September 4, 2023: Justin Brown

Architecture is about the built environment. But Justin Brown helps lead a firm whose mission is to use architecture to help move communities forward, promote social justice and healing, and expand the possibilities of tomorrow for cities and their residents.
Brown is a co-founder and Principal at MASS Design Group focused on expanding architectural work in the U.S. He leads the Hudson Valley Office in Poughkeepsie, NY and is dedicated to the growth of MASS’s Social Justice and Adaptive Re-use portfolios. He was the Project Architect for the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice and founder of the Fringe Cities Design Lab, which researches vulnerable American cities and follows community-engaged design practices to unlock upstream capital to transform liabilities into assets. Brown has led award winning projects at Gensler in Washington D.C., Perez APC in New Orleans, and Toshiko Mori Architect in New York. He has guest lectured in seminars at Harvard Graduate School of Design, MIT School of Architecture and Planning, University of Toronto, and Dartmouth College. He holds a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.