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Goettsch Partners has announced the completion of the Pepper Family Wildlife Center, a $41 million renovation, restoration, and expansion of the historic lion house at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. Image: © Tom Harris The new 54,000-square-foot facility nearly doubles the size of the... View full entry
In California and Oregon, beavers are enhancing wetlands that are critical breeding habitat for salmonids, amphibians, and waterfowl. In Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, environmental groups have partnered with ranchers and farmers to encourage beaver activity on small streams. Watershed advocates in California are leading a campaign to have beavers removed from the state’s non-native species list, so that they can be managed as a keystone species rather than a nuisance. — placesjournal.org
Writing in Places Journal, landscape designer Stacy Passmore explores the amazing landscapes beavers create when they are allowed to fulfill their natural role as environmental engineers. More and more, beavers and humans have become partners in reshaping the landscapes of the American west... View full entry
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... View full entry
The octopuses didn’t just drift toward the same secure-looking outcroppings, though. Once there, they built piles out of shells from scallops, clams, and other animals they ate, then sculpted the piles into dens, “making these octopuses true environmental engineers,” — CityLab
Scientists have found a new example of animal architecture, this time a city made by usually solitary octopuses. Named Octlantis, this underwater city is engineered by a group of 15 octopuses. Octopuses are known to be builders of their own habitat but, until now, had not be discovered to live in... View full entry
Scientists have discovered that scorpions design their burrows to include both hot and cold spots. A long platform provides a sunny place to warm up before they hunt, whilst a humid chamber acts as a cool refuge during the heat of the day. — Science Daily
This recent discovery of scorpion architecture adds to a sizeable list of impressive non-human architecture.Anthills consist of a complex network of paths. Comparative to the size of an individual ant, these structures are mega-skyscrapers.Likewise, termites build huge structures that have been... View full entry
Chee Pearlman, a design consultant and curator, ventured that nests are “probably the purest antidote to the heavy steel-and-concrete building footprints that, city by mega-city, are overtaking the globe.” — NYT
Penelope Green explores the work of a number of contemporary "nest" makers such as Jayson Fann and Porky Hefer, who make nests for relaxation, comfort or pleasure. Ms. Green also discusses some recent examples of Twigitecture created as either fine art or performance art. View full entry
“Bat Cloud,” as her creation is called, is an unusual array of hanging bat houses installed at the refuge in May by the University at Buffalo architecture professor with the help of current and former students. — Buffalo News
