House of species| Graduate thesis

Graduate thesis

My thesis synthesizes symbiotic and ethical spatial relationships between human and non-human lifeforms. The project seeks to abate the role of humans as the center of the ecosystem and design decision-making. Our lives are entangled with non-humans. Throughout history, we have continued to tame and domesticate certain species and exert control over some. As we keep encroaching, we take over environments that belong to other species. Thus, forcing other species to relocate or go extinct. As we grow more hostile towards non-humans, we are actively harming our future on this planet. As remediation for this destruction, my project looks at building for nature with nature.

Humans exist in an environment that is governed, managed under strict regimes in authority. The premise of bioengineering presents us with natural systems that have been mutated and can transform entire ecologies. Mishandling the powers at our hands could mean devastating consequences for the earth and its biodiversity- a problem we are grappling with already. As Bruno Latour states that "On the contrary, the more we move into ecological controversies, the more important it becomes to consider an ecosystem as a sort of assembly without walls, inside which many types of “speakers” are allowed to “have a voice”. Not because we want to imitate the usual parliamentary settings, but, on the contrary, because it’s obvious that the traditional sites of politics have to move toward the center of gravity of ecology. If we have to live from now on in the assemblies of nature, we had better be aware of the procedures that make them either nurturing or deadly, livable or tyrannical."

To find our way through the endless classification of nature, we must find a way to organize the species. Hence, At Governor's Island, the rich biodiversity surrounding house 14 that includes the historic Gingko trees is studied and organized as moderators, pollinators, seed dispersers, climate indicators, scavengers, and pest controllers. As humans and non-humans share natural elements of water and air, it becomes of prime importance that House 14 gets updated with the necessary infrastructural changes that can fuel the lifeforms depending on it. The house will be a mirror to reflect the role of humans as well as a stepping to achieve coexistence in a residential framework. 

Deep section representing a "species calendar"

Through a study of the species on Governor's island, we organize a "species calendar" to understand the seasonal rhythms of species present on site. The calendar also recognizes the commonalities and interdependency of the species as a local ecosystem.

Anna Tsing in her book The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins argues for collaborations between humans and non-humans-"that staying alive—for every species—requires livable collaborations. Collaboration means working across differences, which leads to contamination. Without collaborations, we all die.”

Any house that exists in an urban environment, our immediate natural neighbors happen to be sparrows or pigeons that get comfortable building their nests in the voids that are unusable for humans. Humans have slowly caused nature to evolve around our ways of life.

Designing buildings for animals has offered us a range of responses, from bird bricks to cat flaps. While it is impossible to understand the spatial requirements of a bird, one can provide flexible design solutions when we understand very little about our clients. When designing for animals, two broad categories can be summarized - human as the spectator and human as the moderator.

We might not see how uneasy environmental compromises are forged in the present among rural and urban spaces in our daily lives but that does not grant us the luxury to see past it. With collaboration as thE design strategy to achieve multispecies living, my projects expand the rule set for species co-living beyond the standards of multi-species coexistence like companion animals and house plants. Several species are seen as creatures to be eradicated or as inconveniences, but the project seeks to accept them as species that can exist with and benefit from humans. With the right collaborations, House 14 could be a living membrane that is self-sustained through ethical space making.