Bio

a brief introduction

@duffbrown

I'm an architect, landscape architect, and urban designer with a huge love for the outdoors. When I'm not hiking up mountains, I'm working to help create a world in which human and environmental flourishing aren't mutually exclusive. Originally from a small town in Tennessee, I grew up building forts in the woods before traveling all across the globe to learn more about the ways humans have manipulated the environment to support our habitation. I’m confident we can move beyond a human-nature relationship of extraction and exploitation towards one defined by an ethic of mutual care. 

After graduating from Auburn University’s architecture program in 2017, I spent two years practicing as an architect with AmeriCorps and 100 Fold Studio in northwestern Montana. There, my love for wild places grew alongside my increasing alarm at the rapid rate of suburban development sprawling across the open plains. I witnessed firsthand the effects of these unsustainable development patterns in the receding glaciers and raging wildfires that plagued the region. Motivated to find better ways of living on this planet, I went on to study urban design at Washington University in St. Louis and landscape architecture at Harvard University. Most recently, my research took me to the Sierra Nevada to spend three weeks thru-hiking the Nüümü Poyo, also known as the John Muir Trail, to further explore the relationship between humankind and the wilderness. Off trail, I spend my time working with towns across the Mountain West to help guide sustainable growth and development that works with, rather than against, earth’s natural systems.

As a designer and an explorer, I’m always moving, always creating, and always looking for better ways to live. Get in touch if you’d like to join me in this pursuit.