Yale Building

Lab

The Regenerative Building seminar is the first of a two-stage curricular sequence that culminates in the design and construction of a new Coastal Research Station during the summer of 2020 for the Peabody Museum of Natural History. The site for the building is on Horse Island, one of the outermost islands of the Thimble Island chain lying just off the coast of Branford, CT. Working as part of an interdisciplinary team of graduate students and faculty, consultants, university administrators and industrial partners, participants will explore concepts, methods, and tools of regenerative, low carbon building design and construction, creating the foundational technical and ecological research, the conceptual framework, and the planning and logistical groundwork for the subsequent project phases of design development (May-June, 2020) and component fabrication and installation (July- September, 2020.)

Located 1.5 miles off the coast of Connecticut in the Long Island Sound, Horse Island is the largest and least developed of the Thimble Island archipelago. For decades, Horse Island has been managed by the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History as an ecological field station. In order to better serve Yale’s ongoing ecological research, and to increase the accessibility of Horse Island to the wider academic community, the design team collaborated with the Peabody Museum and Yale School of Architecture to design and build an off-grid Research Station that features a pavilion with covered patio spaces, a flexible teaching area able to be completely opened to the exterior, solar energy generation, rainwater collection and filtration, overnight accommodations, and secure storage for field research equipment.