Avian Architecture

Avian Architecture
Author: Peter Goodfellow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 83
Release: 2011-06-05
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 069114849X

Examines the nests that birds build around the world, including illustrations of each nest type's construction, descriptions of the materials and techniques used during the process, and case studies on specific birds' habitats.

Architecture by Birds and Insects

Architecture by Birds and Insects
Author: Peggy Macnamara
Publisher:
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2008
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

Influential American architect Philip Johnson once mused, "All architecture is shelter; all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space." But with just a small swap of a key word, Johnson could well have been describing animal nests. Birds and insects are nature's premier architects, using a dizzying array of talents to build functional homes in which to live, reproduce, and care for their young. Recycling sticks, branches, grass, and mud to construct their shelters, they are undoubtedly the originators of "green architecture." A visual celebration of these natural feats of engineering and ingenuity, Architecture by Birds and Insects allows readers a peek inside a wide range of nests, offering a rare opportunity to get a sense of the materials and methods used to build them. Here, we see the kinds of places where nests are built--for instance, the house wren has been known to occupy cow skulls, flower pots, tin cans, and the pockets of hanging laundry, while the uglynest caterpillar prefers rose bushes and cherry trees. Inspired by the vast nest collection at the Field Museum, which features specimens gathered throughout North and South America, Peggy Macnamara's paintings are enhanced by text written by museum curators. This narrative provides a foundation in natural history for each painting, as well as fascinating anecdotes about the nests and their builders. Like so many natural treasures, nests are easy to ignore. But Macnamara's gorgeous paintings will undoubtedly change that. Architecture by Birds and Insects at last gives the tiniest engineers their rightful moment in the spotlight, and in so doing increases awareness and encourages the protection of birds, insects, and their habitats. Readers will never look at a Frank Gehry design, or a treetop nest, the same way again.

The Bird-Friendly City

The Bird-Friendly City
Author: Timothy Beatley
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2020-11-05
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 164283047X

How does a bird experience a city? A backyard? A park? As the world has become more urban, noisier from increased traffic, and brighter from streetlights and office buildings, it has also become more dangerous for countless species of birds. Warblers become disoriented by nighttime lights and collide with buildings. Ground-feeding sparrows fall prey to feral cats. Hawks and other birds-of-prey are sickened by rat poison. These name just a few of the myriad hazards. How do our cities need to change in order to reduce the threats, often created unintentionally, that have resulted in nearly three billion birds lost in North America alone since the 1970s? In The Bird-Friendly City, Timothy Beatley, a longtime advocate for intertwining the built and natural environments, takes readers on a global tour of cities that are reinventing the status quo with birds in mind. Efforts span a fascinating breadth of approaches: public education, urban planning and design, habitat restoration, architecture, art, civil disobedience, and more. Beatley shares empowering examples, including: advocates for “catios,” enclosed outdoor spaces that allow cats to enjoy backyards without being able to catch birds; a public relations campaign for vultures; and innovations in building design that balance aesthetics with preventing bird strikes. Through these changes and the others Beatley describes, it is possible to make our urban environments more welcoming to many bird species. Readers will come away motivated to implement and advocate for bird-friendly changes, with inspiring examples to draw from. Whether birds are migrating and need a temporary shelter or are taking up permanent residence in a backyard, when the environment is safer for birds, humans are happier as well.

Sustainable Architecture: A Solution to a Sustainable Sleep-out Design Brief (Volume 2).

Sustainable Architecture: A Solution to a Sustainable Sleep-out Design Brief (Volume 2).
Author: William Van Zyl
Publisher: Five House Publishing
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2018-07-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0473446316

SYNOPSIS: This book is about Design and Visual Communication for secondary school students and teachers. It is a very useful resource for primary, secondary school teachers and tertiary students, who are interested in all aspects of sustainable architecture. Designers and architects could also find it an interesting read. The software Google Sketch-up used, discussed, and illustrated in this book, is very user-friendly. The computer-aided drawing program – SketchUpMake – is freeware, which can be downloaded from the Internet. The computer program is very easy to use; very young kids, like primary school students, and secondary school students, can use it. It is a great design program and many tertiary students, as well as professional architects and designers, make use of it. The advantage is that objects and buildings can be designed in just minutes, for example, concepts and ideas. Included in the sleep-out brief is general research (inspiration board, design eras & influential architects), and design activities that include possible solutions to a sustainable architectural design brief. Extensive content is included on freehand sketches, SketchUp computer-aided drawings, elevations, site plans, diagrams, screenshots, biomimetics, assessments, and more. The assessment of the chosen building site is presented, including weather and climatic factors. Additionally, the author has included links to his YouTube videos (model/movement). These videos were specifically included to assist the solution to sustainable architectural briefs. Links to published academic work by the author, and much more, are also included. See Five House Publishing for more details. Exemplars of secondary school students work (sixteen-year-olds) from a New Zealand Secondary School are included (Design and Visual Communication). KEYWORDS: Design and Visual Communication (DVC), Sustainable Architecture, 16-year-olds, animal architecture, armadillo and onion inspired, ask nature how, biomimetics, clerestory, climate, collecting rainwater, computer-aided software, concrete, creativity, design eras, elevations, freehand sketching, generating design ideas, green roof, harvesting energy from the sun, harvesting energy from the wind, heatsink, ideation, illustrate sustainable function, influential designers, innovation, location, model, modernism, modernist architects, movement, New Zealand, orientation, passive solar, passive solar design, passive solar panel, passive ventilation, photovoltaic panel, primary school, retrofitting, secondary school, sectional views, Shadows and Shading, shipping container sleep-out, site assessment, site plan, Sketch-Up, sleep-out, steel reinforcing, sustainable architecture, sustainable features & functions, the living classroom, thermal mass, trombe walls, weather, climate.

Bird Houses Boys Can Build

Bird Houses Boys Can Build
Author: Albert Frederick Siepert
Publisher: DigiCat
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2022-09-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Bird Houses Boys Can Build" by Albert Frederick Siepert. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The Bird World

The Bird World
Author: William Henry Davenport Adams
Publisher:
Total Pages: 472
Release: 1878
Genre: Birds
ISBN:

Installations by Architects

Installations by Architects
Author: Sarah Bonnemaison
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2009-08-12
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781568988504

Over the last few decades, a rich and increasingly diverse practice has emerged in the art world that invites the public to touch, enter, and experience the work, whether it is in a gallery, on city streets, or in the landscape. Like architecture, many of these temporary artworks aspire to alter viewers' experience of the environment. An installation is usually the end product for an artist, but for architects it can also be a preliminary step in an ongoing design process. Like paper projects designed in the absence of "real" architecture, installations offer architects another way to engage in issues critical to their practice. Direct experimentation with architecture's material and social dimensions engages the public around issues in the built environment that concern them and expands the ways that architecture can participate in and impact people's everyday lives. The first survey of its kind, Installations by Architects features fifty of the most significant projects from the last twenty-five years by today's most exciting architects, including Anderson Anderson, Philip Beesley, Diller + Scofidio, John Hejduk, Dan Hoffman, and Kuth/Ranieri Architects. Projects are grouped in critical areas of discussion under the themes of tectonics, body, nature, memory, and public space. Each project is supplemented by interviews with the project architects and the discussions of critics and theorists situated within a larger intellectual context. There is no doubt that installations will continue to play a critical role in the practice of architecture. Installations by Architects aims to contribute to the role of installations in sharpening our understanding of the built environment.