Only an Awakening of the Human Heart Will Save Us

Back in 2005 I began working on a short manifesto I called the Living Building Standard. It was meant to clearly describe how architecture needed to be transformed in order to be in positive relationship with the natural world—to build humanity’s structures to be as ecologically regenerative as a beaver’s dam or a hornet’s nest. Like trees or plants, living buildings would generate all their energy from the sun, work within the water balance of a site, and be built with natural, non-polluting materials. 

Projects like the Living Village at YDS are not only possible now—they are better than conventional construction, healthier to be in, less expensive to operate, more beautiful to behold.

By 2006 I had launched the idea as a new building standard, now called the Living Building Challenge, which was meant to go far beyond LEED certification and help raise the glass ceiling and redefine what was possible with design and construction. At first people thought I was pushing the impossible, especially since what I advocated for was at the time technically illegal (water regulations often prohibited onsite collection and reuse) and prohibitively expensive (renewable energy had not yet dropped significantly in price like it now has). Until the Living Building Challenge came along, green building was incremental and reductionist in its approach—now it was holistic and based on a deep philosophical premise.  

But who would eschew normal building practices and build one?

Thankfully, quite a lot of people, actually. 

A Vision on Prospect Street

By 2009 we were certifying the world’s first living buildings. Leaders emerged around the world across all sectors to help blaze a trail for ecological performance. These projects began to shake up the design and construction world. Their impact was transformative, and in 2015 Yale Divinity School became interested. Focused on ecotheology as a framework, the idea at YDS was to help shape future moral leaders by having them live and study within living buildings on campus. The School’s Living Village concept was born, and I was honored to help YDS imagine what was possible on its historic campus. That vision, which took a decade to come to fruition—is now a reality with the first Living Building dormitory on campus, the Carol B. Bauer Hall.

Projects like this create a physical manifestation of a set of values and a place of hope for a truly living future. Other living buildings nearby include the HMTX World Headquarters in Norwalk, CT, that I designed, the Omega Institute’s Omega Center for Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, NY, by BNIM Architects, and the R.W. Kern Center at Hampshire College, by Bruner/Cott.

Such projects are like lighthouses shining a beam towards the possible. And the reach is growing to new audiences in exciting ways. 

We will soon begin construction in Richmond, VA, on the world’s first public school living building. When completed in 2026, this Henrico County School District Living Building at Wilton Farm will bring environmental stewardship to thousands of K-12 students across the socioeconomic spectrum every year.

The truth is, though, living buildings remain a rare find—most new buildings are still constructed with massive environmental consequences of pollution and habitat loss. We have been successful in proving there is a better, more responsible way to build—but as yet have not shifted the mainstream to actually do so. If we are honest, we have to admit that humanity continues to cause irreparable harm to all the environmental systems that support life on earth—and that rate of damage is accelerating. The loss of biodiversity each year is staggering, the impacts of climate change undeniable and worsening. Despite all the scientific evidence, despite all the impacts of flooding, wildfires, and stronger hurricanes occurring closer and closer to home, we carry on like the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling pot, sitting obliviously still while the world burns.

In 2015, the same year that the Divinity School began its Living Building journey, Pope Francis published his Laudato Si’ encyclical calling for the care of our common home. In it he says: 

“The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.” 

He further reminds us:

“The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life…. Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.”

In my work with Living Buildings, what I have discovered is that merely showing people a better way is not enough if you don’t also change what is in people’s hearts and minds. Science and facts alone are not enough to shift behavior. I had hoped that the first living buildings would usher in an avalanche of projects, but it remains a trickle (albeit a growing one) despite the fact that it is now much easier to build like this with reasonable economics. Projects like the Living Village at Yale are not only possible now—they are better than conventional construction, healthier to be in, less expensive to operate, more beautiful to behold, and they ensure a legacy of positive rather than negative impacts. 

The true success of the Living Village—and all living buildings—is the rate at which it can influence minds and change how people relate to the world. For the Living Village on Prospect Street in New Haven, CT, to operate truly in a “living” way will mean opening hearts to the natural world of those who reside there. Can such a living building help us build life?

Ravaged Hills and Restoration

I grew up in Sudbury, Ontario, a town famous at the time for its nickel-mining traditions, environmental destruction, and massive smokestack—a place once marked by open-pit fires and ravaged hills. But the town began a Land Reclamation Program when I was young, and I was able to witness and participate as the community eventually restored much of its natural contours and beauty. That left a big mark on me when I decided to pursue design and architecture.[1]  

What finally matters most in the movement to improve the built environment is not the bricks and mortar but what it engenders within ourselves: a sustained awakening of the human heart is the only thing that will save us. I believe this so much that I inscribed a motto on the front door of my solar-powered living building residence (Heron Hall) on Bainbridge Island, WA, so that every visitor to my home—especially young friends of my children—would be reminded of our role as loving members of this beautiful planet. 

Creating environments where the human heart can be nurtured through architecture, aligned with all of life’s beautiful creation, is what it truly means to flourish in a Living Building.

Jason F. McLennan, a chief consultant and champion of the YDS Living Village, is the creator of the Living Building Challenge, which is known as the world’s most stringent sustainability building certification program. He is the founder and former CEO of the International Living Future Institute, and is now Chief Sustainability Office with the global architecture firm Perkins&Will. He is the author of a new book, The Magic of Imperfection: The ¾ Baked Secret to Unlocking Innovation and Getting More Done (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2025).