The Multispecies Metropolis
We are very pleased to share with you an upcoming event in the Multi/Poly-species space. Richard Fadock, Mellon…
About the Expanded Environment
*In July 2014 Animal Architecture was rebranded as The Expanded Environment. Some text and links through-out this site…
A Monstrous Architecture Part 1
The influence of bio-politics has reached a level of saturation in architecture and architectural practice. No longer are architects primarily concerned with simply constructing beautiful and functional structures but are increasingly obsessed with the role and position of life and living system in their projects.
A conversation with Amy Haigh
We recently caught up with Amy for a more in depth conversation on her work, her thoughts and projects to come. Join us!
Amy Haigh’s Interworlding Objects
London-based interdisciplinary designer and storyteller Amy Haigh has produced for her diploma work at The Royal College of Arts, London a series of clever objects that cross the species divide and question the anthropocentric as well as the ontological boundaries of objects in general.
Buildings + Germs
... architecture and more specially buildings, are rather poor opponents against pandemics. Urban planning seems to have a shot, but buildings - their scale, their materials, their systems, are weak at best and more likely a fool's errand; wasting time, effort and money to combat a foe they cannot defeat at exactly a time when resources are slim.
Living in Expanded Times
We are living in unprecedented times. The arrival of the novel corona virus global pandemic in the early months of 2020 has essentially re-written how we live our daily lives - to say it lightly. There have been profound changes at every level of life. Firstly and most tragically is the loss of life. As of today’s writing, which is roughly 120 days into the US experience of Covid-19, over 460,000 deaths world wide.
Announcing: Contributing Editor, Amy Haigh
We are very pleased to welcome Amy Haigh to the Expanded Environment team. Over the next several weeks…
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.
Cities, Semantics & Approaches to ‘WILD’
Meanings of WILD transmitted through languages have direct implications on how we plan our cities.
Other Coworkers: Animals in the Workplace
History would suggest that a coworking relationship between humans and nonhumans is rarely equal and is typically characterized by subjugation, sadness, and a controlled population expansion of “useful” species. GBHB demonstrates that another more equitable, more beneficial, more respectful cross-species coworking environment is possible.
AMBIGUOUS TERRITORY: ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE, AND THE POSTNATURAL
Ambiguous Territory asks, can art and design avail new ways to approach contemporary challenges regarding the environment? What new worlds, and what new concepts of nature and culture can art and design reveal that other modes of inquiry and knowledge cannot?
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.
Art-value of Biological Growth on Buildings
The art value of the co-created landscape cannot be ignored. The biological growth elevates the value of the wall into that of a unique sculpture.
Hollow Ecosystems: Ambient Shelters for Avifauna in Cities
Hollow Ecosystems (HES) can encourage a healthy population of birds within urban areas as well as add value of wonderment to architectural projects.
Climate of Dissent – PROTEST DESIGN COMPETITION
Climate change is here. Temperature increases have led to droughts, famine, floods, displacement of thousands of people, and the rapid decline of many ecosystems. For the competition, participants will design an act of protest centered on climate change.
An Enquiry into Production of Public Sculptures of Animals in Calcutta
As we are able to replicate the natural world in a synthetic medium, it becomes important to question the processes that lead to the existence of the animal sculptures.
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.
Cities: Home for Wildlife, Lacking Wilderness
If cities can be programmed with the character of wilderness, the urban can draw benefits of wonderment, motion, colour and interaction.
A Mongoose Family Visits Home
It was February 7 2018, when animal screams outside my bedroom door woke me up in the middle of the night.
Announcing: Contributing Editor, Amartya Deb
We are happy to introduce our newest contributing editor to the Expanded Environment - Amartya Deb. Amartya comes to us from India often writing from locations in Dehli, Calcutta, Bangladesh and elsewhere.
Companion Species
Today’s cities, not only Western but cities in general, have almost no animal life in their cores, and if they do, it is strongly curtailed.
Field Notes from The Expanded Environment; Climate Control: The Rise of the CAFO
In two strikingly different cities, Paris and Chicago, we can trace the logic of the modernization of urban…
Weather Sites
Selected weather sites that stand out for their accuracy, visual techniques and levelheadedness.
OP-ED: Post-Harvey Houston
There should be no suggestions to the contrary - we have (willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or not - it doesn't really matter) created climate systems of massive power and energy and we have placed our cities in their paths. This was an act of Human. The faster we get a grip on this the faster we can face ourselves and our future.
Field Notes from The Expanded Environment; Chicago Union Stockyards: A Genealogy of the Feedlot
Chicago Union Stockyards, 1947 Animal infrastructures are tied directly to larger forms of control and management which…
Field Notes from The Expanded Environment; An Introduction
Field Notes from the Expanded Environment will act as a research dossier for an eventual monograph problematizing more-than-human co-habitation within the expanded field of Interior Architecture. My intervention is to apply design-strategies from Adaptive Reuse to interior architectures of feedlots where architectural form becomes the technological delineator between human life and non human biocapital.