeing & Campus Spaces
• Graduate Design Studio V
• Voices from the Field: From Design Concept to Reality
• Analysis + Representation I: Digital Design and Communication
• Analysis + Representation II: Digital Fabrication