determine the focus Where does this shift in focus from over-designed human ways to ones of wildlife and their organic route-making practices take us? On my study site, I want to preserve a fragment of animal migration corridors before the expansion of human settlement fully eradicates it. My site visits eventually became routine without thought or preparation, promoting detours and a desire to explore. I no longer made it a mission to travel from point A to B, but rather, I began following the sounds of birds, the scents of plants and the movements of weasels.
Animal migration routes and their overlaps were revealed. Rodents like crevices and dense shrubbery, while coyotes follow cleared-out ways. Turkeys prefer the transition zone between open grasslands and densely forested areas, and songbirds mostly fly between treetops. Herons, beavers, weasels and ducks share the overgrown streams. Geese congregate in open areas near bodies of water and pastures. This more profound comprehension of animal preferences was possible only once I eliminated my preconceptions about what constituted a route. Without this, I would have stayed oblivious to their habits. So how can we, architects, urban planners and designers, continue to claim that we care to build with nature in mind when we actively work on segregating it through construction, sterilisation, and demolition?
Here the focus shifts from human observation to wildlife and its organic route-making practices. The site's flora: short grasses, weeds, shrubbery, and trees. The fauna: several animals on site. Maps chart their rough trajectories throughout a three-year period.
Yana Kigel
24
on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
:: complex systems
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