Designing some animal habitats for Holbeck Urban Village in Leeds is the subject of a new competition which caught my attention. An engineer colleague, one of a trio with whom I worked on the Ken Saro-Wiwa Mobile Memorial competition, was interested in a collaboration. Not far from Camley Street we talked over a couple of pints of London Pride about human-animal and animal-human interaction in this 'urban regeneration' area, and found consensus on some issues including biomimicry, and human-centred principles which might allow birds to nest, bees to pollenate, and otters to hide from human residents of the area.A recent discussion about the transdisiplinary work of OOZ in this area was drawn to my attention by a friend commentating on the work. Geese, Birds, Fish and Bats have been studied and the discussion ensued about human and non-human interactions.
Annick the engineer and I discussed the competition judges Hale (an artist) and Ward (an architect) and determined that Annick and her partner would inspect the Holbeck site during a planned Christmas visit nearby.
Postscript: Natalie Skeete joined the team and we submitted the proposals in February.
In March our team was shortlisted
Other links:
Holbeck Tour: and 18 part zipped Audio Guide
Biomimicry at the AIA 2007 Convention
Presentation about OOZ
Ecological sustainability
The Biomimicry Institute and its ask.nature website
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