The Abend Family Lecture: Anna Dyson

Anna Dyson is the Hines Professor of Architecture at the Yale Schools of Architecture (YSoA) and Environment (YSE). She is the founding Director of the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (Yale CEA), a research initiative that integrates interdisciplinary labs across campus to collaborate on the research, development and deployment of novel architectural systems that are focused on the challenge of metabolizing energy, water and materials within architecture in radically new ways.

At the YSoA, Dyson has established a new model for PhD-level design research in Architectural Sciences which has received multiple honors for pedagogy, including the award for most innovative academic program from the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) and an Award of Excellence from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).

Dyson has been directing design research programs that have competitively won awards and contracts from multiple sponsors such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Department of Energy (DOE), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), The New York City Dept of Design and Construction (NYC-DDC), NYSERDA, NYSTAR, NEXUS, and from private sponsors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Baruch Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, and others.

Recipient of the Innovator Award from Architectural Record, Dyson holds many international patents on building systems innovations for the collection and distribution of clean energy, water, air quality and material life cycle. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The World Future Energy Summit (WFES), and The Center for Architecture. Designs for novel systems have won many awards, including a 1st prize from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for the Climate Camouflage and Integrated Concentrating Solar Façade systems, Architect R&D awards for the Solar Enclosure for Water Reuse (SEWR) and the Active Modular Phytoremediation System (AMPS).

In 2007, Dyson co-founded the ground-breaking Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE) with Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM LLP) and RPI. Multiple systems are being deployed within scaled up building test sites: with SOM, the AMPS system was installed into the Public Safety Answering Center (PSAC II) in Bronx, NY and was included in the Best Architecture of 2017 by the Wall St. Journal, as the first full-scale test of the production of fresh air from within a building through plant-based air handling systems. In 2019, Yale CEA's Ecological Living Module, demonstrating a nexus for on-site energy, water and agricultural production, was named as the #1 World Changing Idea, by the UN News.

This lecture was sponsored by the Abend Family Endowed Lecture Fund.