Saving Two Birds With One Facade

Project Description

Category: Student Entries

Award: Honor

Project Name: Saving Two Birds With One Facade

Entrant: Lain Lomery

Rutgers University Campuses – Newark and New Brunswick, NJ 

Bird-window collisions are a global phenomenon, and the second  greatest cause of avian mortality in the world. Numerous  architectural and landscape features have proven to be linked to  these collisions, leading to the inadvertent decimation of species  and greatly impacting systems beyond the local scope.  

This research-based design thesis reveals locations on the Rutgers  Newark and New Brunswick campuses where collisions occur  most frequently, and which species were found most often on  each campus. With this information, one building on each campus  was chosen as a priority site for design intervention. Factors  associated with collisions were identified at each building, and  corresponding interventions were suggested. The seasonality and  dietary needs of the five species most disproportionately affected  on each campus guided the plant selections at each site. At both  buildings, facades are suggested for intervention, as they create a  barrier between the reflective windows and surrounding  vegetation. Such a protective barrier allows landscape architects  and planners to incorporate beneficial wildlife habitat in urban  areas, without compromising the stability of local and distant  ecosystems. 

This thesis attempts to find unique, middle ground solutions that  address ecological concerns, while still appealing to human  interest. The result is a potential solution to bird-window strikes that  is more sculptural, & has a more discreet purpose, than solutions  like window stickers. It addresses the various scales at which this  global concern must be resolved – from urban spatial patterns to  plant layout at individual buildings. Most of all, the project utilizes my experience in both conservation biology and landscape  architecture to find gaps in knowledge where the fields overlap,  and explore potential variables in the landscape that have  otherwise gone unexamined.