McLain Clutter

McLain Clutter is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where he focuses on the interplay between architecture, urbanism, and media culture. His research examines how digital technologies reshape urban environments and design practices.

• Architect Magazine R+D Award (2015)
• ACSA Faculty Design Awards (2015, 2018)
• Recipient of the Everett Victor Meeks Fellowship at Yale

Clutter co-founded the design practice EXTENTS with Cyrus Peñarroyo, producing installations like Lossy/Lossless (2019) and Collective Reality: Image without Ownership (2019), which critique digital saturation and gentrification. His book Imaginary Apparatus: New York City and its Mediated Representation (2015) explores media’s influence on urban perception.

His recent projects include contributions to the 2025 Chicago Biennial and research on degrowth in urban planning (2024). Clutter also serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Architectural Education and is a registered architect in Michigan.