DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH DESIGN
Through research, innovation, and collaboration, the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities is promoting holistic change within the built environment.
DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH DESIGN
Through research, innovation, and collaboration, the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities is promoting holistic change within the built environment.
Using design-centric strategy to develop processes, systems, and products
Our researchers and faculty focus on four interrelated areas of research: design and operation, high-performance materials and construction, technology adoption and diffusion, and sustainable planning.
Creating and improving sustainable, high-performance buildings and cities
HouseZero, the Center’s headquarters, is a pre-1940s house in Cambridge, MA that has been retrofitted into an ultra-efficiency, healthy, positive energy structure with ambitious performance targets.
Promoting understanding of building performance through data and building science
HouseZero is continuously collecting data in order to conduct experimentation, inform building improvements, and educate others about building performance.
Design and operation
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News
Harvard Researchers Detail How Internet of Things (IoT) Architecture Promotes Ultra-Energy Efficiency in Buildings
Newly-published research explains IoT applications in data-driven Harvard HouseZero™.
How Designers Can Help Keep Our Air Breathable
Ensuring the safety and quality of air is now an urgent issue for designers. Holly Samuelson, Associate Professor in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), is changing how the design fields think about the complexities of air quality.
Publication by CGBC researchers selected as one of “Best of 2022” in Advanced Materials Technologies
The research paper investigates how ceramic porous materials, which can be created through 3D printing, function for thermal management.
Harvard Researchers Unveil an Array of Promising Projects Aimed at Enhancing the World’s Built Environment
Center for Green Buildings and Cities spotlights sampling of faculty findings during Climate Action Week.
Struggling to Design Green Buildings Amid Shifting Legal, Tech Landscape
The push to prepare American cities and towns for greater climate resilience has become more urgent in recent years as scientific evidence of warming mounts and extreme weather events grow more common.
Stories
Center Spotlight: Elence Xinzhu Chen
When Elence Xinzhu Chen was young, she wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Center Spotlight: Pete Howard
Though there are many people that contribute to HouseZero™, the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC) net-zero carbon emissions building and living laboratory, Pete Howard is the building’s primary caretaker.
Center Spotlight: Ellie Jungmin Han
For Ellie Jungmin Han, the most interesting research findings lie at the intersection between architectural design, building physics, and computer and data science.
Lessons Learned
Researchers at the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC) share insights from their work.
Center Spotlight: Saurabh Mhatre
Among the Harvard community – or what he calls Harvard’s research “ecosystem” – Saurabh Mhatre is an accomplished collaborator.