CEA Events
CEA Spring Meeting
Transforming the DNA of the Built Environment
Transforming the DNA of the Built Environment is a two-part meeting held in the Spring and Fall of 2018 to kick off a collaboration between The Center for Ecosystems in Architecture at Yale (CEA) and New Lab. In Spring 2018, we will meet to discuss new strategies for linking systems for energy, water, air, food, and material life cycles through the mission of emergency housing, which will be the subject of a 36-month research, development, and demonstration project. In Fall 2018, we will meet to tackle the innovative ways in which new DNA for materials, devices, and integrated systems could lead to fundamentally different infrastructural models for distributing resources at the urban and district scales.
Due to increasingly massive patterns of migration and displacement, taking on emergency housing and infrastructure in a meaningful way is becoming one of the most intractable global challenges. Paradoxically, if taken on as a fundamental research challenge, it may also provide us with a rare opportunity to reconceive the basic DNA of the built environment sector itself, which is the principal contributor to climate change effects, non-renewable resource consumption, and toxic degradation of ecosystems. This opportunity is unique as the conditions do not necessarily come with all of the entrenched interests and impediments that limit the integration of building systems innovations and procedures. However, the challenge of emergency housing requires important advances in materials and methods for viably delivering safe and sustainable on-site energy, water, food and waste management, within manufactured systems that create lasting, respectful, humane environments.
To take on what we view to be the overriding challenge, which is the achievement of a dramatic increase in efficiency and reduction in material requirements for the delivery of functions, CEA is installing a novel test facility called the Built Environment Ecosystems Measurements Laboratory (BEEM Lab). Co-located at Yale and New Lab, BEEM Lab will provide an open architecture in which collaborators can competitively test the integration of any material or device within an ecosystem-of-systems environment. In this way, we will avoid the intractable problem of limiting systems innovations to the insertion of incremental, isolated strategies because they commonly have to comply with the context of conventional systems delivery methods.
Event Agenda
9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Registration
9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Welcome David Belt, New Lab CEO
Opening Remarks Cas Holloway, Bloomberg LP Global Head of Technical Operations
Introduction Anna Dyson, CEA Founding Director and Hines Professor at the Yale School of Architecture and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Energy
- How do we fundamentally rethink the relationship between building energy flows and the health and preferences of occupants?
- Can building systems capture, transfer, store, and redistribute ambient energy flows with abundant earth (biocompatible) materials and methods?
- How can we incorporate energy capture into multifunctional structural systems that also integrate climate control, water, air, and food management?
Moderator: Daniel Gross, Yale Center for Business and the Environment
Speakers: Chris Sharples, Founding Principal at SHoP Architects — HeliOptix Jason Vollen, VP, High Performance Buildings Leader, AECOM Forrest Meggers, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Andlinger Center for Energy and the Enviroment, Princeton University Berardo Matalucci, Co-Founder of MIMiC Systems
11:30 a.m. - 12:15 a.m. Water
- What are the most promising approaches toward locally self-sufficient water usage?
- How can we couple distributed energy and water systems to maximize efficiency and quality?
- How can we viably incorporate potable water capture from airstreams in humid climates?
- How can we dramatically extend water cycle usage in hot-arid climates through buildings?
Moderator: Doris Sung, Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, DOSU Studio Architecture
Speakers: Kipp Bradford, Research Scientist at CEA, Yale Demetrios Comodromos, Founding Principal of METHOD Design Aletheia Ida, Chair MS Arch EBT at University of Arizona
12:15 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Lunch
1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. Ecosystem
- How can we viably harness plant-based processes to produce fresh air and food from within buildings?
- How can we integrate building integrated based sensors into air and water quality management and purification?
Moderator: Susan Szenasy, Founding Editor of Metropolis Magazine
Speakers: Jefferson Ellinger, Associate Professor of UNC Charlotte, Ellinger DLR Matt Gindlesparger, Visiting Professor at Philadelphia University Ranjit Arpels-Josiah, Principal of Entertaining Health Andrew Rosner, Managing Principal of Entertaining Health
1:45 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. Materials
- How can we integrate environmental control systems into the materials of modular prefab units?
- How can we dramatically increase efficiencies and reduce non-renewable material consumption through circular material economies?
- How can we deliver rapid on-site installation of fully functional and integrated built ecologies that are durable but easily adaptable?
Moderator: Demetrios Comodromos, Owner and Partner of METHOD Design
Speakers: Alan Organschi, Principal of Gray Organschi Architecture Rebecca Lorenz, Senior Designer at SHoP Architects Francis Bitonti, Founder of Studio Bitonti Mae-Ling Lokko, CEO of Willow Technologies
2:45 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Break
3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Data
- How can we incorporate far more extensive but readily accessible information into the BE Process throughout the Life Cycle, live data sharing, and flexible dashboards?
- How can we better leverage big mechanism processes to integrate direct sensor feeds to knowledge networks (from micro to meta data)?
- How can we create testbeds with data visualization and analytics that are layered with critical semantics, such as uncertainty characterization and provenance of data?
Moderator: Edward Roussel, Chief Innovation Officer at Dow Jones
Speakers: Anna Dyson, Founding Director of Yale CEA and Hines Professor at Yale Naomi Keena, Postdoc Associate at Yale CEA Simone Rothman, CEO of Future Air Alexandros Tsiamis, Acting Director at the Center for Architecture Science & Ecology at RPI
3:45 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Action
- Discussion and proposals for further action: Innovation Ecosystems for Built Environment
Moderator: Rosalie Genevro, Executive Director of the Architectural League
Speakers: Chris Sharples, Principal at SHoP Architects Alan Organschi, Principal at Gray Organschi Architecture Phil Bernstein, Associate Dean of the Yale School of Architecture Anna Dyson, Founding Director of Yale CEA and Hines Professor at Yale Leila Kamal, VP of Design and Expertise at EYP Architects Mitchell Joachim, Co-President at Terreform ONE
4:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Closing Remarks: Kenneth A. Lewis, Partner at SOM Deborah Berke, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture
5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Reception
Contact
About CEA
The Center of Ecosystems in Architecture (CEA) is bringing together collaborators across the Yale Schools of Architecture, Forestry & Environmental Studies, Medicine, Public Health, Management, Engineering, Art and Law to work with industry on methods to tackle the impediments facing meaningful transformation of the built environment process. CEA leverages the ongoing explosion of knowledge in life sciences and information technology to fundamentally re-inform the built environment process, by prioritizing the requirements of living ecosystems towards the development of buildings and cities that support biodiversity.
Alongside our partners in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry, CEA seeks to accelerate the transition of global construction patterns towards biocompatible models by uniting deep expertise of current practices with radically new socio-economic and biocompatible approaches.