Biodiversity Building

(unrealized proposal)

 

This project, a finalist for the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Wyoming, consists of a series of sculptural habitats that are grafted onto the new building.

How we understand ourselves in relation to the rest of the world plays out in all aspects of our society including architecture. When we build a city or a building it is rarely integrated into the surrounding ecological web. We rarely think about whether other living things have a right to that same space. It seems radical to think about how many species a building can sustain.

Habitat loss, a main driving force in shrinking biodiversity, is itself driven by our increasing ability to manipulate our environment to the benefit of humans alone, to the exclusion of all other species. Is it possible for humans to create homes, buildings and cities that function within the larger ecological web that surrounds them?

This project seeks to challenge the notion that our built environments are for humans alone. By creating a series of sculptural interventions that provide habitat for other species, this project externalizes and makes visible the mission of the Biodiversity Institute.