Juliana Berglund-Brown

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Who l am

Hi, I’m Juliana, a design researcher working at the intersection of civil engineering and architecture. My research broadly focuses on circular economy in the building sector.

More specifically, I focus on two resource strategies — structural reuse and building life extension. In order to enable adoption of these strategies in practice, I employ an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on concepts and methodology from: architecture, structural engineering, industrial ecology, material culture, urban data science, and construction engineering.

Background

I am currently a post doctoral researcher in the Department of Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Temporal Commons. Temporal Commons is a research and teaching platform that supports work on time, repair, care, ritual, and reuse in architecture.

I have been selected for grants from the US EPA, as a part of the low carbon building materials grant program, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and Swiss national Science Foundation. In 2021, I was an academic guest at The Circular Economy for Architecture Group at ETH Zürich and the Use Less Group at the University of Cambridge. My design work was exhibited at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, and I often contribute to steel reuse design projects.

I successfully defended my PhD in Building Technology in June 2026, advised by Professor John Ochsendorf. In the same program, I completed my Masters of Science in Building Technologyin 2023. Prior to MIT, I completed my Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering with a focus on Structures and Construction at Stanford University, and worked at the Chair for Industrialized and Innovative Construction at ETH Zurich. I’ve also held research positions at BoKlok, a modular Swedish home building firm owned by Ikea and Skanska, and for the US Green Building Council.

Originally from Flagstaff, Arizona, I grew up at the interface of humans and the environment.

Publications

Journal (Peer-reviewed)

J. Berglund-Brown and J. Ochsendorf, “Material availability of End-of-Life Steel: Supply and demand assessment from demolished buildings in US Cities,” in prep.

J. Berglund-Brown, I. Dobie, J. Hewitt, and J. Ochsendorf, “Lifetimes of Demolished Buildings in U.S. and European Cities,” Buildings and Cities, in proofs.

J. Berglund-Brown, and C. Zhong, “A tale of two jails: considerations of memory and justice in a circular economy,” Future Anterior, in prep.

J. Berglund-Brown, and J. Ochsendorf, “Reusing Heavy-Section Steel in Buildings: Carbon Reduction Potential and Material Availability,” Journal of Architectural Engineering, vol. 31, no. 2, p. 04025020, Jun. 2025, doi: 10.1061/JAEIED.AEENG-1918.

J. Berglund-Brown, A. Pandey, F. Duarte, R. Ganitsky, R. Kirchain, S. Zheng. Stakeholders’ perceptions of and willingness to pay for circular economy in the construction sector. npj Urban Sustainability, vol. 4, 46, Oct. 2024. doi: 10.1038/s42949-024-00182-9.

Conference (Peer-reviewed)

M. Wang-Xu, J. Berglund-Brown, B. Clifford, J. Ochsendorf. Leveling the playing field: Lifetimes of North American sports stadiums. Proceedings of IASS Annual Symposia, Volume 2025, International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS).

Ramon E. Weber, J. Berglund-Brown, J. Ochsendorf, C. Reinhart, C. Mueller. “Design-Stage Carbon Reduction Pathways for Steel Structures”. Proceedings of IASS Annual Symposia, Volume 2024, International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS).

J. Berglund-Brown, and J. Ochsendorf. “Designing structures from reused steel: A cost-effective carbon mitigation strategy,” Proceedings of IASS Annual Symposia, Volume 2023, International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS).

D. Fang, J. Berglund-Brown, D. Iwakuni, and C. Mueller. “Carbon and Craft: Lessons from the Deconstruction, Relocation, and Reuse of a Traditional Japanese House’s Timber Structure.” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2600 (19): 192002.

J. Berglund-Brown, F. Kedir, A. Riabova, and D. Hall. “Assessing Circular Information Flow in Industrialized Construction: A Framework for Evaluating Data for Circular Construction.” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1078, no. 1 (September 1, 2022): 012005.

Policy memos and white papers

Berglund-Brown, J. “Enabling Steel Reuse within the U.S. Construction Sector.” Policy Memorandum for the Department of Energy and Committee on Clean Steel, United States of America. April 2023.

Berglund-Brown, J. “Strategies for Managing Vacant Building Stock and Blighted Buildings in Birmingham.” Policy Memorandum for the City of Birmingham, Alabama and New Division of Sustainability and Resilience. May 2023.

Berglund-Brown, J., Srinivas, S., Pyke, C. “Relationships between the Arc Transportation Score and Location-based Accessibility Metrics.” An Arc Research White Paper. September 2020. https://arcskoru.com/sites/default/files/Arc%20Transport%20Score%201_%20Relationships_R2.pdf

Berglund-Brown, J. “Local impacts, global standards: the need for place-based considerations in transportation scoring.” Web article. October 2020.

Teaching

Lecturer, Architectonics, Northeastern University (Sept 2026 – December 2026)

Adjunct professor for course on Architectonics at Northeastern University in the Department of Architecture. This course is Master’s level, part of the core architecture curriculum, and introduces the primary building construction types, techniques, and precise material realization through the lens of the significance of spatial and tectonic interrelationships.

Course Advisor, Civil Engineering Capstone, Dept. of CEE, MIT (Sept 2025 – May 2026)

Guided a group of 5 undergraduate students in their final year of structural engineering through their “senior capstone” class. The class includes the use of reused steel structural materials for a real project at MIT’s Wallace Observatory. The course takes students through the entire project delivery process, from procurement, design, and structural testing and analysis.

Thesis Advisor, Masters of Engineering, Dept of CEE, MIT (Sept 2025 – May 2027)

Advised a master’s student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering on her thesis covering the reuse of decommission oil rigs. The thesis included working with an industry sponsor, and advising meant meeting weekly to discuss research
Instructor, International Design Week, University of Antwerp (February 2025)

Designed and taught a course called “Reuse as Readymade,” which drew parallels between the function of everyday products, building materials, and the Readymade art form. The course was a design-build, where students designed functional objects for a community center garden in a disadvantaged neighborhood of Antwerp, Belgium.

Research Mentor, MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP) (Summer 2025 & 2023)

Advised an undergraduate research student participating in MSRP on deconstruction data research. MSRP seeks to increase the number of underrepresented minorities and underserved students in the research enterprise.

Research Mentor, MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunity (UROP) (2022 & 2024)

Advised an undergraduate research students on demolition data research. Nominated by my student for the 2024 Outstanding UROP Mentor Awards for research mentors who have demonstrated exceptional guidance and teaching in a research setting.

Research Assistant, Amsterdam MISTI Global Classroom, MIT (January 2023)

Guiding undergraduate MIT students on a two-week workshop in Amsterdam to work with AMS Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions researchers to address the decarbonization in the construction sector.

Teaching Assistant, Industrialized Construction, Stanford University (Spring 2020/2021)

Coordinated class logistics and course content for a graduate-level, CEE Sustainable Design and Construction class taught by Prof. Martin Fischer and Prof. Jerker Lessing.

Grants
Swiss National Science Foundation Grant Program 2025

Grant Program for Reducing Embodied Greenhouse Gases in Construction Materials and Products, 2024. (Selected but not awarded)

The Tucker-Voss Award, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2023

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program 2022

Structural Engineering Institute of American Society of Civil Engineers, SF Scholarship 2020