Homes for Our Time: Sustainable Living

Travel across continents and climates to experience architecture that’s rewriting the rules of sustainability. Like the other titles in our Homes for Our Time series, each of the 63 projects in Sustainable Living opens a window into a unique dwelling inspired by the pressures and possibilities of a warming planet with finite resources. 

The result is a sweeping story of architects, ranging from Norman Foster to the Snøhetta practice, building in bold new ways that honor the ecosystems our planet depends on. Homes that strive to leave the lightest possible imprint, from the moment their materials are sourced to the day they’re returned to the earth. Energy-efficient envelopes, low-impact structures, recycled and biodegradable materials, designs attuned to sun, wind and rain. Each construction is an illuminating chapter in architecture’s evolving quest to do no harm, beautifully photographed and annotated, alongside biographies of the architects who created them.

No single region or style holds the monopoly on eco-friendly innovation. Marvel at the multiplicity of inventive responses: affordable bamboo structures rising above floodwaters in Hanoi, a home created from locally-quarried rock and slate in a Japanese forest, a brick cube encouraging passive cooling in the heat of Ahmedabad, an emergency shelter literally unrolled in a Venetian garden, a passive house nestled beneath Australian treetops.

Whether modest or monumental, these enviable projects prove that sustainability isn’t a look or a pose, but a mindset that transcends traditions, borders, and budgets. Each one invites us to design smarter, live lighter, and waste nothing.