Nestworks exhibited at Arup Phase 2
As part of Fritz Haeg’s Animal Estate 8.0, 51% Studios Architecture was invited to exhibit the Nestwork blocks, bush and boughs at Arup Phase 2, from October 16th through January 20th, 2012.
Other projects on display are:
Nestworks honoured in Animal Architecture Awards
Animal Architecture has announced the winning entries for the 2011 Animal Architecture Awards. They say: “We had an amazing group of projects from all corners of the Globe and an exciting mix of fantastical, plausible and built projects that reinterpret the way we Human animals might interact with our companion species. Congratulations to all of the entrants! Job well done!”
See all the entries here
Birds in the blocks
Not concerned that they were designed for House Sparrows, a Blue Tit family has been incubating their brood in one Union Street Urban Orchard ‘duplexes’ over the last few weeks.
Blue Tit leaving Nestworks Block at the Union Street Urban Orchard. Photo: Peter Thomas
The adapted readymades, fashioned from a standard Lignacite block, were the first prototypes installed for the 2010 London Festival of Architecture, so its fitting that they were also the first to be occupied.
Commissioned by the Architecture Foundation as a permanent legacy for the festival, Nestworks feature in the ‘Union Street Urban Orchard Book : A Case Study of Creative Interim Use’ which will be available from The Architecture Foundation website and at the book launch tonight.
Urban Birds
Around Valentine’s Day courting birds across the UK will begin inspecting potential nesting sites. Informed and inspired by ornithological derives with Peter Holden MBE, 51% studios architecture has planted scores of ‘assisted readymades’ across the Bankside Urban Forest to increase the variety of nesting options open to its urban birds, many of whom are on the endangered list.
We discovered that the standard hollow block used to build some of London’s most celebrated architecture is made from concrete bulked with recycled woodshavings, a material that when used in nestboxes is proven to fledge more young than any other.
Synergistically the interior block dimensions are text book size for house sparrows, radically in decline in the area. Other species designed for are blue tits, great tits, starlings, wrens, robins and blackbirds.
A website, www.urbanbirds.net, launches on Valentine’s Day to allow nesting activity to be tracked by families and bird lovers across the area. Nestworks is a public project and a people’s project, commissioned by the Architecture Foundation as a permanent legacy for the London Festival of Architecture.
The Emerald Necklace
The site has a unique location. The Upper Rio Grande Events and Recreation Complex’s grounds and buildings will be the first thing you see when you approach the historic town of Creede, from any direction. Along the Silver Thread Scenic Highway, the site and the Willow Creek Conservation Area become one gem in an emerald necklace of scenic valleys stretching up the Rio Grande. Proposals for its development must provide a project which is at once an authentic signature for Creede and a fitting ‘jewel’ in the necklace.
The architecture and landscaping is an extension and embodiment of Creede and the very visible spirit that has created it. The attitude and spirit of the mountain settlers was, and continues to be, unique. Local architecture reflects the values and sensibilities of its people, and this is particularly visible in places somewhat off the beaten track, where people have had to wrestle with available raw materials to survive and to make their livelihoods.
51% studios are using the same kind of thinking that’s been used for well over 100 years in this valley, using the local site conditions and materials in frank ways that reflect awareness of their inherent attributes.
Out & About
