Hidden in Plain Sight: Multi-species Infrastructures in Dense Urban City Centers

Double Happiness, Energy and sustainability, Essay, expanding design practices, No Density

Architecture&nature, Biodiversity, Cities, Climate change, Comfort, Consumption, Design, Ecology, Ecosystem, Environment, Essay, Greenery, Habitats, Interior design, Madrid, Prototype, Renewable energy, Research, Resilience, Spain, Sustainability, Urban space, Urbanism

A longer version of this essay originally appeared in: Feliz, Nerea. “Urban Interiority in the Athropocene”, Interiority Vol 3, no. 1 (January 2020): 83-96.


References:


Carrington, D. (2019, February 10). Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature.’ The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature


Hwang, J. (2013). Living among pests: Designing the biosynthetic city. Next Nature, 35. Retrieved from https://nextnature.net/2013/09/living-among-pests-designing-the-biosynthetic-city


Meinhold, B. (2010, February 7). Leading architects unveil luxury bug hotels in London. Inhabitat. Retrieved from https://inhabitat.com/leading-architects-unveil-luxury-bug-hotels-in-london/


Yinon M. Bar-On, Rob Phillips, & Ron Milo (2018). The Biomass Distribution on Earth. Edited by Paul G. Falkowski, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, and approved April 13, 2018. Inside Carrington,D. (2018, May 21). Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals – study. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study

Hidden in Plain Sight is a proposal for a series of urban furnishings doubling as multi-species infrastructures in dense urban city centers. The prototypes are designed by Double Happiness, a collaboration between Nerea Feliz, the author of this paper, (Nerea Feliz Studio) and Joyce Hwang (Ants of the Prairie).