ISSUE 05: Housing the Wild Ones

Sep 8

→ A look at styles of bird houses from around the world

→ What if modern homes for urban birds and bees were required to be incorporated into forward-thinking cities?

→ How might we support inter-species co-habitation?

Imagine a future where amongst our structures there are also new types of towers for birds or houses for raccoons, shelters for lizards and homes for bees. This issue takes a look at cross-species living habitats, especially the design and inclusion of dwellings for non-human urban dwellers within our built environment.

A

What was

To begin, let’s take a look at the past to understand how wild animals were accommodated within our urban settlements. We’ll begin our exploration in Turkey, where you’ll find remarkably ornate miniature avian palaces. Called “kuş köşkü” (bird pavilions), “güvercinlik” (dovecots) and “serçe saray” (sparrow palace), most of these elaborate bird houses were built during the Ottoman period and can still be seen adorning the faces of buildings today. These bird houses are incredibly ornate, with the builders having spared no expense at building the birds tiny balconies, parapets, and colonnaded facades.

An elaborate Ottoman bird house | VIa MindCircle

Historically, these bird palaces were included in the construction of buildings as it was thought that providing housing for birds granted the builder good favour with God. Not only that but building a bird house is still viewed as a general act of kindness, not to mention it also helps in keeping feathery friends from roosting indoors.

Dovecote in Teyssode | Via Alain Gillodes

Notable examples of these bird houses are located on the sides of buildings in Istanbul including the Sayyed Hassan Pasha Madrasa, the Yeni Valide Mosque, or the Büyükçekmece Bridge which is located just outside the city’s borders.

Moving North towards Europe, we find examples of dovecotes, or structures specifically built to house homing pigeons which were used to deliver messages in days of yore. European dovecotes range in size from standalone structures, to penthouse apartments (entire stories reserved) for pigeons, to makeshift appendages sticking out from the sides of buildings. Some of these structures are essentially small-scale castles for pigeons and some even came with bird baths built in. Thanks to their stone construction, many are still standing around in fields, but no new dovecotes are being built these days (unless of course that’s your thing).

If you’re interested in exploring an entire photographic catalogue of European dovecotes, you can do so thanks to the work done by Alain Gillodes (explore the blue links at the top to discover dovecotes by region).

To include another example of an urban bird house we can look at the unique towering dovecotes of Iran. Designed to house pigeons back when pigeons were harvested for their meat, eggs, and dung, these towers were high-rise complexes for pigeon friends. Architecturally they are very interesting to look at, being perforated by thousands of nesting sites. A few hundred kilometres away in Qatar, you can find a variation of the dovecote in tall cone-shaped pigeon towers that are perforated with patterns of circular holes. These are beautifully designed and remarkably contemporary looking.

B

What is

Now, are there any present-day animal housing that’s being built in our cities? The short answer is no, not really. Homes for humans are regularly erected, but the urban animals are left to fend for themselves. Sometimes we built tiny metropolises for birds, like at Birdhouse City in Canada, but these are often not located within an urban ecosystem.

If you live somewhere where there are bats, you may want to invest in a bat house. They’ll help keep the bug population at bay and are fun to watch flying around at dusk. Plus you’ll be helping provide roosting sites to a population in decline.

The Bee Home by Space10 | Image via Space10

You can also invest in a bee hive to help pollinators maintain their activities. Space10 created a beautiful design for a backyard beehive and were nice enough to make it open source. If you’re lucky enough to have a backyard other ideas you can explore are a bug hotel (piece of wood with many holes), a frog hotel or a toad house.

Some studios are exploring temporary installations to drive home the inter-species co-living discussion. Take for example London Fieldworks, a collaborative art practice that has a series of projects entitled ‘Spontaneous City.’ The “cities” are collections of birdhouses that appear to be growing on trees, similar to a fungus or organic growth.

Others are looking at ways to provide housing for birds through our infrastructure, one such example is the Nest Pole is an award winning design that provides a nesting site for birds atop telegraph poles.

C

What next

Scanning to the future, what might be next in this space? There is a growing interest in sustainability initiatives and nature respecting urban design. Around the world, we’re looking to build out systems that increase our self-sufficiency while benefiting the broader ecosystem.

In Canada, some citizens are looking to bring back farm animals into the city, starting with bylaws allowing for the ownership of backyard chickens. There is also an increased interest in backyard and urban gardening. From being able to grow your own fruits and veggies at home, to being able to cultivate food from urban spaces like city parks and sidewalk planters. Designing urban orchards and providing citizens with a location and harvesting guide helps reduce the potential mess that fruiting trees can create in an urban environment, all while providing free access to these resources.

Urban beekeeping has taken off in many cities, with local batches of honey being marketed and sold (like New York urban honey) and urban beekeeping companies popping up (like Alveole). At the same time, there are movements to rewild our lawns to help support a more natural ecosystem for insects and polinators. Instead of having a monoculture, uniform patch of green grass why not transform your yard into a beautiful urban meadow? You can take a look at this handy guide if you’re interested in rewilding your space.

Finally, when it comes to production processes, we’ve got to be thinking about more local manufacturing in the shape of 3D printing and local maker spaces. As Space10’s project demonstrates, more high quality designs are freely available online for citizens to build themselves. We’ve got all the tools and knowledge at our disposition to reimagine our cities, what’s holding us back?

D

What if

Putting as much care into the design of non-human homes acknowledges the ways in which we are imposing into the natural habitat of others. It also highlights design maturity and sensibility to other stakeholders in the environment. It’s an interesting challenge to design for non-human users first. What type of design needs, expectations, and desires might birds, bats, or bees have? What types of shapes or materials might be better suited to their needs than a miniature version of a human house?

Thinking through these considerations and combining them with some creativity, here are a couple of speculative scenarios to consider.

1% for wildlife

Imagine a future where all new construction projects are required to include a certain percentage of its space to non-human inhabitants (similar to the way in which parking requirements or public art requirements are calculated today). Building a new house? Better make sure your architect includes a bird house somewhere on the facade, or at minimum a bee hive on your roof.

Urban swarms

With so many homes for critters built into our cities, we may see seasonal urban locust plagues, or other type of swarming behaviours take over our space for a few weeks. Imagine getting ready to go to work only to be told its best to work from home for the next week or so to avoid the grasshoppers.

Urban hunting

With natural predator populations controlled within city limits, certain animal populations could explode. Bunnies, deers, and other herbivores could take over our urban landscapes, resulting in the need to occasionally cull or chase away their population to maintain a balanced ecosystem. What might this look like? Would citizens be allowed to trap, hunt, chase, or kill urban animals for a day or a week of the year? Would it be a sort of modern, urban fox hunt…?

Urban fields

Instead of roadways, we adapt our streets to become green corridors and agricultural resources. Fields of wheat are grown and harvested as a community, with deers prancing about. How idyllic, right?

E

So what

Now that we’ve explored some potential future scenarios, we’re left with the “so what.” What can we learn from this exercise and what can we bring forth into our future work. Here are some considerations, both positive and negative, as well as some further food for thought.

Positives

Urban animals

Supporting wildlife in our cities can help us protect vulnerable species while reducing the stress experienced by certain animals.

Richer ecosystems

Offering up homes to insects, critters, and other urban dwellers enriches the natural (urban) ecosystem.

Negatives

Diseases

Living with more wild animals in our cities can lead to more diseases, plagues, and pestilence. Wild animals can be carriers for a host of bad actors including rabies, ticks, and viruses. Historically we’ve wanted to control or limit their footprint within human settlements to limit dangerous encounters.

Attacks

Not all animals are cute, cuddly, and harmless. With more animals living in urban settlements, more predators will be attracted. This obviously poses a problem for community safety and is why wildlife numbers within cities are carefully controlled and monitored. Depending on where you are, you definitely don’t want bears or cougars roaming your streets.

Increased roadkill

Having more animals in an urban centre is surely to lead to more accidents between vehicles and animals. We may build more wildlife corridors, but that doesn’t mean wild animals will stick to them.

Damage

Depending on how the animal shelter is constructed, some damage may be sustained by home owners as the animals modify their dwellings. Yes, it’s nice in principle to have a raccoon house attached to yours… until they start making renovations and expansions to their home!

Other considerations

Co-Dependency

Some animals may build a co-dependency on human built dwellings, losing their ability to survive “in the wild.” Over time, certain species may forget how to build their nests from wild materials, preferring to find some pre-made alternatives instead.

Food: Animals vs. Humans

Planting more fruiting trees and urban gardens sounds nice, but pair that with a potential increase in urban wildlife and you’ve got a messy situation. Yes, there’s more food available for us to harvest, but there are also more food available for wildlife to consume.

This concludes our short overview of the past, present, and potential futures of a wilder urban fabric. With many resources available online, perhaps this is your sign to pick up a hammer or download a 3D printing file and start building some homes for our furry, feathery friends. As always, let us know in the comments if you think we’ve missed talking about anything particularly relevant or exciting.

Rachelle Bugeaud