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• Recent News

  • habi-sabi finalist for inmidtown competition
  • Nestworks exhibited at Arup Phase 2
  • Nestworks honoured in Animal Architecture Awards
  • Birds in the blocks
  • Urban Birds
  • London’s red-jacketed volunteers
  • Shed modernism
  • The Emerald Necklace
  • Cable Suspended Sod Roof
  • Urban Birds Nestworks

• Topics

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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.

Cable Suspended Sod Roof

Dot­ted around the val­leys near Creede our eye was caught by tra­di­tional sod roofed potato cel­lars. Not only did they sit well in the land­scape, but they used regional mate­ri­als intel­li­gently to cre­ate an authen­tic, inven­tive eco-architecture. Our green roofs are hung on cables tra­di­tion­ally used for min­ing activ­i­ties, using a frac­tion of the mate­r­ial a beam would to sup­port the con­sid­er­able snow loads and addi­tional load of by a green roof. By in addi­tion earth­link­ing the build­ings and using geo-thermal heat, we have brought this home-grown tech­nol­ogy current.

Green roofs have sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits both for the public/community and for the indi­vid­ual build­ing owner. Pri­mary pub­lic ben­e­fits include con­trol­ling stormwa­ter runoff, improv­ing water qual­ity and improv­ing air qual­ity. The most sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits of green roofs for build­ing own­ers are reduc­tions in build­ing oper­at­ing costs, sig­nif­i­cantly longer roof life and lower life-cycle costs for the roof, and increased prop­erty value.

The green roof serves as a fil­ter to reduce pol­lu­tants in the water and also to lower the tem­per­a­ture of the water that is even­tu­ally returned to the watershed.

Although a green roof ini­tially costs more than a con­ven­tional roof — $10 to $20 per square foot for a green roof ver­sus $5 to $10 per square foot for a con­ven­tional roof — they more than make up for that dif­fer­ence over time. Green roofs extend the lifes­pan of the roof mem­brane sig­nif­i­cantly by pro­tect­ing it from sun­light and tem­per­a­ture vari­a­tions. As a result, green roofs can con­ser­v­a­tively be expected to last two to three times longer than a con­ven­tional roof. Expe­ri­ence with green roofs in Ger­many shows that 40+ and 50+ life spans for green roofs should be expected.

Because of their insu­lat­ing prop­er­ties, green roofs reduce the heat­ing and cool­ing costs for build­ings by at least 10 to 15 per­cent. A Cana­dian study showed that a 6-inch exten­sive green roof can reduce heat gains by 95 percent.

On the banks of Wil­low Creek, green roofs will also improve the aes­thetic qual­ity of the build­ings, to soften them and inte­grate with the native prairie land­scape, using desert plants which need low or no maintenance.

The steel struc­ture of the indoor arena how­ever quickly becomes expen­sive if asked to take on a sod roof in addi­tion to snowload­ing. Struc­tures that carry load through pure ten­sion (hang­ing) require  a frac­tion of the mate­r­ial required by bend­ing struc­tures such as beams or trusses and pro­vide an effi­cient way of car­ry­ing an exten­sive green roof in addi­tion to non-uniform snow loads.

Urban Birds Nestworks

51% stu­dios has designed three Nest­works for the urban birds of Bank­side fea­tur­ing a series of sophis­ti­cated ready­mades: blocks, boughs and bushes as part of the Lon­don Fes­ti­val of Archi­tec­ture.

The design is respon­sive, site spe­cific and provoca­tive: informed by ornitho­log­i­cal derives with Peter Holden, locally cel­e­brated for ini­ti­at­ing the annual pere­grine fal­con pub­lic views at Tate Mod­ern. The project was com­mis­sioned by the Archi­tec­ture Foun­da­tion, and takes its inspi­ra­tion from With­er­ford Wat­son Mann’s Bank­side Urban For­est Strategy.

Nest­works 1 2 3 are a direct response to the festival’s theme of exchange: of knowl­edge, habi­tat, mate­ri­als. We dis­cov­ered that the stan­dard hol­low block used to build some of London’s most cel­e­brated archi­tec­ture is made from con­crete with 55% recy­cled wood­pulp, a mate­r­ial that when used in nest­boxes is proven to fledge more young than any other. Syn­er­gis­ti­cally the inte­rior block dimen­sions are text book sizes for house spar­rows, rad­i­cally in decline in the area. Other species designed for are blue tits, great tits, star­lings, wrens, robins and blackbirds.

Nest­works 1 2 3 is a legacy project deliv­ered with sup­port from Peter Holden, the Archi­tec­ture Foun­da­tion, River­ford Organic and Lignacite.

Maps show­ing loca­tions of the Nest­works, some of which are hid­den, will avail­able in the Orchard at Union Street from June 19^th, or to download.

A related bird­walk and a new talk by Peter and Andy Holden will take place on Sat­ur­day 3^rd and Sun­day  4^{th July}.  Pere­grine view­ings at the Tate are daily from 12 noon to 7pm, 17 July to 12 Sep­tem­ber 2010.

• Out & About

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