Can buildings store electricity like a battery?

Blaine Brownell is a leading voice in sustainable architecture and material innovation, with a career spanning over 20 years. Starting as an architect in Seattle during the rise of the LEED green building movement, he transitioned to academia, where he now directs the School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte. His research focuses on the future of sustainable materials, and he has authored nine books on the topic, including Transmaterial and Radical Green.

Blaine challenges conventional thinking with ideas like:

• Cities made of sky, where buildings store carbon like forests

• Living architecture, where structures are literally grown from trees

• And he advocates for buildings as resource banks, emphasizing that architecture should store energy, water, and materials for reuse

In this episode, Blaine discusses why sustainability must become the default in architecture, how architects can integrate innovative materials visibly into design, and what it will take to shift from incremental improvements to radical change. He also shares amazing projects, from vertical microalgae facades to concrete walls that store electricity like batteries.

Listen now to discover the future of green buildings and why the materials we choose today will shape the world of tomorrow. 

To explore more about Blaine Brownell and his work, you can follow him on LinkedIn, visit his website blainebrownell.com, or read his articles at Architect Magazine’s Mind and Matter Column.

Join me, Ladina, on this green journey, and don't forget to subscribe for more insightful conversations about sustainable living and architecture and drop us a review. If you have suggestions for future guests or topics, I'd love to hear from you on my socials!

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Contact: 

Ladina ⁠⁠@ladinaschoepf⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠buildinggreenshow.com

Produced by: ⁠⁠marketyourarchitecture.com⁠