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Kemba S. Braynon, AIA (she/her/hers)

Associate
Quinn Evans

Kemba Braynon is an architect and preservationist at Quinn Evans who brings a deep interest in history to her work. With skills as an architect and writer, she develops repair strategies and crafts stories to ensure that buildings survive for future generations. Kemba began the first 10 years of her career as an architect in Chicago working on new K-12 and commercial buildings, but the Great Recession hit the building industry particularly hard. Unable to find work in her field, Kemba accepted a position researching and writing local historic district reports with the City of Detroit. What appeared to be a professional detour instead became an introduction to the field of historic preservation and the many ways that communities can save, repair, and reuse their historic buildings. While working at the City of Detroit, Kemba authored the local historic district reports for numerous buildings and wrote and administered preservation grants to repair many of Detroit's cultural resources including the Belle Isle Aquarium, Ford Piquette Plant, and the Scarab Club. In 2015, she joined Quinn Evans as an historic preservation architect. Her portfolio includes projects with the National Park Service, the Department of Natural Resources, Amtrak, University of Michigan, Cranbrook, as well as non-profits seeking to renovate historic buildings for community use. Kemba is the immediate past Chair of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Review Board and has served as President for the Detroit-Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA). In 2023, she received the President’s Award from AIA Michigan which recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of the built environment, the profession, and service to the community.

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