Living Village wins award for ‘visionary’ use of glass

Yale Divinity School’s Living Village has won an award for its “visionary” use of glass as both an aesthetic feature and a key contributor to the building’s success meeting its sustainability goals.

At a glass-industry conference earlier last week, the Living Village won the top prize for the northeast region. Opened last August, the School’s regenerative residence hall was recognized for “pairing a bold vision with measurable performance. As one of the first regenerative housing communities of its kind, the project positions glass in a leading role—not just as an aesthetic feature, but also as a key contributor to energy goals and comfort.”

Yale Divinity School Dean Greg Sterling welcomed the award and said he hopes it will be the first of many recognizing the Living Village’s contributions to sustainability and the built environment. 

“We are very pleased to receive this recognition for an important part of the Living Village’s regenerative design and functioning,” Sterling said. “Through its creative use of glass and other building materials and design approaches, we hope to demonstrate not only the benefits but also the feasibility of building in harmony with the living world.”

The 51-bed Bauer Hall at the Living Village uses glass extensively to make the building more beautiful and sustainable. This includes:

• Bird-safe fritted glass that uses subtle but clearly visible marks—consistent with Yale’s Bird-Friendly Building Initiative–to alert birds to the presence of a solid surface and protect them from fatal collisions with the building’s many windows
• Large windows throughout the building, including in every student’s room, that allow residents to maintain visual contact with the lush landscape that surrounds the residence hall—essential to the Living Village’s “biophilic” design
• Use of triple-glazed, high-performance glass in the buildings’ expansive windows, for energy conservation and temperature and noise insulation
• “Single-loaded” hallways with rooms on only one side, allowing for glass walls on the other side overlooking the building plaza

The Living Village is part of the University’s broader commitment to climate action through capital and campus stewardship investment. Upon certification, the village will be largest living-building residential project at any university to meet all seven performance standards of the Living Building Challenge, the most rigorous green building certification program in the world.

The project is designed to reflect and support the School’s growing commitment and programming in “ecotheology,” a new current in Western religion that address the ecological crisis through a spiritual and religious lens. 

A sustainable living-learning community: Learn more about the Living Village.

The project’s lead architect was the Boston-based firm Bruner/Cott, with Howeler + Yoon serving as design architects. Shawmut Design and Construction delivered the project. The glaziers were Massey’s Plate Glass & Aluminum Inc. and Cascadia Windows & Doors, using Guardian SunGuard/Bird1st glass fabricated by Press Glass and Garibaldi Glass Industries, Inc.