Juhani Pallasmaa

Every now and again we find something on the web, or in print or, in a museum, and say "Gosh! We should have had that up on the site a while ago." During some recent web-trolling we came across this fantastic little piece by Juhani Pallasmaa, the acclaimed Finish Architect, Professor and Artist.

Daniel Arsham’s Animal Architecture

...we can speculate about various readings of the kind of alien logic of geometry, math, and by extension mankind in the face of nature, or the apparent illumination (divine / cerebral illumination) of the natural by the geometric or we can muse about what the donkey might be thinking in the presence of an object that presumably it cannot possibly fathom...

Birth of the Synthetic Cell

Scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland have rocked the world with the creation of the first ever manmade cell. Although small in size, this feat is being hailed as one of the greatest scientific (and perhaps architectural) breakthroughs of this age.

Welcome to Alex Tseng

Welcome Alex! Alex will be traveling the world for the next few months and then take up his preceptorship in NYC with the notable firm of DS+R. During his travels he'll stop in here to say a few words. We think you'll be a great addition to the Animal Architecture team.

TEDxHouston

For those of you who know TED and TEDx this is definitely a cause for excitement. For those of you new to the whole TED-thing we highly recommend checking it out.

Sukkah City

We’ve just discovered an exciting architecture competition coming up for registration on July 1st. ‘Sukkah City: New York…

Dam!

OTTAWA (AFP) – A Canadian ecologist has discovered the world's largest beaver dam in a remote area of northern Alberta, an animal-made structure so large it is visible from space.

Growing Up?

Another heated debate surrounding vertical farming is presented to us via AlterNet. This post, by Stan Cox and David Van Tassle, both plant-breeding researcher at the Land Institute in Salinas Kansas is decidedly on the anti-vertical farming side of things due to what the authors claim is the sheer impossibility of vertical farming.

The Truffle

... this project just might illustrate some of the conceptual shifts, that is posthumanist ideas, that appear elsewhere on this site, but have yet to make it into the architectural world. We don't have an award yet for "Most effective human animal partnership in the construction of a building" but if we did, Anton Garcia-Abril, that award would go to you sir. Well done.

Bug Hotel Competition

Bee part of the buzz – enter London’s unique architectural competition and be in with the chance of winning the highly desirable ‘Golden Beetle’ trophy. The City of London Corporation and British Land invite you to take part in the inaugural Beyond the Hive competition. The competition, designed to encourage biodiversity in the City of London, asks entrants to design a five star hotel for our insect friends.

Fritz Heag Wins Rome Prize

This year, among the many recipients is one of our previously featured artists, Fritz Haeg. We find Fritz's award particularly exciting because is recognizes his a-typical approach to practice and his unique focus on the habitats of other species as valuable to the practice of Architecture and Design. We first met Fritz at the Systems of Sustainability symposium at the University of Houston last year and have been closely watching his work since. Congratulations Fritz. This a great award for a so many reasons.

Animal Architecture Class

Work with professional artists and architects from international art collective Delta Arts and the Geffrye Museum to create a temporary architectural structure inspired by natural habitat systems to be exhibited at the Geffrye Museum.

Urban Aeries

We're happy to announce that Melissa McDonnell, M.Arch '11, Rice University (in partnership with Animal Architecture's Ned Dodington) has won a prestigious RDA (Rice Design Alliance) Houston Initiatives Grant for a very cool project. The project is titled “Urban Aeries” and aims to design urban roosting habitats for Houston's migratory bird population.

Advertise with Us!

The time has come for Animal Architecture to expand. That’s right, we’re movin’ on up and we need…

Insect Art

More insect art comes to us this time through DeZeen Magazine. The images below show the work of…

Bee Sculptures

Simon Delobel from the Verbeke Foundation, (NL) recently wrote in to alert us to the works of Jef Faes. Jef Faes is a Belgian artist working in a particularly interesting medium -- bee hives.

One Year!

A year ago we posted our first entry on Animal Architecture and took on the mission to bring…

Natalie Jeremijenko and Nigel Snoad

Up-coming guest lecture by Natalie Jeremijenko, one of our favorite ecological engineers, along with Nigel Snoad of Microsoft on April 6th at Parson's Lang Center, in New York City.

Critical Ecologies Update

More information from Harvard GSD about the upcoming Critical Ecologies symposium on April 2nd and 3rd. Click the above image to download the poster! Stay tuned as Animal Architecture will be posting content and commentary throughout the event.

Temple on TED

We’ve posted a few times previously on Temple Grandin, and we’re very glad to see that she seems…

Vertical Farming Debated

This is something of an old debate (we posted on this same article in July), and also something of an old post. But the link is still getting comments so we thought we'd post it here in case anyone wants to jump back into duking it out over vertical gardens.

Macaws Deserve good Design Too

This just in from one of our readers and dear friends. The Architecture firm of Enric Batlle and Joan Roig has constructed new cages for the Macaw population in Barcellona's Parc de la Ciutadella