Architect Jeanne Gang argues that the agricultural technique of “grafting” can help building design adapt to climate change. French-language edition.

Jeanne Gang, one of America’s most distinguished contemporary architects, proposes using the ancient plant-cultivation technique of grafting in both architecture and urban design as an effective strategy to address the urgent issue of climate change. Grafting is the biological process of connecting two separate living plants so they can grow and function as one. This ancient practice continues to be performed today in search of more fruitful, palatable, and resilient varieties of plants.

Grafting is also an incredibly useful and untapped paradigm for how architecture can begin to cope with climate change on a broader, more impactful scale because it is predicated upon our existing building fabric. The term “grafting” has the potential to inform architecture across many scales, provoking the imagination and shaping tectonic, programmatic, formal, and regenerative adaptations.