Engineered Biotopes

An interesting project came to our attention via Bustler recently and is certainly worth checking out. The project is titled Engineered Biotopes and was developed by London-based teammates Anthi Grapsa and Konstantinos Chalaris.

Starn Brothers on the MET

The Starn Brother's, creators of the previously posted Big Bambu, have taken to the roof of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their newest iteration of Big Bambu, "You Can't, You Won't and You Don't Stop" takes over the roof garden of the MET...

Batumi Aquarium

Inspired by the characteristic pebbles of the Batumi beach, continually shaped by the wash of the waves through millennia, the building stands out as an iconic rock formation visible from both land and sea.

Winner! Adelaide Zoo

Earlier this month the Adelaide Zoo was garnered with an outstanding five awards to dominate this years Australian Institute of Architect's 2010 Australian Architecture Awards.

Bug Hotel Winner Announced

The "Beevarian Antsel and Gretel Chalet" designed and constructed by the organisation ‘German Women in Property’ was selected from the shortlisted group of five entries...

Oil Eating Animals

“The gulf is such a great fishery because it’s fed organic matter from oil,” said Roger Sassen, a specialist on the cold seeps who recently retired from Texas A&M University. “It’s preadapted to crude oil. The image of this spill being a complete disaster is not true.”

Philip Beesley’s Hilozoic Soil

...the glass-like fragility of this artificial forest, built of an intricate lattice of small transparent acrylic tiles, is visually breathtaking. Its frond extremities arch uncannily towards those who venture into its midst, reaching out to stroke and be stroked like the feather or fur or hair of some mysterious animal.... [Fundacion Telefonica Jury, 1st prize, VIDA 11.0]

Ecological Urbanism

"Ecological Urbanism considers the city with multiple instruments and with a worldview that is fluid in scale and disciplinary focus...The book brings together practitioners, theorists, economists, engineers, artists, policymakers, scientists, and public health."

Man – Nature

After nearly two months of watching human animals (those working for BP) radically alter the gulf-coast ecosystem we…

The International Living Buildings Institute

Buildings, in many ways, represent the opposite of nature. From a modest suburban house to the most majestic skyscraper, a building signals the presence of people in a place, differentiating human spaces from their surroundings.

The Gulf Coast Oyster

Where do the Gulf Coast Oysters fit into the BP Oil tragedy? Are they victims or saviors? Could they possibly hold the key to a massive gulf-coast clean up?

xSpecies Adventure Club

Eyebeam hosts the Cross Species (xSpecies) Adventure Club, a supper club for humans and non-humans to explore a tasty bio-diverse future. Each event is an experience of the depth and complexity of our interconnections with nonhumans...

Juhani Pallasmaa

Every now and again we find something on the web, or in print or, in a museum, and say "Gosh! We should have had that up on the site a while ago." During some recent web-trolling we came across this fantastic little piece by Juhani Pallasmaa, the acclaimed Finish Architect, Professor and Artist.

Daniel Arsham’s Animal Architecture

...we can speculate about various readings of the kind of alien logic of geometry, math, and by extension mankind in the face of nature, or the apparent illumination (divine / cerebral illumination) of the natural by the geometric or we can muse about what the donkey might be thinking in the presence of an object that presumably it cannot possibly fathom...

Birth of the Synthetic Cell

Scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland have rocked the world with the creation of the first ever manmade cell. Although small in size, this feat is being hailed as one of the greatest scientific (and perhaps architectural) breakthroughs of this age.

Welcome to Alex Tseng

Welcome Alex! Alex will be traveling the world for the next few months and then take up his preceptorship in NYC with the notable firm of DS+R. During his travels he'll stop in here to say a few words. We think you'll be a great addition to the Animal Architecture team.

TEDxHouston

For those of you who know TED and TEDx this is definitely a cause for excitement. For those of you new to the whole TED-thing we highly recommend checking it out.

Sukkah City

We’ve just discovered an exciting architecture competition coming up for registration on July 1st. ‘Sukkah City: New York…

Dam!

OTTAWA (AFP) – A Canadian ecologist has discovered the world's largest beaver dam in a remote area of northern Alberta, an animal-made structure so large it is visible from space.

Growing Up?

Another heated debate surrounding vertical farming is presented to us via AlterNet. This post, by Stan Cox and David Van Tassle, both plant-breeding researcher at the Land Institute in Salinas Kansas is decidedly on the anti-vertical farming side of things due to what the authors claim is the sheer impossibility of vertical farming.

The Truffle

... this project just might illustrate some of the conceptual shifts, that is posthumanist ideas, that appear elsewhere on this site, but have yet to make it into the architectural world. We don't have an award yet for "Most effective human animal partnership in the construction of a building" but if we did, Anton Garcia-Abril, that award would go to you sir. Well done.

Bug Hotel Competition

Bee part of the buzz – enter London’s unique architectural competition and be in with the chance of winning the highly desirable ‘Golden Beetle’ trophy. The City of London Corporation and British Land invite you to take part in the inaugural Beyond the Hive competition. The competition, designed to encourage biodiversity in the City of London, asks entrants to design a five star hotel for our insect friends.

Fritz Heag Wins Rome Prize

This year, among the many recipients is one of our previously featured artists, Fritz Haeg. We find Fritz's award particularly exciting because is recognizes his a-typical approach to practice and his unique focus on the habitats of other species as valuable to the practice of Architecture and Design. We first met Fritz at the Systems of Sustainability symposium at the University of Houston last year and have been closely watching his work since. Congratulations Fritz. This a great award for a so many reasons.