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.Urban Ecology
Author: Tobias Klein, Kenny Kinugasa Tsui, Gemma Douglas

Environmental zoology in our eyes should be primarily focused on the reuse of urban areas to create a symbiotic relationship between humans and animals. We chose the Barbican Centre in London as an exemplary site and implement ecology within its walls, between its housing towers and within its cultural facilities. Places like the Barbican exist all over the world and can best be described as huge assemblages of staged minimal living spaces. The brutalistic character of this residential and cultural centre provides an opportunity to illustrate a radical transformation from dead modernist concrete block to a living, breeding and breathing colony of humans and animals.

Hydroponic garden

The soil less vertical garden that grows on the housing towers is constructed of three parts: a static metal frame, a PVC layer and felt. The metal frame is hung on a wall or can be self-standing. It provides an air layer acting as a very efficient thermic and phonic isolation system. A 10mm thick PVC sheet is then riveted on the metal frame. This layer brings rigidity to the whole structure and makes it waterproof. After that comes a felt layer made of polyamide that is stapled on the PVC.

Ornithology towers

The residential towers are transformed into bird colonies using the hydroponic vertical gardens as nesting and breeding grounds. The towers attract different birds in different times of the year according to their migration patterns. A conventional static façade becomes alive and changes on a daily basis. Migrating birds work as messengers between similar symbiotic towers all over the world.