Life-giving
Eco-architecture
Limine Vitae
Our Values
Limine Vitae is a faith-based architecture firm with a life-giving mission: to design spaces to support life from conception through natural death.
Life-Centered
We focus on caring for people at the thresholds or ends of life: pregnant mothers and the elderly, as well as people on the margins. Every human life has value, and we strive to help provide a dignified beginning and end of life through architecture.
Faith-Based
Our Catholic faith drives our mission to support life, inspired by the examples of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Jeanne Jugan. Based on this faith, our projects serve anyone in need–not only Catholics.
Eco-Friendly
We employ sustainable planning methods, such as designing for net-zero emissions, utilizing passive solar heating and cooling, and strategically employing climatic design to meet the project’s local needs and reduce
our carbon footprint.
Our Projects Serve...
Mothers
Building Crisis Pregnancy Centers
Crisis pregnancy centers provide services such as ultrasounds, counseling, and material resources for women with unintended pregnancies to help them choose life for their unborn babies. Most crisis pregnancy centers in the United States are affiliated with Christianity because we believe in protecting the sanctity of life. We work with organizations to build crisis pregnancy centers in an architectural style that fits in with the surrounding environment.
“For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my
mother’s womb” (Ps 139).
The Elderly
Building Christian Nursing Homes
About 28% of people 65 and older in the United States live alone, but many seniors lack sufficient money, family support, or an adequate place to turn to for everyday help as their lives become more difficult, with deteriorating medical conditions and associated rising expenses (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 Current Population Survey). We aim to build nursing homes to provide a place for those who are alone and cannot care for themselves.
“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
The Marginalized
Designing for Inclusion
Many deaf communities form in cities where there are more accessible options to
improve their quality of life.
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While traditional accessibility additions–such as ramps–help people with physical impairments, deafness is often ignored in designing a building or space. Deaf individuals rely more on visual cues and spatial awareness, which is aided by clear visual communication, alerting systems, and spaces that allow social interaction.
Over 20,000 people make up the deaf and hard-of-hearing population living in Washington, D.C., making it one of the largest hubs of deaf people
in the country.
The Marginalized
Building Christian Nursing Homes
About 28% of people 65 and older in the United States live alone, but many seniors lack sufficient money, family support, or an adequate place to turn to for everyday help as their lives become more difficult, with deteriorating medical conditions and associated rising expenses (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 Current Population Survey). We aim to build nursing homes to provide a place for those who are alone and cannot care for themselves.
“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
Inspiration Behind
Life-Giving Architecture
A view into architecture that has supported needs to sustain the human condition.
Baby Hatches in Rome
At the end of the 12th century, Pope Innocent III learned that newborn babies—especially those born into poverty or to women facing unwanted pregnancies—were being thrown into the Tiber when abandoned. Infant abandonment was tragically common, particularly among poor families and prostitutes who had no means to care for a child.
Determined to stop the practice, the pope ordered the construction of what would become the first “foundling wheel” in 1198. It was built beside the Tiber at Santo Spirito in Sassia, the oldest hospital in Europe.
While the original wheel at Santo Spirito ceased operation in the 19th century, the idea behind it did not disappear. Today, modern hospitals continue the mission through updated versions known as baby hatches or “baby boxes.”
St. Jeanne Jugan
Jeanne Jugan, also known as Sister Marie de la Croix, was born during the French Revolution. She dedicated her life to serving the elderly poor, according to the spirit of the Beatitudes.
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As a young woman, she joined the Third Order of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, worked as a nurse in a local town hospital, became a servant to another woman in the Third Order, and lived a quiet life of service with two other women in a cottage, who formed a small community of prayer devoted to helping the poor and teaching the catechism. She declined a marriage proposal at age 18, and again, six years later, from the same man. She told her mother, “God wants me for himself. He is keeping me for a work which is not yet founded.”
In the winter of 1839, she came across Anne Chauvrin, an elderly woman who was blind, partially paralyzed, and had no one to care for her. Jeanne carried her home to her apartment and took her in from that day forward, letting the woman have her bed while she slept in the attic. Jeanne soon took in two more old women in need of help, and by 1841, she had rented a room to provide housing for a dozen elderly people. The following year, she acquired an unused convent building that could house forty.
Little Sisters of the Poor
St. Jeanne Jugan's congregation grew and became known as the Little Sisters of the Poor (LSP). Jeanne wrote a simple rule for the community and begged for food, clothing, and money to provide for the elderly poor in her care. She was able to open four more homes for her needy within 10 years, and by 1850, over 100 women had joined the congregation. Their communities expanded throughout France, England, and the United States, with over 2,400 Little Sisters by 1879.
In his homily for her canonization in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI praised St. Jeanne as “a beacon to guide our societies” toward a renewed love for those in old age. The pope recalled how she “lived the mystery of love” in a way that remains “ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.” She is the patron saint of the destitute elderly, and her feast day is celebrated on August 30.
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Sisters of Life
“This is the charism of the Sisters of Life: to mother the mothers of the unborn; to mother the unborn; to mother all those who are frail, all of those who are vulnerable, all those who are ill, all of those who are in danger of being put to death, all those whose lives the world considers useless. Our Lord says to each Sister of Life, 'Woman, behold your son. Behold your daughter.'”
John Cardinal O’Connor
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Saint Francis & Ecology
St. Jeanne Jugan's congregation grew and became known as the Little Sisters of the Poor (LSP). Jeanne wrote a simple rule for the community and begged for food, clothing, and money to provide for the elderly poor in her care. She was able to open four more homes for her needy within 10 years, and by 1850, over 100 women had joined the congregation. Their communities expanded throughout France, England, and the United States, with over 2,400 Little Sisters by 1879.
In his homily for her canonization in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI praised St. Jeanne as “a beacon to guide our societies” toward a renewed love for those in old age. The pope recalled how she “lived the mystery of love” in a way that remains “ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.” She is the patron saint of the destitute elderly, and her feast day is celebrated on August 30.
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