Caroline Amstutz. Photo courtesy Society of Architectural Historians.
(Opens in a modal)
2026-07-06 • Sam Fox School
WashU alum receives Society of Architectural Historians fellowship
2026-07-06 • Sam Fox School
Caroline Amstutz, BS ’19, is one of three recipients of the 2026 H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship by the Society of Architectural Historians.
The fellowship honoring noted scholar and architectural historian H. Allen Brooks provides emerging scholars with an opportunity to study the built environment through travel and contemplation.
Amstutz is a multidisciplinary designer and researcher with a commitment to craftsmanship. They earned a B.S. in Architecture from WashU’s Sam Fox School, where they were awarded the school’s top honor, the Frederick Widmann Prize. They also hold a Master of Architecture from MIT’s School of Architecture & Planning, where they held various teaching and research appointments and received the Sydney B. Karofsky ’37 Prize. Currently, Amstutz is a research lead at Matter Design, where they advance architectural experimentation, speculation and fabrication.
Amstutz’s ongoing research explores how architecture achieves resilience and longevity through craft, material, and ecological intelligence. Their graduate thesis, “Frictitious Matters,” explored the opportunities afforded by embracing friction in materials. They examined granite, considering how the very properties that make granite ‘difficult’ could instead serve as invitations for co-authorship between builder, material, and site.
With the fellowship, Amstutz will continue to expand their explorations of craft and material through an expansive international itinerary.
For more about the Brooks fellowship and Amstutz’s research, visit sah.org.