Buildings account for 40% of global energy use and 25% of water consumption. The Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture hopes to change that.

Imagine a small house whose exterior is covered with planters full of ripe radishes, carrots, and lettuce. Indoors, another wall of plants stretches floor to ceiling. Their microbe-rich roots capture harmful air pollutants. If you touch the plants, beneficial microbes cross to you, possibly prompting a subtle shift of your own microbiome toward better health.

The house captures rainwater, purifying it on-site with solar energy. The entire structure is made of flaked-wood slabs that are strong enough to replace steel. Unlike steel, though, these slabs sequester carbon. The building can be taken apart, the slabs re-used elsewhere, or their carbon released to other organisms that keep it from re-entering the atmosphere. 

Houses like these may become commonplace — even urgently necessary — as the world’s resources grow scarcer, the planet warms, and the climate weirds. So the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (Yale CEA), a transdisciplinary research enterprise based in the School of Architecture, is rethinking global sustainability for the 21st century. 

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