Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications

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Author: Parker, Daniel × Author: Roudavski, Stanislav × End date: 2022 × Start date: 2020 × Type: Moving Image ×

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    Multispecies Cultures and Design for Powerful Owls
    Parker, D ; Roudavski, S (Flourishing of the Non-Human in Cities, a session at The Nature of Cities Festival and Speaking About the Humans. Animal Perspectives on the Multispecies World, 2022)
    We argue that nonhuman individuals are experts in their lives and can offer valuable contributions to the design of future environments. Without innovative modifications of prevalent human practices, the unfolding environmental crisis is likely to grow catastrophically. A typical example of the ongoing degradation is the accelerating extinction of nonhuman lifestyles. Humans dominate the replacement cultures, and this anthropocentrism causes widespread harm. Our project seeks to tackle this problem. The study of human cultures already draws a lot of attention. Research on nonhuman cultures is also growing. However, cultures that involve human and nonhuman agents remain understudied. Integration of nonhuman cultural knowledge into future-oriented design is even more rare. Addressing this gap in knowledge, we aim to show that nonhuman expertise can inform designing for and with all life in the age of human domination. To explore this hypothesis, we discuss an ongoing research project that aims to help large owls thrive in dense cities. The article provides a mapping of interspecies cultures in this case and tests this mapping by considering alternative design scenarios. We begin by outlining characteristic individuals that can lead worse or better lives: organisms, species, families, communities, and ecosystems. The next step establishes dimensions of value according to these individuals using the capabilities approach. We use examples of long-term co-living ranging from interspecies friendship to interspecies violence to illustrate the argument. Owls live better if they are healthy, can procreate, socialise, and make their own decisions. The deployment of multiple timescales, from evolutionary to cultural and organismic, helps to capture the full range of possible cultures including the owls’ attitudes towards various humans. Our analysis demonstrates plasticities and fragilities of nonhuman as well as more-than-human communities. This work contributes to scholarship by reconsidering conservation in response to nonhuman knowledge and testing ideas of ecological justice in application to design.