Marlène Boura
[Academic Website]
CO-HABITAT project
Presentation of the project
In a rapidly urbanizing world, cities can no longer be approached as an exclusive habitat for humans. Due to an alarming decline of wildlife and biodiversity, there is an urgent need to give animals a more equal place also in the urban fabric. While in recent years ecological forms of urbanism and the design of green infrastructure in the urban environment gained traction, there is still little understanding among designers, planners and society in general, to what extent these spaces function as a habitat for animal species (the non-human perspective).
The CO-HABITAT project aims to explore what role design can play to support the crea- tion of animal habitats in the built environment and to develop tools to communicate about it in diverse arenas. The project focuses on two different scales. The first scale comprises the Brussels Capital Region and explores how dynamic cartography can help to visualize and understand the urban spatial patterns (periodicity, movements etc.) of different animal species based on the development of a data dashboard and visualisation system. The second scale focuses on two different case studies in which the (spatial) interaction between humans and animals is explored through research by design. Starting from the site characteristics and considering animals as equal urban citizens, alternative future scenarios for co-habitation are constructed through research-by-design and narrative mapping methods.
The design exploration builds on a data dashboard that will be developed to centralize different types of data on wildlife in the Brussels Capital Region. The mappings and the design of scenarios are developed in collaboration with different stakeholders (local and regional) and discussed in different ‘co-habitat labs’. At the same time, the work will be grounded on an exploration of state-of-the-art landscape and design theory and the broader field of post-humanist theory in order to sharpen the questions addressed in the case research, and situate them in an international scientific context.
The research results in a CO-HABITAT atlas that envisions future pathways for co-habitation in the Brussels Capital Region and the atlas also contributes to a much needed disciplinary renewal in which more-than-human perspectives and concepts are introduced in urban planning policies and designs. By including different experts, organisations, administrations and students the project aims to contribute to a larger societal discussion on the place of animals in our urban environment.
