Following the mandate of the Stanley Park Ecology Society: connecting people with nature, the next exercise seeks to explore fruitful relationships between a place of rest shared by both a creature and a human. While animals and humans have very specific physical and environmental needs as well as long-held cultural and material practice, we can argue that all land-based living creatures need light and air, a place to work, rest, wash, eat and play, and a need for energy input / waste output. The challenge in this project is to discover a productive synergy that explicitly explores environment and climate, materiality, systems and exchange through the design of a spatial intervention. Working independently, each student will be paired with an animal from the current Children’s Farmyard.
Sited in the reptile/bird barn of the Children’s Farmyard, knowledge of climate conditions will initiate the design process. Rigorous research into the spatial and environmental needs of the animal will then be crossed with the spatial and environmental needs of a visitor on an overnight adventure in Stanley Park. To complicate matters, the structures must engage time: the Children’s Farmyard is being phased out to be replaced by a Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Centre for Stanley Park. As the farm animals expire, urban wildlife from Stanley Park will take their place. The spatial intervention must anticipate the next occupants.
This project is conceived of as a detail that will be relevant to the larger final project. The research and spatial exploration of the found productive synergy will be a design methodology repeated at different scales in Project 03. In addition, the material and systems research will be directly imported to initiate the design of Project 03.
OBJECTIVE
The main objective of this exercise it to 1> find productive synergies between the needs of the creature + the needs of the human. It is expected that this synergy will have spatial, material and systemic/technical consequence.
Copenhagen Elephant House and K’ang
“Giving onto separate outdoor areas for males and females (a division that is naturally adhered to by elephants in the wild, except when the cows are in oestrus) the new Elephant House will consist of two covered enclosures – a smaller one for the bulls and a larger one for the main herd. The larger of the two new enclosures will, for the first time, enable female elephants in captivity to sleep together, as they would in the wild. The external landscape includes a dry riverbed with mud holes and logs for the elephants to toss around, mimicking their natural habitat. One striking feature is the natural rubber flooring in the covered areas that, during winter, will be heated to keep the elephants’ feet in good condition. Both economic and environmental considerations were priorities: the building will be naturally ventilated and rainwater will be recycled. While the glass domes will fill the spaces with daylight, the panes will be fritted to avoid unnecessary heat gain. Trees will be planted to provide extra shade in summer.” -http://www.arcspace.com/architects/foster/elephant/
“Floor heating, considered a luxury in our part of the world [the West] has been a long-standing commodity in the peasant houses of Korea and northern China, where is it called k’ang. The plan and sectional drawing shows the simplest setup for heating the living quarters, with the hot air generated in the kitchen stove.” -Bernard Rudofsky, Prodigious Builders (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977) p303.
PROCESS
The project begins with necessary fact-finding. The class will pool research on the following:
Site plan; Solar study; Annual weather conditions; general research into relevant materiality [ie wall sections]; Precedents [find 3 examples of human and animal habitations in comparable climates around the world]…
The project will continue with research on the occupational needs of the selected farmyard creature. There will be a search for productive synergies and their spatialization [ie. heat exchange; methane-to-energy]. On Monday Sept 29 you are to present several diagrams that theorize potential synergestic flows [theory] and then speculate on their materialization [practice]. The project will end with the design of a provisional space that takes on issues appropriate to the subject of its investigation. Every project is required to develop a 1;20 wall section.
PROGRAM
A co-joined space for one/many of the selected creature [present + future] and one/many humans. At minimum, the creatures and humans are expected to have private spaces for resting. Daily needs of occupants must be accounted for.
DELIVERABLES
Documentation of research including precedents
22” x 34” landscape boards explaining process + design
Well-detailed model [scale of model to be determined with studio mentor]
Something special and specific to individual investigation