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West Portal and Bauer Hall
The open and welcoming West Portal is the primary entrance to the Living Village. Unlike many historic Yale buildings, the portal is designed without gates. The absence of gates is a deliberate choice, reflecting the LBC’s Equity Petal imperative for Universal Access and the theological principle of radical hospitality.
Learn more about Bauer Hall.
Overlooking Prospect Street, the Orchard is an informal native green space with meandering paths that weave through native plantings dotted with apple- and nut-bearing trees. It serves as a vital agricultural element, fundamental to the Living Village ethos of providing locally grown food while attending to the ecology of the place.
The Graze is a casual public seating area in the Village Plaza, framed by planting beds filled with blueberries, strawberries, serviceberry trees, and a variety of herbs. This space is designed as an edible landscape directly contributing to the LBC’s Urban Agriculture imperative and Place petal. The intention is for this edible landscape to reflect a wild beauty and offer shared nourishment to both humans and local wildlife, while strategically enhancing the site’s ecological function, biodiversity, and accessibility.
Bauer Hall
The regenerative student residential hall is designed to be the largest living-building housing complex on a university campus.
Learn more
This large community green is the central organizing element of the Living Village and the main entrance to the Divinity School. From here, you can see residential entrances, the Community Kitchen, and the solar shades along the building’s façade. The Plaza is designed as a flexible gathering space, supporting everything from organized events to casual encounters and impromptu conversations. It increases the site’s density while prioritizing pedestrian activity, creating a true hub of daily life.
Confluence is a water and stone sculpture conceptualized by Yale School of Architecture students Ellen Zhu, Julia Edwards, and Cole Quist. The design was brought to life in collaboration with Monti Ackerman, a fourth-generation granite artist from Quincy, Massachusetts, who blended rough granite stone with precise craftsmanship to achieve refined and tactile finishes.
The East Portal offers a striking panoramic view of East Rock, crowned by the iconic Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument that honors New Haven citizens who gave their lives in America’s major wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. From this vantage point, you can also take in the lush tree canopy—maple, oak, birch, and pine—an ever-changing tapestry that reflects both the richness of local culture and the resilience of New Haven’s natural ecology.
Overlooking the East Rock lawn, the Amphitheater creates an inviting communal space formed by Massachusetts granite blocks set on contour and surrounded by native plantings, edible landscapes, and comfortable grass seating areas.
The Water Commons is a central and defining feature of the Living Village, intended to attain the goal of net-zero water, enhance ecological function, and support community gatherings and education. The Commons functions as an integrated water-management system, employing rain gardens and constructed wetlands that naturally treat both rainwater runoff and wastewater on-site to be reused in alignment with the LBC Water Petal imperatives.
Stone memory piles are an Indigenous tradition used to honor the memories and deeds of ancestors. This memory pile is made with rocks from the Yale Divinity School grounds on the homelands of the Quinnipiac, or Long Water People. As a gesture of collective memory and acknowledgment, visitors are invited to move a small river stone from the small basin to the larger memory pile.
The Grove is a shaded pathway allée connecting existing residences to the Living Village and Divinity School via a grove of oaks and service-berry and tulip trees.
A community garden established in 2009 by students, faculty, and administrators; tended by campus volunteers in cooperation with the Yale School of the Environment.
The Living Village is a new type of graduate student residence, seeking full certification under the Living Building Challenge (LBC). Built on a former parking lot, the project area is 4.4 acres with a 44,000-square-foot building, comprising 49 units, with a total of 51 bedrooms. Organized around a central plaza, the Village is designed to build community while supporting a sustainable and regenerative way of life.
Theological Statements and Background
YDS is charged with the responsibility to be stewards of creation. Sustainable living is not only an ecological decision but an ethical one, driven by our growing recognition that humans are part of nature, not lords over it. Compelled to put biblical and ecotheological principles into practice, we invite others to join us in creating a flourishing future.
Living Building Challenge
The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, advocacy tool, and certification program defining today’s most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment. It addresses all buildings at all scales and is an inclusive tool for transformative design. The Living Building Challenge provides a framework for designing, constructing, and improving the symbiotic relationships between people and all aspects of the built and natural environments.
The LBC structured around seven performance categories known as “Petals,” each representing a key aspect of a truly living building. The Petals are Place, Water, Energy, Health & Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty.
For more information: https://living-future.org/lbc
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