Terrapin Bright Green

Building the future through research and innovation

Drawing from the latest cross-disciplinary research, we are reimagining standard practices in the built environment. Collaborating with researchers in diverse fields ranging from psychology to materials science, we publish reports, white papers, and articles to engage the community and inform our clients’ projects. This work brings together human wellbeing, the built environment, and the life sciences to create innovative solutions for a changing world.

Reports

Blog Features

Recent articles from our blog that describe our work and ideas

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Snapshot of book title.

Rediscovering a Legacy through the Lens of Biophilia

British Columbia (BC), Canada’s westernmost province, has a centuries-old tradition of wood construction by the First Nations of the region. Their round houses and planked long houses made great use of the giant western red cedar and the fine-grained yellow cedar. For BC’s largest city, Vancouver, timber exports were the basis of its original economy. […]

A Right to Daylight, the Fight Continues

The administration at the University of California Santa Barbara finally realized that the emperor had no clothes and cancelled the mostly windowless Munger Hall,1 but the fight for natural light and air continues. The monstrous dorm would have sentenced over 4,000 students to bedrooms with no windows, creating a potentially disastrous living experience. In location near […]

The Evolution of Agrihoods

Agrihoods, neighborhoods that incorporate food production into their design, have been getting more attention in the residential development world. In many cases, these projects are conventional sprawl with a tiny community garden or orchard. Whereas, in their truest form, agrihoods weave food production into the design and experiential fabric of their communities in much more […]

Ed Wilson, Our Naturalist and Half-Earth Hero

A man to whom Terrapin owes much of our passion and focus passed away last month. Edward O. Wilson made multiple contributions to science and society. His focus on ants and their behaviors led to a sometimes controversial exploration of innate vs learned behavior in other species—sociobiology, a field in which he was a pioneer. […]