“Towards Ecosystem-of-Systems Research and Development in Architectural Sciences”

Anna Dyson

Hines Professor of Sustainable Architectural Design and Professor at the School of the Environment, Yale University

Abstract
Currently, there is massive anticipation that societies will imminently reach performance targets such as ‘net-zero energy’ and ‘carbon neutrality’ for housing, commercial buildings and cities. On the one hand it should be easier to transform the built environment before other sectors such as transportation or manufacturing, because the apparent match between available ambient resources (such as solar, water and wind) and their potential redistribution towards requirements, such as heating, lighting and cooling, seems within reach in most climates. However, the peculiar challenge of the built environment is that it’s ecosystemically entrenched, whereby the systems are conceptually and physically intertwined: across old and new, past and present, large and small, biotic and abiotic. Here, we argue that in order to meet the proposed targets, we need to radically shift the context within which we develop and test novel systemic approaches, in order to deeply integrate across functions to dramatically the amplify the synergistic deployment of on-site ambient energy resources. 

Bio
Anna Dyson is the Hines Professor of Architecture at the School of Architecture and Professor at the School of the Environment at Yale. Dyson is also the founding Director of the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (CEA). She has been a professor of architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she founded the Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE) in Manhattan with Skidmore Owings and Merrill LLP in 2006.
Recipient of the Innovator Award from Architectural Record in 2015, Dyson holds many international patents on building systems innovations for the collection and distribution of clean energy, water, air quality and material life cycle. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The World Future Energy Summit (WFES), and The Center for Architecture. Designs for novel systems have been recognized with over twenty awards, including a 1st prize from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for the Integrated Concentrating Solar Façade and Climate Camouflage systems, multiple Architect R&D for systems including the Solar Enclosure for Water Reuse (SEWR) and the Active Modular Phytoremediation System (AMPS). Multiple systems are being deployed, with the AMPS system recently installed into the Public Safety Answering Center (PSAC II) in the Bronx, included in the Best Architecture of 2017 by the Wall St. Journal, as the first full scale test of the production of fresh air from within a building through plant-based air handling systems.

Boxed lunches will be served at 12:00 noon in Maeder Hall lobby.
For the complete line up, visit https://acee.princeton.edu/2021-2022-highlight-seminar-series/.