Yale CEA

Tomorrow, 6.30pm at The New School join @yalecea Prof. Mae Ling Lokko at the next edition of Field to Form: Corn. Repost from @healthymaterialslab • It’s corn! From Field to Form, our seasonal series in collaboration with @archleague , is back to take you to the fields and forms of corn - the whole plant! 🌽 How are corn byproducts used for design and construction? Join us for a conversation with a corn breeder and plant scientist, material innovator, and a designer as we reframe our relationship with this ancient, revered plant and its descendants. We will explore how the vast “by-products” of the agricultural sector can represent a critical opportunity to serve as new feedstocks for design, architecture, and construction. ➡️ Thursday, April 30, 2026 ➡️ The New School in New York City ➡️ 6:30 - 8:00pm 🔗 RSVP at the link in bio.

📍The BEEM (Built Environment Ecosystem Measurements) Lab became a site of ecological interpretation and spatial inquiry as undergraduate Urban Studies students in URBN 3606 presented Assignment 3 — Streetscape Analysis + Species Selection. 📊🌱🪾🏙️📉🔭 The BEEM Lab, originally conceived in 1994 as a collaboration between the Schools of Architecture and Theater for the Yale Cabaret production NUDA VERITAS (“naked truth”), continues to operate as an experimental platform for collective reflection, knowledge production, and critical inquiry. Within this space, students situated and interrogated data through spatial and ecological lenses, using the laboratory as a medium to examine relationships between species, infrastructure, and environment, and to reveal the often latent impacts of information on both individual perception and collective organization. Instructor: Jacob Koch, TF: Ina Dajci

Over a century ago, George Washington Carver brought the Jesup Agricultural Wagon to rural communities across the South. It was a traveling classroom, sharing practical knowledge on farming, soil health, and new ways to use plants for food, textiles, and color. In the Fall of 2025, the Civilizations of Color research team at Yale CEA developed the Carver Mobile Color Lab inspired by Carver. Partnering with @armorycommunitygarden in New Haven to host a couple of participatory workshops exploring natural dyes and pigments sourced from food, agricultural and forestry by products, local clays and quarry mineral by-products in New Haven and Macon County. Working with gardeners, students, and neighbors, participants experimented with making color from materials usually treated as waste on a range of building materials - local woods, hempcrete, mycelium and earth masonry. Color Development and Workshop Team: Mae-ling Lokko, Laetitia Morlie, Brigid Elrod, Rebecca Mqamelo Fabrication: Mae-ling Lokko, Oswaldo Chinchilla, Alireza Samani Zamani, Laetitia Morlie, Moss Brener-Bryant Funding: Yale ASCEND Faculty Collaboration Grant (Yale CEA and Tuskegee School of Architecture) #carvercolorlab #plantone #jesupwagon #georgewashingtoncarver healthymaterials naturaldyes mineralpigments

Repost from @dffmovement • When we gather at the Design for Freedom Summit, we share ideas, innovations, and practices to shape a more just, sustainable, and transparent future for the built environment. On March 26, hundreds of leaders heard messages of action and inspiration from individuals at the forefront of ethical material sourcing: Dr. @maelokko Founder, @willowtechnology ; Assistant Professor, @yalearchitecture ; and Assistant Director, @yalecea , and @jhadamazi , Principal, Public Memory & Memorials Lab, @massdesigngroup . Dr. Lokko highlighted the impact bio-based materials and regenerative solutions to transform the building materials supply chain, support the environment, promote circularity, and reduce carbon emissions. “ . . . It’s through these relationships that we can essentially design a new value framework for materials, one that doesn’t just happen only at the point of sale, at the first life, but where different components can generate value throughout their life, and that hopefully will offer generative justice to pervade in our material value chains.” - Dr. Mae-ling Lokko. Significantly, Summit attendees had the opportunity to stop by the Yale CEA’s Carver Color Lab, which came to Grace Farms for the day. This experience offered a chance to learn about the development of natural colorants for the built environment, referenced by Lokko in her talk. In the afternoon, Jha D Amazi shared a resonant address that emphasized the need to expand public narratives to represent communities long excluded from U.S. memorial landscapes, and why it’s vital to lead with transparency, human rights, and sustainability. “If we are able to fundamentally shift architecture as being perceived only a service industry, but instead a knowledge-producing discipline, then we can better contribute to course-correcting our collective consciousness. We are not merely designers, but rather we are ethical stewards of systems.” - Jha D Amazi. To learn more about the fifth annual Design for Freedom Summit, visit the link in our bio.

The Carver Color Lab opened today at the @dffmovement summit at Grace Farms @gracefarmsct . The mobile lab is the outcome of Civilizations of Color, an interdisciplinary research collaboration between the Yale Center for Ecosystems and Architecture (@yalecea ) and Tuskegee University that explores the development of healthy colorants for the built environment. Bringing together architects, scientists, farmers, designers, and educators, Civilizations of Color reconsiders the whole life-cycle design of color. For architects, this means understanding color as part of a building’s material life – connected to the land, its resources, how it weathers and what happens after construction. Working with biogenic pigments invites us to see color as a product of local minerals, plants, and soils, and as an architectural technology that can transform agricultural and geological by-products into valuable materials.  Building on the legacy of the African American scientist and inventor, George Washington Carver, who sourced and experimented with a wide variety of pigments made from clays, plants, and agricultural byproducts, our research team explored how forestry waste, farm byproducts, and quarry soils across Connecticut and Alabama can become sources of color for architecture. Inspired also by Carver’s “Jesup Wagon”, a mobile classroom designed to bring scientific agricultural education directly to farmers in Alabama, our Carver Color Lab aims to serve as a mobile lab for processing collected biogenic materials, testing building material colorant performance and educating the broader public on the design opportunities for biobased color.   Faculty collaborators:  Dr. Mae-ling Lokko (Yale University), Amma Asamoah (Tuskegee University), Sasha Duerr, Tei Carpenter (Princeton University), Mark Aronson (Yale Center for British Art) Research Team:  Yale University: Laetitia Morlie, Oswaldo Chinchilla, Alireza Samani Zamani, Brigid Elrod, Rebecca Mqamelo, Maria Teleman, Precious Ndukuba, Moss Brenner-Byant Tuskegee University: Zaire Landon, Autumn Dickerson, Victoria Sanders Funding: Yale ASCEND Faculty Collaboration Grant

Tonight at Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture 🌿 9–10pm | 73 Howe Street, New Haven @yalecea @yaleccam Closing event + refreshments ✨ Live performance of Plant Citizenship Event 2 — Urban Garden Composition by Daniel Perlin A plant becomes a collaborator. Its bioelectric signals are translated into sound, fed back, and transformed in real time—shifting frequencies, resisting others, composing alongside a human performer as one species among many. Multispecies music. Urban ecology. A small, radical civic gesture. 🌱🎶 @sethembryo

Repost from @archifringe • EVENT: We’re delighted to be joined by architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko @maelokko @yalearchitecture @yalecea and architect Mireia Luzárraga @mireialuzarraga @we_are_takk @columbiagsapp at the Harvard Graduate School of Design on February 11th. Mae-ling and Mireia will present and discuss aspects of their respective research, teaching and design practices that shift us towards a deeper co-existence with planetary systems, nature, and non-human life. This public lecture looks to reimagine our reciprocal relationship with the world around us by exploring ideas across science, architecture and construction in pursuit of a more symbiotic and sustainable future through recalibrated material cultures, fabrication customs, responsive environments, and social norms. 🍃Reciprocity - Architecrures of Exchange 🎙️Mae-ling Lokko and Mireia Luzárraga 📍Harvard Graduate School of Design 📆 February 11 2026 ⏰6:30pm - 8pm Free and open to the public. A livestream will be available via the GSD website. With support from the Loeb Fellowship @harvardgsd @loebfellows

This Spring, we are kicking off our @yalecea lecture series with a lecture from the inspiring Mark Sarkisian of @skidmoreowingsmerrill . Taking place at 2pm on Thursday, February 5th at Yale CEA, his lecture will focus on how research has informed new approaches to design including work at all scales from pavilions to some of the tallest structures in the world.  The work contemplates advanced concepts of geometry, growth patterns, optimization theories, the theory of emergence, and futuristic approaches to construction.  Mark P. Sarkisian, PE, SE, NAE, NAC, LEED BD+C, Partner of Seismic and Structural Engineering in the San Francisco office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, has developed innovative engineering solutions for over 100 major building projects around the world including some of the tallest and most complex. Mark holds eleven U.S. Patents and five International Patents for high-performance seismic structural mechanisms designed to protect buildings in areas of high seismicity and for seismic and environmentally responsible structural systems. In 2021, Mark was elected to the prestigious United States’ National Academy of Engineering and in 2025 he was elected to the National Academy of Construction.  He has received the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC) H.J. Brunnier Lifetime Achievement Award and the Fazlur Khan Life-Cycle Civil Engineering Medal.  He is the author of “Designing Tall Buildings – Structure as Architecture” a foundational text for structural engineering and architectural design and teaches at UC Berkeley, California College of the Arts, Stanford University, Cal Poly, Northeastern University, NC State University, the Pratt Institute, and Alcala University in Madrid. He has a BS-CE Degree from the University of Connecticut and is a Fellow of the Academy of Distinguished Engineers, an MS-SE Degree from Lehigh University, an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Clarkson University, and an Honorary Master’s Degree from the Politecnico di Milano.

Excited to welcome Glenn DeRoche @gderoche01 of @derocheprojects to give our first Spring Soil Sisters guest lecture this Tuesday, February 3rd in the BEEM lab (Yale School of Architecture) exploring new approaches and design frameworks for earth construction. Glenn DeRoche is a Brooklyn-born architect and designer of Caribbean descent, currently based between Accra and New York City. Early experiences moving between the United States, the Caribbean and West Africa have shaped his understanding of the built environment — where climate, culture and resources inform how and why we build. His work spans continents and contexts, incorporating local materials and inviting global conversations. In 2022, DeRoche founded his studio with the mission of establishing a new kind of practice that bridges traditional material systems and contemporary building methods, grounded in context, artisanry and collaboration. His internationally recognized work includes dot. Ateliers | Ogbojo Residency, named an Editor’s Pick in Architect’s Newspaper’s 2024 Best of Design Awards, and The Surf Ghana Collective, exhibited at the 2022 Venice Architecture Biennale and winner of the 2023 Holcim Gold Award for Sustainable Construction. The studio also was nominated for The Architectural Review’s 2025 AR Emerging Awards. All photos courtesy of DeRoche Projects Photo credits: Julien Lanoo

Como será viver em harmonia com o planeta? Durante a COP30, e anunciado diretamente na Blue Zone, o Museu do Amanhã, em parceria com o Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture, GlobalABC e o Programa das Nações Unidas para o Meio Ambiente (UNEP), vai trazer ao Rio, em 2026, o Ecological Living Module (ELM) — um protótipo de moradia sustentável que será instalado na área externa do Museu. Autossuficiente, o ELM combina energia solar, captação de água da chuva e agricultura integrada, mostrando como é possível viver com conforto, tecnologia e baixo impacto ambiental. Depois de passar por Nova Iorque (EUA) e Nairóbi (Quênia), o módulo chega ao Rio de Janeiro como uma referência internacional em construção ecológica e inovação climática — um convite para imaginar novos modos de habitar o planeta. Em breve, contamos mais! O Museu do Amanhã é um equipamento público da @prefeitura_rio , implementado e gerido pelo @idginstituto .

Today at COP16, we gathered with partners from UNEP, Saint-Gobain, the University of São Paulo, and Yale CEA to explore what the next generation of sustainable living can look like. Our session highlighted ELM Brazil, the newest prototype in the Ecological Living Network, to be installed at the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, in June 2026. ELM Brazil shows how housing modules can produce their own Clean Energy, Water, Air quality and Food using bio-based materials and integrated living systems tailored to local climatic and geographic conditions. From New York to Nairobi to Rio, each ELM builds on real lessons for design, research, materials, and policy. A special part of today’s dialogue, with opening remarks from Felipe Faria, Executive Director of the Green Building Council Brazil, setting the stage for the conversation. We were honored to close the session with remarks from the President of the Museum of Tomorrow, who reinforced the importance of hosting ELM Brazil in this iconic institution in 2026. Grateful for the collaboration behind this work, and excited for what comes next for the Ecological Living Network and Yale CEA. #ELMBrazil #EcologicalLivingNetwork #YaleCEA #yaleuniversity #yaleschoolofarchitecture #UNEP #saintgobain #museumoftomorrow #COP30 #Riodejaneiro #museumdoamanha

At COP30 in Belém, Yale CEA joins UNEP and partners to announce ELM Brazil, the next chapter of the Ecological Living Network - advancing regenerative design for water, energy, biomaterials, and food systems tailored to the Brazilian context. ELM is set to open at the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro in June 2026 #COP30 #YaleCEA #UNEP #ELMBrazil #EcologicalLivingNetwork #MuseumOfTomorrow #museudoamanhã