Overcoming the anthropocentric bias ingrained in the way we sense and view the city is an essential precondition for designing urban futures that care for all life forms. Given that cities are increasingly being represented and designed through data, how can designers employ open-source visualization tools to radically remap the built environment from a multispecies perspective? What does it mean to intelligently mediate human-non-human habitation through design?
Urban Wilds, Envisioning the Multispecies City explores these questions within the context of Greater Lausanne. The studio adopts a critical approach to multispecies design, beginning with the analysis of Lausanne’s ecological network proposed to restore habitat for fauna under threat of extinction. Students will decode the ecological entanglements between these animals and the built environment (tensions and opportunities) along habitat corridors and will formulate clear design problems and sites accordingly. The semester will be devoted to developing a network of interventions that integrate wildlife and human habitat at the architectural scale.
The course will consist of a combination of lectures, discussions, site visits, and design exercises. Students will engage in independent research, group work, and design projects to deepen their understanding of urban ecology. Guest lectures by experts in the field will provide students with unique insights into real-world challenges and opportunities related to wildlife coexistence in urban settings.
The design process will emphasize research, analysis, and conceptual development through the use of mapping and representational tools devised for the studio to enhance the presentation and communication of design proposals. This will incorporate innovative visual representation using animation, geodata, and on-site investigations combined through multi-layered drawings.
The results from this studio are planned to be shared with the city of Lausanne to provide insight into innovative ways to design for multispecies, as well as be part of a future exhibition on multispecies architecture & urban design.