Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/11343/279

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 13

What Is It Like to Be an Owl … in a Human World? Mutual Support, Conflict, and Design Imagination in Interspecies Communities

Parker, D ; Soanes, K ; Roudavski, S ( 2023)

This project challenges Thomas Nagel’s scepticism about the possibility of understanding the lives of nonhuman animals and explores cultural relationships between humans and powerful owls (Ninox strenua) in southeastern Australia. We argue that a better understanding of stakeholder interactions in interspecies communities is not only necessary but readily attainable and can reverse many designed or unintentional harms to support mutually beneficial cohabitation. To investigate this proposition, we conduct immersive ethnographic interviews with humans who have committed numerous years to living with owls and apply their learning to map existing and potential contributions of nonhuman stakeholders in the design of urban places. In the process, we document previously unpublished observations of owl cultures, including mourning, farming, teaching, personal expression, place use, and decision-making. Our approach contrasts these behaviours of owls with aspects of human cultures that cause disturbance, intrusion, and misunderstanding. In response, we describe observed motivations for sustained cultural interactions across species, highlighting the need for a fundamental reframing of power relationships in interspecies communities. Our presentation contributes to the theme of Animal Cultures by demonstrating encouraging existing practices and practical steps that can lead to substantial improvements in parallel with the visionary possibilities of politically inclusive interspecies communities.
More-Than-Human Design for Coastal Justice: A Case Study of Mangroves in Jakarta’s Bay

Tenggono, G ; Sintusingha, S ; Roudavski, S ( 2023)

This research project uses evidenced-based designing to explore the role of non-human beings in future urban coastlines. This topic is significant because climate-induced flooding and erosion lead to global reliance on ‘hard’ water infrastructure that disproportionately harms nonhuman communities. For example, projects such as Jakarta's proposed sea wall can lead to serious adverse impacts. Future cities need to be more just as well as more resilient. However, even the best current approaches to coastal infrastructure can benefit from greater inclusion of nonhuman voice because they often remain anthropocentric and do not account for nonhuman services or include nonhuman voices. To address this gap in knowledge and practice, we propose an approach that supports mangroves’ rights to place in Jakarta’s Bay. Our methods are: 1) defining a more-than-human approach to design; 2) selecting Jakarta as one of the world’s fastest sinking cities with characteristic challenges; 3) designing an alternative future that combines non-human expertise, traditional local knowledge, scientific evidence, and high-tech engineering; and 4) assessing this design in comparison with the status quo, demonstrating its challenges and benefits. The results show that an inclusive approach can lead to plausible solutions that support more-than-human communities while maintaining shorelines and providing benefits to human inhabitants. However, existing societal understanding and governmental agendas may not recognize mangroves as legitimate stakeholders and resist engaging with non-human beings. As in many other places, a return to the local wisdom can re-establish beneficial relationships with place that colonial practices have suppressed for too long. The visual evidence that accompanies our narrative vividly illustrates future scenarios that can build solidarity and inspire communal imagination. In conclusion, this project contributes to knowledge by demonstrating the effectiveness of a more-than-human design framework in a practical case, proposing a concrete solution for Jakarta, and offering a reusable approach to just resilience.
Vegetal Voices: Learning through Making with Trees and Humans

Briggs, C ; Tournier, D ; Martin, B ; Rutten, J ; Holland, A ; Roudavski, S (Honolulu, online, 2023)

This project presents an approach that seeks to empower voices of trees through an innovative use of spatial data. To engage with this challenge, we focus on a tree that lives in the south of Australia, near Narrm (Melbourne). This tree retains the marks left by the ancestors of the Kulin Nations who used its bark to make useful objects. Plants, particularly trees, can care for themselves while helping other living beings. Their vegetal contributions are necessary for the survival of all complex lifeforms. Yet, no combination of human knowledges can fully understand, replicate, or replace the spectrum of support that plants offer. Human biases prioritise human needs over other forms of life. This results in the oppression of plants and diminishes their contributions to diverse bio-communities. To overcome paternalistic approaches that result from human biases, our project seeks to learn from this tree on behalf of all plants. The method includes three steps: firstly, acknowledging the resilience and 'voice' of trees as they withstand various external pressures; secondly, dissecting these survival strategies to confront and recalibrate human biases; and finally, engaging in a collaborative endeavour with the tree, allowing it to extend its influence through mark making. Our innovative approach involves interpreting detailed laser scans of the tree and transforming them into animated digital marks, thereby facilitating a meaningful dialogue between humans and trees. The objectives of this study are threefold: to validate the concept of 'voice' in non-human entities like plants, to highlight the complexities of plant lives that are unobvious to humans, and to show that numerical data can be a conduit for creative collaborations between humans and trees. The findings are compelling and multi-faceted: the tree 'speaks' through its physical form and scars; data analysis uncovers significant events encoded in its marks; and the collaborative mark-making process disseminates the tree's story while also serving as a form of interspecies care. This project not only showcases how collaborative mark-making with trees can transform human understanding, but also repositions plants as active agents in design.
Brackish: Towards a Methodology for the Co-Production of Ethnographic, Legal and Design Knowledge for the Pluriverse

Marc, B ; Grotti, V ; Roudavski, S ; Young, M ( 2023)

Global action for nature restoration is rapidly taking off, stimulating the development and scaling up of ecosystem restoration or ‘rewilding’ programmes. Typically, such programs invoke market logics of ecosystem services and natural capital, expressed in the concepts of the ‘green’ and ‘blue’ economy. Such technocratic or market-based programmes struggle to account for the complexities of ecological, social and cultural multispecies entanglements. Rewilding initiatives conjure utopian visions of equilibrium, but these visions are challenged by uncertainty over future conditions, spatial fragmentation and the influence of multiple uncontained processes on diverse scales (e.g. climate change, pollution, invasive species). The challenge of restoring diverse and uncertain worlds invites a humble engagement with indigenous and local communities, cultivating an ethic of care for social and ecological reproduction. Focusing on coastal areas, critical zones where multiple dynamic ecological and human processes meet, this project proposes a collaborative methodology for multispecies cohabitation, justice and care through ethnography, design and law, with the active participation of local communities, ecologists and indigenous scientists. Thinking through more-than-human kinship, fertility and reproduction, we focus on relations and procedures rather than visions or destinations.
Creative Decisions by Creatures and Gadgets: A More-than-Human Approach to Future Design

Brock, D ; Roudavski, S ( 2023)

This study explores novel approaches to envisioning the future by bridging the gap between ecocentric and technocentric perspectives on creative decisions. Despite differing depictions of future societies, both perspectives share a common emphasis on improved decision-making as a prerequisite of preferable futures. However, current discourses struggle to integrate these viewpoints and give voice to nonhuman beings and communities, notably in design, perpetuating harmful systems. Our study advocates for a more holistic approach that integrates all forms of wisdom to reimagine decision-making processes for the betterment of future societies. Our research poses the question: “How can future decisions benefit from all sources of knowledge and wisdom?” We hypothesize that more-than-human decision-making can improve just relationships, caring, resilience, and wellbeing in multispecies communities. To test this, we outline decision-making processes in nonhuman living beings, compare their decisions with those made by technical systems, and consider hybrid decision-making in various contexts. Our case-studies discuss the impact of smart technologies on companion animals in future cities, emerging interactions between grey and living infrastructure in old cultural landscapes, and the impact of ecocentric ethics on proposed space colonies. Our findings illustrate that more-than-human decision making can open paths to superior futures. Integration of ecocentric and technocentric perspectives, amplified by the tools for the empowerment and translation of nonhuman voices, can aid in designing futures that are fair for all beings.
Artificial Intelligence for Multispecies Cohabitation: Through the Eyes of a Bird

Roudavski, S ; Holland, A (The Miyawaki Mini Forests and Smart Green Network Symposium, keynote presentation, 2022)

The objective of this project is to consider smart cities in the context of evolving ecosystems and their multispecies communities. To do this, we 1) indicate that current discourse on the ethics of AI has significant shortcomings; 2) link human and nonhuman contributions to cohabitation by emphasising multiple sources of smartness; 3) introduce the notion of ecocentric and interspecies design; 4) discuss forms of more-than-human participation; and 5) conclude by outlining a practical project where design is by trees for birds and with humans who deliberately step back to play supporting roles.
Memorialising Aquatic Extinction: The Transformative Potential of Multispecies Grief

Gordon, B ; Roudavski, S (Blue Extinction Symposium, Sheffield Animal Studies Research Centre (ShARC), The University of Sheffield, 2022)

The climate-driven extinction of giant kelp forests (Macrocystis pyrifera) on Tasmania’s east coast may be imminent. Tasmania is a “global warming hotspot.” Waters along its east coast are warming at a significantly higher rate than the global average. For many aquatic species living there, existential damage has already begun. The warming water has killed 95% of Tasmania’s giant kelp forests during the last 80 years. These forests are ‘ecosystem engineers which provide hone for many species. Their decline results in the devastating loss of habitat for many endemic species that are thus facing extinction. In this project, we aim to identify approaches to witnessing, grieving, and memorialising their loss. To do this, we examine material, cultural, and scientific traces of past aquatic extinctions and endangerments in Tasmania. We begin with Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis). Colonial settlers hunted these whales for their fat, which lit city streets as far away as London and drove Hobart’s economic establishment. This hunting led to the near extinction of these whales in less than 100 years. We also discuss the semi aquatic Lake Pedder earthworm (Hypolimnus pedderensis) and the freshwater fish Pedder galaxias (Galaxias pedderensis). In 1972, the Tasmanian government constructed a hydroelectric facility which extinguished the entirety of the earthworm species in one event by flooding their only habitat. The same event caused the Pedder galaxias to become extinct in the wild. Similarly, habitat damage from oyster and scallop dredging overwhelmed the smooth handfish (Sympterichthys unipennis), which has not been seen since 1802 and was officially declared extinct in 2020. We discuss our findings in application to the disappearing kelp forests and consider ways to grieve their potential extinction. We speculate that such grieving species might support transformative struggles in several political areas. This narrative positions the giant kelp ecosystems at the ‘front line’ of climate change and considers what can be learned from their experience.
Forests, Flowers, and Flames: Exploring the Potential of Commercial Beekeeping to Support Forest Stewardship in Tasmania

Gordon, B ; Roudavski, S (The Second International Environmental Humanities Conference: “Critical Animal and Plant Studies,” co-organized by the Environmental Humanities Center and the Department of English Language and Literature at Cappadocia University, Turkey, 2022)

Commercial honeybee cultivation in Tasmania poses opportunities to support stronger stewardship of forest ecosystems. Ecologists have conducted a small number of studies to determine the negative impacts of exotic honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) on native Tasmanian ecosystems, which produced mixed results. However, researchers have not examined the potential for the honey industry to foster a positive role in forest stewardship. In this study, we identify opportunities for commercial beekeepers to incorporate forest stewardship practices in their work. We follow a Tasmanian beekeeper for three weeks during key honey flows and observe several examples of unwitting forest stewardship, which managers could leverage to enhance forest protection. We point out that commercial beekeepers often advocate preservation of old-growth forest, because of its supply of the endemic Leatherwood tree (Eucryphia lucida) - a species which contributes up to 70% of the state’s honey production. In recent years, climate shifts have exacerbated the severity of bushfires and caused unprecedented burning in rainforest ecosystems, posing further threats to Leatherwood supply. We observe an example of a beekeeper inadvertently assisting with bushfire response, in which a disused forestry track maintained for apiary access enabled firefighters to intercept and extinguish a rainforest fire. We note that apiarists possess a unique lens into seasonal ecosystem variations and shifts and show ow this information is embedded in the honey collected by foraging honeybees. These examples show the potential to improve forest protection through collaboration between beekeepers and forest managers.
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.
Ecological Games: Mould Racing

Roudavski, S ; Holland, A ; Rutten, J (TRANSnational STS: Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Conference and Exhibition, 2018)

This work contributes to architectural, urban and landscape design by constructing an analytical narrative of site exploration through a locative mobile game. This contribution is important because data- or precedent-driven analysis of complex sites is insufficient for the purposes of ecological design. Seeking to alleviate this situation, the project asks whether complex sites can be better understood through embodied and situated interactions with computational simulations. We hypothesize that such simulations can be useful for design because they can deepen designers’ understandings of the environment, encourage creative participation, and expand the repertoire of design methods.

Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

Filters

Date

Author

Type

Settings

Sort By

Results per page

Statistics

Citations

Search Results