Carla Clark | For The Republic Brittain Brewer, community outreach coordinator for the J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program, speaks during the architectural design charrette hosted by the J.Irwin Miller Architecture Program, Saturday, February 26, 2022.
An outreach coordinator who has been with a local graduate program since its inception has stepped away.
Britt Brewer has left Indiana University’s J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program and is returning to the business of architecture. Prior to his departure in late May, he served as the program’s community engagement coordinator and one of its faculty members.
Brewer said that when he joined the program in March of 2018, he put a five-year plan into place to “assess goals achieved” and review other criteria. He spent the 2023 spring semester working on this assessment.
“While there are many reasons to stay, I found that there are many things I still wish to accomplish so I am choosing to go back to practice,” he said.
T. Kelly Wilson, director of the Miller Architecture Program and associate professor of architecture, will be taking over community engagement for the school.
Wilson said that this was a role he initially filled during the development of the graduate program, but as the program took shape, he knew that he would have to focus more on its management, development and accreditation.
This led him to ask Brewer, who he knew from college, if he would be willing to take on the task of community engagement.
“His talents, his charm, his affability, his ingenuity and his humor was instrumental in maintaining our connections,” said Wilson. “And the time, I said, ‘Look, if you could put in five years or six years, then it would be sort of excellent, because by then, we would have gotten over the first hump of accreditation.’ And he felt that he achieved that.”
The J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program, which opened in 2018, is now in its final year of the accreditation process and a team from the National Architectural Accrediting Board will visit the school in October, he said.
Wilson is currently working on writing up the information that must be submitted to the board in August and will then return to the work of engaging with the community and various stakeholders.
However, he said that as the program grows, it’s possible that there may be cause to bring back the role of community engagement coordinator in the future.
Wilson added that he is grateful for Brewer’s service — not just with the community, but with the students he taught.
“Every time he walked into the building, Britt was in some deep conversation with one of our students about what they might eventually be as a professional architect, which had to do with their own interests to be used as the principle for founding an architectural practice,” he said.
Brewer’s Linkedin profile now lists him as the owner and principal at “bbrewerdesign.” He said that he is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and will be seeking reciprocity for his license in Indiana over the next year.
“I was lucky to have this position, and hope I made it clear that IU and the program value being part of and contributing to the community,” he said. “I will be excited to see how the program grows and for whomever takes on my role – how they connect.”
