Symbiotic Sanctuaries: Negotiating with Birds
The project investigates an alternative means of world-building where architecture is no longer an anthropocentric endeavor. By reframing architecture as not at odds with nature and challenging the conventional separation between humans and nonhumans, it examines the fragile relationship between species through a new lens. The program establishes a stance on the particular symbiotic relationship between the human and the Black-and-white Warbler, carving the spaces of interaction and isolation between the two.
Precedent Studies: Black-and-white Warbler & Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery
Precedent Exploration: Hybrid Model
Through iterations of analysis that started with the Black-and-white Warbler and the Brion Cemetery, the project experiments with the idea of geometrical interactions and relationships through carefully curated, project-specific shapes. An exploration of which geometrical rules are abided by and which are broken, as well as which geometries ‘win’ when they clash with one another, the work serves as a response to the unfounded assumption that humans abide by rules while organic forms are lawless. The proposed program includes a sculptural form in which the birds are allowed to land (or not land) as they please, shared areas for human interaction and observation, and a research facility for the humans.
Washington University in St. Louis, Introduction to Architectural Design II
Coordinator: sharvari mhatre
Instructor: carl karlen.
Coordinator: sharvari mhatre
Instructor: carl karlen.