Reinventing the City: A workshop on habitecture for wildlife
Ned Dodington, M.A. Architecture, Rice University
Closing Keynote: From across the divide; Architecture as cross-species interlocutor
Architecture stands at the threshold between human and animal worlds. Typically seen through only the eyes of humans—our building, homes and cities, are nevertheless hosts for invited or unintended “guests.” Though, to our detriment, increasingly less-so. Already an unwitting participant in cross-species habitats architects hold a unique position to reconsider how we humans relate-to, and design-for non-human uses. That is to say less as merely designers of urban-scaled objects and more as active agents in the shaping urban ecologies. Drawing on the works of Jacob von Uexkull, Tim Ingold, Tim Morton and several current designers this paper will address not only current design strategies for actively incorporating animals into our built designs but how to attempt to reconceive the world around us from an anthro-eccentric perspective – using built-form to speak across the species divide.