Azby Brown, a native of New Orleans, is a widely published author and authority on Japanese architecture, design, and environment. His groundbreaking writings on traditional Japanese carpentry, compact housing, and traditional sustainable practices of Japan are recognized as having brought these fields to the awareness of Western designers and the general public. As founder and director of the Future Design Institute at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology, he conducted joint research in the neurobiology of the hand and hand-based creativity and communication. Since 2011 he has been a core member of Safecast, a highly successful global volunteer-based organization devoted to developing new technology platforms for crowdsourced environmental monitoring which promote on open-source and open data principles. He is the lead author of the Safecast Report on the consequences of the Fukushima disaster. His current focus is on the reuse of obsolete military bases in Europe and Japan, and evaluating the rebuilding process of Japanese coastal towns destroyed by the 2011 tsunami. Azby has lived in Japan since 1985.

＜SAFECAST Official Site＞
http://safecast.jp/en/

＜ Articles ＞
http://www.seedsandfruit.com/2010/06/azby-brown- architect-design- theorist/

http://designobserver.com/profile/azbybrown/207/

http://makingroomnyc.com/events/2013/01/azby-brown/

https://www.globalonenessproject.org/people/azby-brown

http://www.seedsandfruit.com/2010/06/azby-brown- architect-design- theorist/