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The Urban Rookery

Rookery: a colony of breeding animals, generally birds. A rookery is generally reserved for a colony of gregarious…
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Insect Homes

In the face of global pandemic it would appear that the health of our ecosystems, biodiversity and particularly our insect life is more important than ever. This post from 2014 is a reminder of just how simple, and fun creating a little extra biodiversity can be - especially for kids! Check out the links below for additional information on the design and construction of insect homes.
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Cultural Practices Shaping Urban Biodiversity

The public square at Utpal Dutta Sarani enables an intensified feeding mechanism that spatially restrains foraging activities of an exploding pigeon population, preventing destructive impacts on urban nature.
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Wild Growth in Cities as a Rare Resource

A tour of the old city of Calcutta reveals that while biological growth can threaten to destroy buildings' structures, conservation and management of growth can also enhance the age-value and identity of the city.
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Concrete Chimney Swift Tower

The evolution of the Chimney Swift is closely intertwined with modernity and the changing habitats of humans. Although originally nesting in caves and rotted trees, Chimney Swifts now primarily nest in, well -- chimneys and other man-made habitats. They adapted to chimneys in the first place due to a scarcity of standing, rotted trees - as these have a tendency to fall onto property and are quickly taken down.
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Joyce Hwang: Bower

Bower is a series of architectural fragments that frame the landscape of ArtPark and host bird nesting boxes for various species.
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Syn-Urban Assemblages

Throughout North America, the suburbs are a pervasive condition that emerge at the periphery of every major metropolitan…
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Decompositions; Part 3

[Animals, with their myriad superhuman senses, can teach us new unprecedented ways of occupying space. Shared spaces can…
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Decompositions; Part 2

Can design bridge land and water? Could shared spaces teach us what it’s like to occupy underwater spaces, and navigate through oceans and waterways?
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Between Human and Animal

The space of greatest tension between human and animal is the domestic territory of the house. Suburbs are therefore at the front line of the confrontation between humans and synanthropic animals. As woodlots and agrarian landscape are converted into residential communities, highly adaptive animals seek out new habitat opportunities.
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Decompositions; Part 1

How can sharing spaces lead us to a deeper understanding of our space? Can we learn the senses of other species? Can we gain an animal’s superpowers? The following projects offer another reason for sharing our spaces with non-human species: the enrichment of our spaces and our own perception.
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Coexist: MFA Thesis from Rona Binay

SVA (School of Visual Arts) Product Design student Rona Binay’s MFA thesis entitled, ‘COEXIST, Mixing with Urban Wildlife’ transgresses the relationship between the "urban" and the "natural" through a series of four design interventions.
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Urban Apiaries

Increasing interest and activity in urban agriculture is exciting for human urban development and the greening, literally and metaphorically, of our cities. But more often than not animals in almost every capacity are left out of the conversation.
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Beehive Highrise

BeehiveHighrise utilizes a redesigned system which enables access from the sides, with each tray fitting snugly and keeping the box enclosed. This allows the hives to be lined up in rows as well as stacked, forming a wall of hives that could be shared among several beekeepers. One of these walls could hold as many as 90 hives, each of which could pollinate around 240 million flowers daily.
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Urban Transhumance

Urban Transhumance explores urban farming as viable urban renewal option by revisiting Grand Boulevard as a site that circumscribes the historic limits of Detroit.
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Oceanic Agriculture

Oceanic Agriculture is a marine strategy for rapid deployment of food-aid in times of prolonged civic stress. The design proposes to generate a flotilla of horizontal surfaces that become deployable seafaring farmlands. Oceanic Agriculture pairs the exigencies of organizations such as the World Food Program and the Global Food Crisis Program, with current disposal and mothball strategies for large military, commercial and private maritime vessels.