Description

How do we consider the presence of animals in cities? Perhaps the most common response to encountering animals in buildings is to find a way to remove them, and to exclude them with various methods, such as covering ventilation holes with metal wire mesh. While these types of responses are certainly viable solutions,” here, I speculate on another way to imagine how multi-species co-occupation can move us toward a more poignant form of architecture.

Co-Occupancy is a series of explorations for new building ‘typologies’ that aims to incorporate wildlife habitat into the built environment. In an effort to draw attention to the critical importance of urban ecologies, and our interconnectedness with non-human species, the design includes delineated zones for flora and fauna, as well as zones for human occupancy. Bats and bird, for example, could live in expanded, volumetric roof conditions. These are conceived as sheltered but accessible spaces of varying dimensions and degrees of insulation, with cavities for nesting, and structures for perching. Snakes, salamanders, and similar creatures could occupy a thickened “foundation” condition, composed of a structural mesh cage that is formed to hold closely-packed masses of boulders and large rocks. This project imagines fundamental architectural components – such as roof and foundation – in terms of cross-species occupancy, and begins to suggest new spatial, visual, and tactile ways to reconsider our constructed environment.