SoA Director is National Disaster Resilience Conference Keynote Speaker

Blaine Brownell, director of the David R. Ravin School of Architecture, will deliver a keynote presentation at the 2025 National Disaster Resilience Conference, to be held November 19 and 20 in Clearwater Beach, Florida.  

Titled “Building the Dream,” the conference will bring together experts from academia, industry and the public sector to explore best practices for designing, building, selling and protecting homes in the face of natural disasters. The topic of Brownell’s address is “Antifragile Design: Beyond Resilience.”

Across the United States, communities are grappling with the risks and realities of fires, floods and damaging winds. Inspired by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s 2012 book, “Antifragile,” Brownell’s address will present strategies for dynamic architecture that not only endures disaster, but can actually become stronger under stress or renewed in its aftermath.

Brownell, FAIA, is an architect and researcher of emergent materials and sustainable building technologies. He has written nine books on advanced and sustainable materials for architecture and design, including “Matter in the Floating World,” “Material Strategies,” and the four-volume “Transmaterial” series. He writes the “Mind & Matter” column for Architect magazine, 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.

A founding member of the Advanced Materials Council, Brownell has been an advisor to the National Institute of Building Sciences, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Mayo Clinic, Steelcase, 3M, Panasonic and the Danish Architecture Center.