The Built Ecologies Project at New Lab is founded on the premise that future architects will be necessary protagonists in the radical transformation of built environment technologies in the 21st Century, towards ones that are restorative of the biosphere and create a new co-existence between humans and non-human living systems. As expert integrators, architects have a newly important role to play in the innovation and development of future technologies that operate ecosystemically, which is in contrast to the single function technologies that have characterized conventional mechanical and electrical systems, for which architects have become recipient specifiers.

This seminar was an intensive five-week summer course that presents students with the opportunity to experience the intensive and collaborative culture of high-impact technology innovation. Using facilities at the New Lab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, emerging technologies and methods that are at the forefront of the current Bioinformatic technological revolution were explored. Sensing and actuating frameworks that measure and underpin the flow of energy and information in future systems were also examined. Included were lectures and workshops on future systems for clean energy, food, water, air, and materials. The seminar culminated with the collaborative design and execution of a Built Environment Ecosystems Unit (BEE Unit) that integrates emerging technologies for metabolizing energy, water, air flows, food, and waste streams in novel ways that address global environmental imperatives.