Archinect - News

The new face of dystopian architecture is… China’s massive high-rise pig farm

2023-02-12T08:00:00-05:00

Inside the edifice, which resembles the monolithic housing blocks seen across China and stands as tall as the London tower that houses Big Ben, the pigs are monitored on high-definition cameras by uniformed technicians in a NASA-like command center. Each floor operates like a self-contained farm for the different stages of a young pig’s life: an area for pregnant pigs, a room for farrowing piglets, spots for nursing and space for fattening the hogs.

A 26-story structure is, of course, the world’s tallest free-standing pig farm, according to the Times. It will be joined by a twin hog-raising center in October. The draconian forms are evocative of the measures required by China’s status as the world’s largest consumer of pork products and gaps in food production that must be hastily accounted for through such construction. (Not to instantiate that Western methods of agricultural production can't be equally heinous and unsavory by their own merits.)

As Orwell wrote, pigs are the cleverest of animals.

This modern backyard bat house raises awareness on a natural form of pest control and bat conservation

2018-10-26T16:25:00-04:00

In response to the increasing number of mosquitoes and other pesky insects that climate change is bringing about, BatBnB is one company that wants people to be less reliant on harmful chemicals and pay attention to a more natural form of pest control: Bats!

Co-founded by Harrison Broadhurst (an architectural designer at Nomi Design) and Christopher Rännefors (a Sales & Operations Manager at Google Fiber), BatBnB designs stylish, bat expert-approved houses that mimic bats' natural habitat and provide them with a safe environment to sleep, stay, and raise their pups. With these houses, Broadhurst and Rännefors want to show that bats aren't the filthy blood-thirsty pests many people assume they are. In fact, bats can eat thousands of insects in one night, making them a better form of pest control.

Image via BatBnB.

Made from rot-resistant cedar, the BatBnB currently comes in three sleek designs and can be installed on a house, barn, pole, or tree. It c...

FixNation & Architects for Animals Fundraise with Cat Shelter Showcase

2017-10-31T13:16:00-04:00

Last week FixNation and Architects for Animals joined forces to raise funds for FixNation’s critical charitable services for Los Angeles’ homeless cats, including spaying and neutering (check out the projects from last year). To raise awareness cat shelters were designed and constructed by thirteen different teams of local architects (some comprising of singular companies, others collaborative), all conceptualizing different aspects of a cat’s life into the design. Also, 28 cat bowls painted by various celebrities, including but not limited to Clint Eastwood, Charlize Theron, Carly Patterson, and Kristen Bell, were showcased and are still being auctioned off to the highest bidders along with the cat shelters. To place a bid on one of the items from the event right meow click here. The evening with FixNation was purr-fectly cat-astic, from the shelters, to the hand painted cat bowls, to the cat themed desserts.

Meghan Bob Photography ©

White Jack, by Abramson Teiger Architects

White J...

Chicago design firm casts hammy metaphor over Trump Tower

2016-12-06T19:24:00-05:00

New World Design Ltd. has shared a hypothetical proposal that would partially obscure the view of the infamous Trump Tower Chicago sign with four giant, gold-colored balloon pigs. [...] the pigs would be tethered to buoys in the Chicago River and provide “visual relief to the citizens of Chicago,” many of whom are presumably tired of seeing Trump’s name everywhere.

More acts of architectural protest:

Largest wildlife overpass in U.S. proposed for L.A.'s 101 Freeway, could ease area's roadkill problem

2015-09-03T18:28:00-04:00

Mountain lions, bobcats and other wildlife would have less chance of becoming roadkill if [California] adopts a plan to build a [165-foot-wide, 200-foot-long] landscaped bridge over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills...Urbanization has taken a toll on Southern California’s mountain lion population, spurring battles over shrinking territory and a depletion of genetic diversity because of inbreeding.

Related on Archinect:

Fancy $48M animal terminal to open in JFK Airport next year

2015-07-21T15:20:00-04:00

When a new terminal called The Ark opens next year, 178,000 sq.ft of posh amenities will include everything from a resort with suites that have large flat-screen TVs, to climate-controlled stalls, showers, massages, a private space especially set aside for penguin mating, a paw-shaped dog swimming pool, a jungle for cats made of live trees...and stables full of the finest hay a horse could hope for...But how much will this cost you? Don't expect flea motel rates.

Our infrastructure is expanding to include animals

2015-05-07T14:07:00-04:00

municipal infrastructure is being expanded to include living creatures. In many ways, of course, this is simply the contemporary urbanization of a practice that goes back millennia. However, the ensuing juxtapositions – of 21st-century landscapes and cities being maintained not by high-tech machines or by specialty equipment but by neo-medieval groups of trained animals – can be quite jarring. Animal labour is once more becoming an explicit component of the modern metropolis

The absolute premise, and conclusion, here is that human urbanism is ineluctably woven within all animal ecologies, and that harnessing inter-species relationships within urban systems can be advantageous for every bit of the food web. A few instances from the piece are:

landscaping llamas for Chicago's O'Hare's "Grazing Herd"
falcons in Dubai trained to thin out pesty pigeon populations
waste-clearing pigs in Cairo

Using natural animal processes to the urban-human's advantage is all well and good, but as the article points out, it's not one that can be easily "scaled". When urban needs outpace the natural rhythms of a supportive ecological system, when we just can't scale nature big enough, humans will simply create their own animal helpers – New Scientist alludes to a future in which animals are modified to better serve human needs.

Housing developments change puma behavior

2015-02-16T18:47:00-05:00

Female pumas kill more prey but consume less when their territories bump into human development, UC Santa Cruz researchers report in a new study based on monitoring more than two dozen pumas in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The presence of humans -- homes, roads, and other development -- means pumas are fearful and stay on the move rather than returning to a kill site to fully consume prey, the study finds

The research utilized data from tracking devices that record not only a puma's movement but also increases in speed and other behavior that signifies hunting behavior. Looking at the actions of 30 animals, the scientists were able to discern, among other things, that, "Females killed 36 percent more deer per year in developed habitats than in areas with little housing."

According to the report, increased kill rates suggest that the pumas are wasting more energy than they would in an environment devoid of human habitations. This also affects the population of prey species, in particular deer.

Studies like this shed light on the complex interdependency of human and non-human species. Architecture is never an exclusively human activity and, more often than not, we dwell at the expense of other species. For more information on this topic, check out Architecture of the Anthropocene (part 1 and part 2).

How Better Glass Can Save Hundreds of Millions of Birds a Year

2014-11-18T13:58:00-05:00

In fact, as many as 600 million birds die in window collisions in the U.S. and Canada every year, scientists estimate. [...] A growing awareness of the threats to bird populations has prompted new laws and voluntary guidelines in cities from Toronto to San Francisco. Along with "green" building programs, these new rules are spurring demand for bird-friendly glass among architects, glass manufacturers, and their clients.

Animalistic Architecture

2012-10-10T10:33:00-04:00

We’ve previously looked at buildings designed to look like other things (care to live in a giant conch shell, anyone?), as well as crazy structures shaped like fruit (a roundup surprisingly dominated by oranges and tomatoes). But a post over on MetaFilter got us thinking about the zoological forms that buildings occasionally take on.

Winners of URBAN ANIMAL: 2012 Animal Architecture Awards

2012-09-06T19:10:00-04:00

Ned Dodington, founder of AnimalArchitecture.org, today announced the winners of the 2012 Animal Architecture Awards. This year's competition, titled "URBAN ANIMAL", called for designs that reshape, expand and redefine the context of urban thought and space while keeping in mind the needs (and possible benefits) of synanthropic species — wild animals that “live near, and benefit from, an association with humans and the somewhat artificial habitats that humans create around them”.

See also: Bat Cloud, the top award winner, previously in the Archinect News.

Making glass fly with birds

2011-10-31T16:35:55-04:00

Retrofitting their home to eliminate feathered fatalities has worked for Brophy and Lutz. But a growing chorus of bird enthusiasts are advocating avian-friendly architecture at the design stage as the best prevention. It's a national movement that started in Chicago and has spread to other major cities, including the Twin Cities.

Animal Architecture Awards 2011 - The Winners

2011-08-15T13:53:08-04:00

The winning entries for the 2011 Animal Architecture Awards have just been announced. Now in its third year, the award contest "All Creatures Great & Small" invited critical and unpublished essays and projects to address how architecture can mediate and encourage multiple new ways of species learning and benefiting from each other - or as the organizers call it, to illustrate cospecies coshaping.