As cities continue to expand and encroach on the habitats of numerous forms of life, how can we learn to live with those we cannot domesticate?
Serving as an appeal to policy makers, this project proposes new legislation for the implementation of multi-species bricks in the city of London. As a consequence, outdated binaries that divide humans and other animals are called into question and new modes of multi species cohabitation are put forward. The project works with London’s housing stock, specifically assessing how two of the most typical housing typologies in London - the Victorian terrace and the mid-rise block - can be modified in order to provide habitation for other species. Modest yet impactful, the brick is studied as an element which has the capacity to provide enclosure, access and negotiate boundaries between human and more-than human neighbours.
Domestication of animals is viewed on a spectrum. In this view, Synathropes - animals which live near and can even benefit from an association with humans and their artificial habitats, are domesticated to a degree whereby they are inherently influenced by the activity of humans. This mode of re-framing humans' relationship to other animals will provide a new lens through which to imagine the urban sphere as biotopes for multiple species.
Situated in a city bound together by its natural history, in which parks, gardens and the river meander throughout, tying humans and architecture to trees, flowers, birds and insects, the site will serve as a testbed for novel multi species experiments whereby an urban strategy is formulated.
In the midst of anthropogenic climate change and pandemic conditions, the project puts forward the notion that new imaginations are required to achieve eco-social justice in the vast ecosystems that are cities. Striving towards a means of reconciliation between the world of ecology and architecture, the research will propose a new type of urban living in which animals, plants and humans cohabit in distinct and creative ways.
