Profile
Brett Schneider is educated as both an Architect and an Engineer. After earning his Bachelor degree from Williams College in Art History (with honors) and Astrophysics in 1994, Schneider pursued joint Masters degrees in architecture and structural engineering at Princeton University graduating with a Masters in Engineering in 2000.
Schneider was previously an Associate Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design (Department of Architecture in the Division of Architecture + Design) where he taught structural engineering, integrated design and design studios. He was a Visiting Critic at the Yale School of Architecture in 2022-23 and Visiting Lecturer in Architecture at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in 2021-22. He has been visiting faculty at Parsons The New School for Design (School of Constructed Environments), the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University, and the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.
Schneider is currently a Senior Associate at Guy Nordenson and Associates (structural engineers) in New York NY. He was the winner of the Lakefront Kiosk Competition for the 2015 Chicago Architectural Biennial and corresponding BP Prize with Aaron Forrest and Yasmin Vobis (Ultramoderne) for Chicago Horizon. This innovative pavilion using super-laminated CLT to make a monolithic timber roof was also a recipient of US WoodWorks Wood Design Award 2016, Architect Magazine R+D Citation 2016, SEAoNY Excellence in Structural Engineering Award (Other Structures) 2017, and AIA RI Honor Award 2017. Significant recent projects include Day’s End with the artist David Hammons for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Menil Drawing Institute with Johnston MarkLee.
Current research includes a project in collaboration with Aaron Forrest and Yasmin Vobis (Ultramoderne and UC Berkeley) titled Heterogenous Constructions which looks at the implications of material heterogeneity in construction as a cultural practice through the use of full-color, technical drawings of global case studies and speculative construction projects. These drawings and a collection of related essays is expected to be published by Birkhauser in a book with same name in 2024.