The Art of Architectural Grafting

Architect Jeanne Gang explores how the horticultural practice of grafting can inspire a fresh paradigm for sustainable design.

Jeanne Gang, one of America’s most distinguished contemporary architects, proposes applying the plant cultivation technique of grafting to architecture and urban design as a way of rethinking adaptive reuse and combatting climate change. Grafting is the process of connecting two separate living plants--one old and one new--so they can grow and thrive as one. This ancient practice continues to be performed today in search of more fruitful, palatable, and resilient varieties of plants.

Grafting is also a useful paradigm for how architecture can address climate change on a broadly impactful scale by reusing and expanding older structures. Addressing both the environmental and cultural value of reuse, Gang shows how the concept of grafting can inform architecture across many scales, provoking the imagination and shaping tectonic, programmatic, formal, and regenerative adaptations.

Jeanne Gang is an American architect and founder and leader of Studio Gang, an architecture and design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Paris.