Ecovillages. Through personal commitment and change in lifestyle, ecovillagers are building living models of the future in harmony with nature.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the ruins of ancient Rome, the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin are all well-tended reminders of the fall of empire, an architecture not of triumph but of suffering and loss. Why do we preserve them?

Olympia, Greece. Like Olympia, many sites around the world are considered sacred, set aside for purpose of peacemaking. Do they naturally share anything in common, or is the peace landscape solely a product of human interventions and projections?

Peace Gardens “provide a tranquil and creative setting for people to contemplate positive ways to further the vision of a more peaceful world.” What do their funding, commissions, placement, size, design, roles and uses tell us about the meanings and practice of peace

Peace Monuments. Like the Liberation Monument in Budapest (1949) or the Eli Lilly Civil War Monument in Indianapolis (1902), many sculptural and architectural projects celebrate peace, usually as the end of war. Can we call these an architecture of peace?

Peace Palaces. The United Nations complex in New York and the League of Nations complex in Geneva were dedicated to peace. They have a long history in planning and reality. Does anything make them uniquely “peaceful.”

Peace Temples, churches, groves and shrines embody a culture’s deepest and most conscious values. The Ara Pacis and Sta. Maria della Pace, both in Rome, were important monuments dedicated to peace in imperial capitals. What is their vision of peace?

The Power of Cities. TED examines the history, present crisis, and the future of urbanism around the globe. Fourteen urbanists help us envision what the city as a vision of peace might mean.

Quaker Meeting Houses. The Religious Society of Friends adopted a simple, vernacular style of architecture for its meeting houses to demonstrate both the simplicity of Quaker life and the straightforward, non-hierarchical nature of their Christianity, lived within the world. See samples of a few, a more detailed discussion and a thesis on them.

The Rural Studio, the MIT digitally fabricated Instant House for New Orleans, and Frank Lloyd’s Wright’s Usonian homes are all examples of a simple architecture that seeks to serve a higher social purpose. Are they Utopian or a path toward an architecture of peace and justice?