Although humans in the developed world spend 90% of their lives in enclosed buildings, we know very little about the biology of the built environment. Buildings are complex ecosystems that house trillions of diverse microorganisms interacting with each other, with humans, and with their environment. Recent advances in microbial genomics offer the potential to significantly advance our understanding of the built environment “microbiome”. To realize this potential, the Biology and the Built Environment (BioBE) Center is training a new generation of innovators and practitioners at the architecture-biology interface.

The vision of this national research center, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is to develop a hypothesis-driven, evidence-based approached to understand the built environment microbiome. Our goal is to optimize the design and operation of buildings to promote both human health and environmental sustainability, with an emphasis on green healthcare design.