Toward an Architecture for Urban Wildlife Advocacy
Joyce Hwang2018
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In urban environments, one could argue that animals are typically considered along a spectrum of two extreme positions: first, that animals are a form of spectacle – exemplified by birds as objects of desire – and second, that animals are a form of nuisance – seen in the many cases of birds as “pests” to be managed. Meanwhile, in the public imagination of normative cities and suburbs, architecture is not typically considered to be part of the “animal world.” While city-dwellers might appreciate the presence of birds in the park, by a birdfeeder, or nesting in a backyard tree, the notion of “sharing” buildings and structures with animals is not commonly accepted. How might architecture play a role in starting to define and describe the varying shades of “middle ground” between these two positions on animals in the built environment, between notions of spectacle and maintenance?
Related papers
Birds, Buildings, People: Are Birdsafe Guidelines Enough?
2019
This Major Paper considers songbird conservation in the City of Toronto as it is implemented through the fulfillment of bird-safe guidelines in the Toronto Green Standard. It explores how concerns about the issue of bird-glass collisions affect development decisions that shape the built environment, which affects songbird mortality, using the theoretical framework of political ecology. Research was conducted by surveying a random sampling of buildings and interviewing city planners, and was oriented towards understanding the interplay between birds, buildings, and people in order to find ways of making the city safer for songbirds
Where species don’t meet: Invisibilized animals, urban nature and city limits
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2020
A growing body of literature is concerned with ‘healing’ our cities, fostering an ethic of care for urban nature and creating more socially and environmentally just cities. At the same time, urban biodiversity is the focus of an increasing number of projects at multiple scales. However, in contrast to the ethos of multispecies ‘entanglement’ and ‘becoming with’ that typically animates this research, large numbers of animals ‘entangled’ in the machinations of our cities constitute a ‘nature’ that remains mostly unseen. And yet, it is the local and global practices these animals are part of – associated with food, entertainment, education, companionship and research – and the persistent relations of use and exploitation that underpin them, that are most directly implicated in the ongoing environmental degradation, destruction of habitats and extinction of species that create the ‘problem’ of urban biodiversity. We therefore argue that a persistent anthropocentrism is hampering efforts...
The Architect and the Animal: 20th Century Encounters
One of architecture’s main objectives is to ensure the best possible conditions for the protection and development of human life. At the same time, architecture has always referred to animals in various ways. Even as, throughout history, the most important architectural creations were dedicated to the glory of gods, animal figures persistently featured as reminders of the sacred, the irrational, the monstrous or the evil. In ancient Greek temples Gods and semi-Gods were put side by side with lions and horses; in Gothic cathedrals saints and holy figures stood next to wolves, lambs and pigs; in the churches of the 18th and 19th centuries owls, swans, fish, deer, etc. were used as symbols that communicated common mentalities and religious beliefs, promoted ethical and aesthetic norms and ideals, and performed as reflective-critical comments on human creation and life. In the 20th century the presence of animals in architecture gradually receded as positivism and functionalism prevailed. However, one could still find various references to and representations of animals in the work of the architects of the 20th century. From the pack-donkey in Le Corbusier’s The City of Tomorrow (1929), and the goats in Dimitris Pikionis’s Aixoni (1957), to the horses in Superstudio’s Atti Fondamentali (1972), and the spiders in Lina Bo Bardi’s Intermezzo per bambini (1984), the animal as a latent model, paradigm, metaphor and symbol comes to serve a critical-interpretive function. This workshop aims to launch a discussion on the animal in the history and theory of architecture of the 20th century by reconsidering the animal as a vital symbol/signifier/qualifier for the human, as the ‘negative’ or the ‘other’ of the human. In this framework the words “negative” and “other” do not indicate something inferior or less important than the human but, on the contrary, something substantial and meaningful, a missing link or an archetype, an object which expands, completes or even mirrors the notion of the human. How can we re-think animals beyond their se (or the use of parts and attributes of them) as mere formalist inspirations for architectural design which are often empty of content, identity, and meaning? How can we re-consider the various references to animals in the architecture of the 20th century as an alternative field of research for architectural history, theory and criticism? How can we re-interpret the entangled, convoluted representations of animals as objects of the architects’ sublimation but also as reflections of their ethical position; as concerns of citizens active in the cultural and political environment of their age? The workshop considers animal references and representations as symbolic constructions and parts of an imaginary ecology that at the same time perform as rhetoric devices. Within this context, alien, fantastic, holy, wild, idealized, and exotic creatures appear as typical objects of otherness; as models, paradigms, and metaphors in a discourse that attempts to critically question the identities, definitions and boundaries of modern and postmodern architecture. A mapping of these images, references and representations, as well as a documentation and interpretation of their function during the creative process, will be one of the workshop’s main targets. The interpretive charting of these nonhuman creatures will not only allow for a better understanding of the architects’ ideas and intentions but will also help locate their oeuvre into a broader context, and in correspondence to other cultural centers located in a complex global network of influential intellectuals. A thorough examination of specific case studies will illustrate the ways in which these references to animals serve a critical-interpretive purpose through a reflective extension of a predominantly humanistic/anthropocentric science and art, such as architecture is. How are animals used and in which context? What is their latent programmatic, philosophical and ideological content? In which ways do they express critical stances against modernity? How do they relate to local myths and indigenous identities? How do they defend cultural history and tradition against the threats of globalization? What kind of unconscious doubts, resistances, challenges and anxieties do they cover? The workshop entitled “The Architect and the Animal: 20th Century Encounters” aims to provoke a fresh and rich dialogue on a contemporary, but neglected, topic, by inviting novel and daring contributions that challenge and expand the established discourse, and by providing enough material for the production of a scholarly edited volume, to be submitted for publication by an established, international academic press.
Of plants, high lines and horses: Civic groups and designers in the relational articulation of values of urban natures (2017)
This paper addresses three interventions into urban green spaces—a wetland in Cape Town, a post- industrial site in New York, and a park outside London. Through their different contexts, they help to grasp a wider phenomenon: the protection of urban nature through the development of protective narratives. We analyze these interventions as examples of “value articulation”, which we view as a relational and sociomaterial practice that requires the enrolment of people, plants, and things that together perform, spread, and deploy stories about why given places need protection. For each case study, we also highlight the moments when narrative practices move beyond mere protection and start to change the very context in which they were developed. We refer to these as projective narratives, emphasizing how novel values and uses are projected onto these spaces, opening them up for reworking. Our analyses of these successful attempts to protect land demonstrate how values emerge as part of inclusive, yet specific, narratives that mobilize and broaden support and constituencies. By constructing spatial linkages, such narratives embed places in wider geographical ‘wholes’ and we observe how the physical landscape itself becomes an active narrative element. In contrast to rationalist and external frameworks for analyzing values in relation to urban natures (e.g., ecosystem services), our ‘bottom-up’ mode situates urban nature in specific contexts, helping us to profoundly rethink planning and practice in order to (i) challenge expert categories and city/nature dichotomies; (ii) provide vernacular ways of knowing/understanding; and (iii) rethink the role of urban designers.
Introduction, Animal Cities
Animal Cities: Beastly Urban Histories , 2012
Until recently it was still possible to say that ‘you will find no mention of animals in contemporary urban theory’ but in the first decade of the new century the literature has changed, rapidly, with animal-centredness emerging right across the spectrum from the arts and humanities, through social sciences such as human geography, to scientific interest in urban ecosystems. Jennifer Wolch’s original aim in making her statement was to initiate the development of a transspecies theory that would be the foundation of an ‘eco-socialist, feminist, anti-racist urban praxis’. As it happened, her explanation of ‘why animals matter (even in cities)’ was pushing at an already opening door. The ‘divide’ between humans and animals – and more broadly between culture and nature – was coming under sustained and withering fire from several philosophical directions, and the result has been an enhanced considerability of animals that could only have been dreamt of three decades ago.
An analytical framework to understand the problematization of urban (historical) animals
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2024
Despite being common, the problematization of animals is ill-understood and undertheorized in urban geography. Being problematized has significant implications for animals: not only in how they are subjected to violent disciplinary practices but also in how they are made epistemically visible (or not) as urban subjects. That is, problematization objectifies animals and can contribute to their physical and epistemic in/visibility in cities. One effect of problematization is that it makes some animals visible to the historical record as problems. Consequently, scholars often write urban histories and analyses that reconstitute these animals as problematic objects, failing to recognize that problematization involves multispecies power relations that animals experience. This article offers a theoretical framework for analyzing the problematization of urban animals. It requires understanding problematization as a sociospatial and historical process in which animals come to be discursively constituted as problems in urban regulation, and materially managed as such through disciplinary practices that frequently rely on material and spatial interventions. I argue that a spatial awareness is essential to telling multispecies histories and geographies that attempt to grapple with problematization as a process as well as its impacts on the experiences of animals.
Wildlife in the City
BIOTOPE CITY JOURNAL, 2014
The formula "The City as Nature" asks for a definition how one understands by nature. Where to start? Where does it belong? The question is explosive, especially among biologists but also among ordinary people: when nature has to be saved: which one? The nature in the state of hundred years ago? Or should one go further back? Are trees allowed grow on the West Frisian islands which have not been there 100 years ago? What about the neophytes, the herbal exotics like the Himalayan Indian balsam, the princess feather (Persicaria orientalis, Polygonum orientale) or the giant parsnip (Heracleum mantegazzianum) or what about the animal invaders, the Egyptian goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca), the coon or others? And which role does man play in this concert who interferes so effectively in the nature? Also here the positions are very diverse. One can philosophize on very different ways about what man is: the crown of the Creation, who has the mission to turn the earth, that is nature to subject. Or a cancer that overgrows the earth and destroys the living space of such wonderful animals as the Siberian tiger and others and constructs his own ecosystem against nature. But one also can regard the vertebrate sort homo sapiens as one of the elements of the continuous process of change of the organic and anorganic life on earth. From the last point of view the question does not raise as "how can we save the threatened nature and stop the expansion and appropriation of man". But one asks:"how can we arrange and regulate the living space of man in such a way that he/she can spend his/her individual lifetime as good and healthy as possible, in an interplay with other forms of life. With this question we come to town-planning. About the year 2050 with the greatest probability 10 billion people will populate this globe, of whom about 70% will live in cities.
Crossing Worlds in Buildings: Caring for Swifts in Brussels
Crossing Worlds in Buildings Caring for Swifts in Brussels, 2023
Holes in the houses of Brussels, as in other buildings across Europe, have long been the preferred nesting sites of the common swift (Apus apus), a bird famous for its fast flight and for spending most of its life on the wing. For several decades, however, urban construction and renovation has led to the destruction of swifts’ breeding sites, contributing significantly to their disappearance, and have prompted amateur naturalists to spatial interventions in ways that they hope the birds will accept. This essay explores this form of care that is forging a new path through the more-than-human city. It starts with an account of how swifts “story” the cavities they inhabit, and then describes the engagement of a devoted swift caretaker with the birds’ astute knowledge of buildings and their meaningful worlds. Moving across sites in Brussels, the essay articulates how an attentiveness takes shape between swifts, their storied-places, and the human caretakers who learn about them, as well as the tensions and contradictions that arise. Such a care practice involves noticing and experiential learning, it requires conveying importance to unfamiliar interlocutors, and leads both to the reactivation of architectural heritages and pleasure at aesthetic encounters with the birds. In some cases, the employment of nest boxes and other technologies may also risk greenwashing ecologically harmful operations. Caring for swifts, the essay concludes, involves a reciprocal co-becoming at specific architectural interfaces, through attentive and imaginative practices. These modes of attention and of imagination enable material interventions in buildings with a fuller appreciation of swifts’ storied worlds.
Urban bird conservation: presenting stakeholder-specific arguments for the development of bird-friendly cities
Urban Ecosystems, 2015
ABSTRACT Following the call from the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity “Cities & Biodiversity Outlook” project to better preserve urban biodiversity, this paper presents stakeholder-specific statements for bird conservation in city environments. Based upon the current urban bird literature we focus upon habitat fragmentation, limited habitat availability, lack of the native vegetation and vegetation structure as the most important challenges facing bird conservation in cities. We follow with an overview of the stakeholders in cities, and identify six main groups having the greatest potential to improve bird survival in cities: i) urban planners, urban designers and (landscape) architects, ii) urban developers and engineers, iii) homeowners and tenants, iv) companies and industries, v) landscaping and gardening firms, vi) education professionals. Given that motivation to act positively for urban birds is linked to stakeholder-specific advice, we present ten statements for bird-friendly cities that are guided by an action perspective and argument for each stakeholder group. We conclude with a discussion on how the use of stakeholder-specific arguments can enhance and rapidly advance urban bird conservation action.
Urban ecology meets architecture and urban planning [L'écologie urbaine rencontre l'architecture et l'aménagement]
Etudes urbaines, 2019
Keywords : architecture, biodiversity, ecological connectivity, landscape architecture, open space planning Mots-clés : architecture, biodiversité, connectivité écologique, architecture du paysage, aménagement de l'espace ouvert
BIOHPILIC CITIES JOURNAL /
FEATURE
TOWARD AN ARCHITECTURE
FOR URBAN WILDLIFE ADVOCACY
By Joyce Hwang
Joyce Hwang is an Associate
Professor of Architecture at the
University at Buffalo, SUNY, and is
the Director of Ants of the Prairie, an
architecture and research practice that
focuses on confronting contemporary
ecological conditions through creative
means.
In urban environments, one could
argue that animals are typically
considered along a spectrum of
two extreme positions: first, that
animals are a form of spectacle –
exemplified by birds as objects of
desire – and second, that animals
are a form of nuisance – seen in
24
the many cases of birds as “pests”
to be managed. Meanwhile, in the
public imagination of normative
cities and suburbs, architecture
is not typically considered to be
part of the “animal world.” While
city-dwellers might appreciate
the presence of birds in the park,
by a birdfeeder, or nesting in
a backyard tree, the notion of
“sharing” buildings and structures
with animals is not commonly
accepted. How might architecture
play a role in starting to define
and describe the varying shades
of “middle ground” between
As such, we adopt an abundance
of regulations that seek to control
and exclude animals in the
built environment. In New York
State, where I currently live, the
Department of Environmental
Conservation manages a list of
“Mammals Commonly Causing
Conflicts,” which distinguishes
between species that are allowed
to be killed at any point in time,
from species that can be killed
only when acting as “nuisances.”
“Pest control” services are
seemingly always in demand.
Habitat Wall
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
Yet, despite all efforts to keep
urban animals at a distance, our
buildings and urban landscapes
are almost always appropriated
by animals in different,
unexpected ways. Buildings
that are not maintained, such
as the many abandoned vacant
structures in post-industrial
cities, are often teeming with
different forms of life. Bats
roost in attic spaces, and birds
nest on building ledges. By
default, built structures become
occupied by “unintended”
inhabitants.
The inevitable reality is that
we share our cities with
many species, and as such,
it is important that this reality
assume a much broader cultural
resonance than it currently
does. Mainstream construction
standards and products – such
as bird prevention spikes -still reflect and reinforce our
socially constructed boundaries
between humans and
animals. We have conditioned
environments for humans
inside, while casting animals
outside and away, toward more
marginalized territories. To
challenge these sensibilities, we
must first address the conflicted
attitudes that humans have
toward the place of animals in
cities. For instance, while birds
might be seen as “desirable”
creatures when encountered
in the park, they are suddenly
seen as “pests” when they start
encroaching on human-claimed
territory in unwanted ways,
such as depositing excrement
on cars and window ledges.
Indeed, human perception
of urban wildlife is a critical
factor in how we address our
mutual co-habitation in the built
environment.
In response to this question
of perception and conflicted
attitudes toward urban animals,
my architectural practice, Ants
of the Prairie, explores creative
means that counter the notion
of the “pest” through design.
Years ago, I began to reimagine
building forms, typologies, and
components in my speculative
design projects to accommodate
all animals, particularly those
seen as “pests.” For example, in a
series of studies, titled “Pest Wall,”
I developed schemes for building
façades that might be more
conducive to animal-habitation.
Design iterations included
thickened walls with layers for bat
roosting and niches for nesting. I
sloped surfaces to introduce the
notion of water drainage to wash
away potential guano droppings.
In addition to exploring ideas
through these hypothetical
proposals, I simultaneously
started developing and building a
series of small-scale
these two positions on animals
in the built environment,
between notions of spectacle and
maintenance?
Today we see some examples of
animal-friendly architecture that
are emerging, such as the Mellor
Primary School Extension (2015)
by Sarah Wigglesworth (a building
design that incorporated an insect
habitat wall as one of its facades),
but for the most part – at least
in the United States – much of
our urban fauna is categorized as
“nuisance” animals.
LEFT & ABOVE: Pest Wall
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
LEFT & ABOVE: Bat Cloud
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
animal-inhabitation projects, as a
first step to initiating a “campaign”
for urban wildlife advocacy.
With an aim of drawing
immediate awareness to the
urgency of protecting nonhuman species, these projects
were designed as “interventions”
that could be fabricated and
installed relatively quickly
into the built environment.
As architectural artifacts, they
prominently stand out as highly
visible structures, “extroverted”
in disposition. Materializing
objects of conspicuous character
was a strategy to instigate
public curiosity and combat
human tendencies to hide the
presence of animals – a condition
that I have been referring to
as an “aesthetics of invisibility.”
Increasing visibility is, in effect,
a way to promote increased
resonance and knowledge
about the critical importance
of animals in our ecosystems. In
these instances, the power of the
architectural object is intensified
through the deliberate shaping of
its “charisma.”
As an example, our installation Bat
Cloud (2012) – a floating “cloud”
26
of hanging metallic teardropshaped forms -- was conceived of
as a sparkling, hovering artifice
that one might stumble upon
while walking on a nature trail.
It was placed in a location where
one would not expect to see
such an installation. Indeed, its
presence in Tifft Nature Preserve
has generated a sense of surprise
to visitors, and has been described
as “mini space capsules” in the
Buffalo News. Similarly, an earlier
installation, Bat Tower (2010),
was also conceived of with the
idea of drawing public attention
to the place of animals in cities
through unabashedly charismatic
qualities. Unlike typical DIY or offthe-shelf bat houses, which tend
to blend into the background
and generally lack an aesthetic
disposition, Bat Tower stands in
contrast to its environment as a
distinct presence in the landscape.
As a tower that is composed
of twisting triangulated forms,
characterized by strong vertical
striations, the project stands as
an unapologetically formal object
in a field, combatting an ethos of
disregard typically shown toward
under-appreciated species of
urban wildlife such as bats.
The formal and spatial language
of these projects emerged from
research into the “umwelt”of bats;
the specific qualities pertaining
to an animal’s environment as
defined by German biologist
Jakob von Uexkull who describes
that two different species
might exist in the same general
environment, but each require
completely different specific
environments. He uses the
example of the tick and the deer:
the conditions that matter to a
tick are different than those that
matter to a deer even though they
Bat Tower
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
occupy the same environment
(the forest). Bat Tower, for
example, draws from the
tendency that bats (in the
Northeastern United States) prefer
to roost in tight, thin spaces,
between structure and boards, a
condition that is seen in standard
bat houses as well. Following
these givens, the spatial and
tectonic idea deployed was one
of layering spaces, creating a lot
of thin, slotted crevices, between
boards that are grooved to
facilitate the bat’s ability to climb
on them. The larger ecosystem
of bats was also considered. First,
by siting the tower near potential
food sources, adjacent to a
pond, a location that is rife with
mosquitoes and other insects in
the summer. At the base of the
tower, we planted a number of
herbs and vegetation to attract
insects that would attract bats.
Bat Cloud, too, draws formal
cues from the logics of bat
habitation. The topmost
Bat Tower
Photo Credit: Albert Chao
portion of each pod provides
two thin interiorized spaces,
dimensioned similarly to the
roosting spaces in existing bat
house designs. Further, taking
into consideration the bats’
need for protective warmth,
each pod is wrapped in layers
of insulation, which are held
together within the folded
stainless steel mesh cages.
With soil and vegetation planted
in the lower, “basket” portion of
each pod, Bat Cloud was also
conceived of as a potentially
self-sustaining system. As the
pods become occupied, bat
guano would eventually drip
down and fertilize the vegetation
below, thus rendering the guano
as a useful, valuable (and even
desirable) element rather than
as a source of disgust.
The “umwelt” embodied in
these early projects -- that is, the
spatial conditions derived from
capturing the particularities
of “animal space” – were also
transported into subsequent
projects. For example, Habitat
Wall (2015) – a large prototypical
exterior wall structure that could
be implemented on the side of
a building – took cues from the
striated spaces of Bat Tower. A
prototype of Habitat Wall was
commissioned and constructed
for an exhibition at the SAIC
Sullivan Galleries titled “Outside
Design,” curated by Jonathan
Solomon. Each of the wall’s
of wooden boards and other
salvaged building materials, such
as wooden shutters, arranged
to include thin gaps between
boards, offering the kinds of
crevice-like spaces found in
typical bat habitats.
Beyond the honing of umwelt in
articulating species-suitability,
the question of resonance is
also equally important. How do
projects impact and shift our
perception of species? The notion
of evoking empathy, or a desire to
alter one’s vantage point in
SEPTEMBER 2017/ 27
components. In our previous projects, I asked: how
might we rethink the idea of the wall as not just a
barrier between inside and outside, but also as a
thickened, potentially inhabitable zone? Or how
might we rethink the idea of the window, not just
as a framed view of the exterior, but recognizing it
as a potentially fatal part of a building and therefore
reconsidering it at a fundamental level?
Thickened Roof Model A
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
Bower
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
looking at the world, is especially
important when considering
architecture as a means of
advocacy.
Perhaps a clear example of
how humans are starting to
understand the senses of nonhuman species is the growing
urgency around bird-glass
collisions. The fact that birds
cannot see transparent glass is
one of the leading causes of bird
fatalities in urban areas. Many
concerted efforts by various
organizations are now addressing
this issue. For example, the
American Bird Conservancy
and the Audubon Society have
collaborated with researchers
to create a set of bird-safe
building guidelines. Material
manufacturers are developing
products, such as Ornilux Bird
Protection Glass, a type of glass
made with a UV reflective coating,
rendering it visible to birds (who
can see UV light) but invisible
to humans. The USGBC (United
28
States Green Building Council) has
even outlined a LEED pilot credit
for bird-collision deterrence.
These are all steps in the right
direction.
As architects and designers,
however, it is also important
to explore more visceral ways
to address this issue, to more
poignantly appeal to our senses.
Along these lines, I recently
developed a project, “No Crash
Zone” (2015), which is a temporary
renovation of a glass window
to make visible the logics of
bird-strike prevention through
a graphic pattern on the glass.
The project also invokes the
mechanisms of the single-point
perspective, capturing the visual
preferences to see a framed
view from a glass window. Also
recently, addressing similar
issues, I worked in collaboration
with artist Ellen Driscoll on
developing an installation for
birds, titled “Bower.” Sited in
Artpark in Lewiston, NY, Bower is
a series of building-like fragments
scattered across the landscape,
each supporting a number
of bird nesting boxes. These
architectural fragments also
feature a series of glass windows,
custom designed with drawings
that contain imagery of local
birds and vegetation, as well as
anti-bird strike patterning to draw
attention to the perils of bird to
draw attention to the perils of bird
strikes on glass.
I am currently developing a
series of architectural building
propositions that are bringing the
notion of the animal “umwelt” to
a larger scale. Influenced by the
spatial and material sensibilities of
our small-scale installations, the
ongoing speculative proposals
explore strategies and tactics to
reimagine the built environment
in a way that gives agency to
the animal population. In this
thread of work, I am interested
in more sharply questioning our
conventional notions of building
Thickened Roof Model B
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
Thickened Roof Model C
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
My current series of explorations focuses on
rethinking the roofs and foundations of buildings.
In conventional roofing systems, gutters are already
places that birds and other animals inhabit, and
it is also not uncommon to find birds nesting on
structures that are sheltered from wind and rain. The
roof is often the place where animals find ways to
enter buildings, and attics are spaces that bats (and
other animals) will typically find attractive, because
of the warm and stable environment it provides
for them. Given these tendencies, how might we
imagine a building in which the roof is a much more
volumetric condition, thinking about roof structure
as providing opportunities for perching and nesting?
In such cases, we envision a thickened roof space
that could be further developed to welcome many
types of animal occupants, containing extra-large
gutter-type conditions and sheltered exterior spaces
and cavities. The idea of this “expanded roof” puts
forward a new roof typology, one that is a multilayered condition that allows for different types
of cross-species occupation. In a similar manner,
another current project incorporates a massive
volumetric building “foundation,” or an expanded
sense of “ground,” that could accommodate small
terrestrial animals. Taking cues from the tendencies
of small animals to take shelter under objects such
as fallen trees, these foundations are designed using
boulders, rocks, and other material that would leave
leftover gap spaces for animal occupation, while also
serving as a kind of base for vegetated landscape.
In order to foster a more inclusive consideration of
animals in cities, architects and designers must begin
to address the presence of wildlife at multiple scales.
From wildlife crossing bridges and bat bridges to
sculptural interventions, we see a number of efforts
emerging in recent years to promote infrastructure
and art installations as vehicles for steering agendas
of urban wildlife advocacy. Projects that explore the
possibility of buildings as spaces for wildlife
Thickened Roof Model D
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
SEPTEMBER 2017/ 29
inhabitation have the potential to be particularly
resonant, as this “middle scale” of design is one
that can perhaps more palpably challenge our
conventional notions of architecture and the built
environment. Indeed, architectural typologies
suggest specific ideologies, hierarchies, and modes
of living through organizational spatial principles.
In this sense, the act of altering an existing building
typology – or proposing a new one altogether –
holds the potential to instigate a drastic shift in
our perspectives on inhabitation and occupancy,
thereby beginning the process of cultivating a sense
of empathy with non-human species.
Resources
Ants of the Prairie. Architecture. Retrieved from http://www.
antsoftheprairie.com.
Ants of the Prairie (2016, Aug.). Bower at ArtPark. Created
by Joyce Hwang/Ants of the Prairie in partnership with
Ellen Driscoll, and in collaboration with Matthew Hume.
Commissioned by Mary Miss/City as Living Laboratory
and ArtPark. Retrieved from http://www.antsoftheprairie.
com/?p=1986.
Morton, Timothy (Nov. 2015). Charisma and Causality.
ArtReview. Retrieved from https://artreview.com/features/
november_2015_feature_timothy_morton_charisma_causality.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Remove or “Take” Nuisance Animals Legally
Identify If You Need a Permit or License. Retrieved from http://
www.dec.ny.gov/animals/81531.html.
Arnold Glas. Ornilux Bird Protection Glass. Retrieved from
http://www.ornilux.com.
Rey, Jay Rey (2012, Aug. 3). Bat Cloud Hangs at Tifft. Buffalo
News.
Outside Design (2015). An exhibition at the SAIC Sullivan
Galleries. Curated by Jonathan Solomon. Retrieved from http://
sites.saic.edu/outsidedesign.
von Uexkull, Jakob (2010). A Foray into the Worlds of Animals
and Humans. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, MN.
Originally published in 1934 by Verlag von Julius Springer.
Wigglesworth, Sarah (2015). Mellor Primary School. Retrieved
from http://www.swarch.co.uk/projects/mellor-primary-school.
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Habitat Wall - Model of 1 Bay
Photo Credit: Joyce Hwang
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