Racoon in a house rifling through posessions
Event_

The architecture of multispecies cohabitation

The exhibition presents surprising and hopeful stories of human and other-than-human interdependence, through the architectures that host them.

The Architecture of Multispecies Cohabitation presents ongoing research by Feral Partnerships (Beth Fisher Levine, Matthew Darmour-Paul, James Powell, Enrico Brondelli di Brondello, Francesca Rausa) of surprising and hopeful stories of human and other-than-human interdependence, facilitated by the architectures that host them. In the context of anthropogenic global warming and the accelerating extinction of species, the exhibition draws from historical precedents in order to inspire new possibilities for building worlds with the other-than-human in mind.

Architects, developers and planners find themselves ever more at the intersection of contested natures. The politics of crisis and the (many) anthropocene(s) have intensified the responsibilities of design and planning towards mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity. Yet for all the successful disciplinary rallying behind technological solutions to climate breakdown – such as low-carbon building services or clean energy consumption – architecture as a profession has yet to meaningfully address its ongoing role in biodiversity loss.

In its content and accompanying events series, The Architecture of Multispecies Cohabitation invites reflection on these issues of contemporary architecture. How might we design and live in ways that are more generous to other species, and that recognise our interdependence with them? What might result if political ecology, biology and ethology were allowed to contaminate the disciplinary boundaries of architecture? How might novel forms of commitment emerge between humans and other species, and how might these be enshrined in protocols, participatory processes and practice?

The Architecture of Multispecies Cohabitation offers a platform for difficult discussions around the many nonhuman lives that make human life possible, what is at stake in the continued production of spatial separation between species while piecing together an alternative and joyful constellation of meaningful references for designers.

This event was presented at the Tin Sheds Gallery, at the University of Sydney from Thursday 22 April - Friday 4 June 2021.

Associated events

Wander through the exhibition and immerse yourself in its stories at the grand opening ceremony for The Architecture of Multispecies Cohabitation Exhibition.

To celebrate the opening of the exhibition, Feral Partnerships (in person and via zoom) will present a collection of stories from the exhibition followed by a response and conversation between Danielle Celermajer, the Co-Deputy Director of the Sydney Environment Institute, and an academic from The Sydney School of Architecture, Design, and Planning. The event will culminate in a walkthrough of the exhibition.

More information about the exhibition can be found here.

 

A yarn about creating homes for us all with YARN Australia

As planetary conditions become less hospitable, the need for all earth beings – human and more than human – to find ways of being at home, becomes both more urgent and more apparent. How might we transform the ways in which we think about, design, build and inhabit our homes so that they become more hospitable to all of those with whom we share our worlds? What, in turn, do we need to do to be more attentive to and respectful of the homes that more than human others provide and create around us, for themselves, for others and for us? How might Indigenous knowledges and practices of living on country inform and nourish this call?

In this yarn, hosted by YARN Australia, we invite people who design, craft, build, inhabit, cultivate and transform domestic and institutional, public and private, indoor and outdoor homes to reflect together on how we might create kinder and more generous forms of cohabitation. The yarn offers a space to acknowledge how many of our practices of building and living have shut out beings other than humans (and also many humans) and how they have failed to recognise their offerings of hospitality.

At the same time, the yarn is an invitation to share stories about how we people have, are or are trying to create home otherwise, and dream about what types of homes an expanded ‘we’ might start to make – homes hospitable to all of us. The evening will open with a cultural performance by Nulungu Dreaming followed by the Barayagal Choir, led by Nardi Simpson.

This event is part of The Architecture of Multispecies Cohabitation Festival hosted by Feral PartnershipsThe University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning and The Sydney Environment Institute.

Speakers

Warren Roberts is a proud Thunghutti and Bundjalung man and the founder of YARN Australia, an organisation with the goal of uniting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians through workshops and events held within safe and respectful spaces. He has extensive experience working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities having worked for NGO’s and universities, as well as local, state and federal government. Warren has been fortunate enough to work alongside esteemed elders from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, which has encouraged him to reflect on the importance of respecting cultural protocols.

Daniel Boyd is a Kudjala/Gangalu/Kuku-Yalanji/Waka Waka/Gubbi Gubbi/Wangerriburra/Bandjalung man from Far North Queensland and an artist who reinterprets Eurocentric perspectives of Australian history, often appropriating images that have played significant roles in the formation and dissemination of that history. His work has exhibited nationally and internationally since 2005 with commissions for the Australian War Memorial and becoming the first Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander artist to receive the prestigious Bulgari Art Prize, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2014.

Caroline Pidcock is passionate about the importance of architecture and regenerative design, and how they can contribute to a “culturally rich, socially just and ecologically restorative” future. She has over 25 years of leading and contributing to a wide range of boards and organisations. In May 2021, she was jointly awarded the AIA 2021 Leadership in Sustainability Award. Her creative lateral thinking, hardworking nature, humour, and ability to positively engage with many people, make her an invaluable contributor to groups looking to the future.

Thom van Dooren is Associate Professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2017-2021) in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. His research and writing focus on some of the many philosophical, ethical, cultural, and political issues that arise in the context of species extinctions and human entanglements with threatened species and places. He is the author of The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds (Columbia, 2019), and co-editor of Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death, and Generations (Columbia, 2017).

Speakers

Danielle Celermajer is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney, Deputy Director (Academic) of the Sydney Environment Institute and convenor of the Multispecies Justice Collective. While her professional and academic background have been in human rights, in recent years, she has shifted her focus to the interface between environmental, animal and human ethics and justice. Her books include Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apology and The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach (both with Cambridge University Press) and Summertime, a book about the experience of climate catastrophe in an intentional multispecies community with Penguin Random House.

Matthew Darmour-Paul is an architectural researcher and practitioner now based in Sydney. He co-founded the Feral Partnerships, an English-based collective that is interested in the stories of entangled ecologies and world-making projects that meet at and within the boundaries of whatever is perceived to be ‘the built environment’. His work explores architecture’s entanglement within ruralisation, the physical infrastructure of the internet and the financialisation of nature.

Robyn Dowling is a Professor and the Dean of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. Her current research is concerned with the ways in which urban governance and urban life are responding to climate change and technological disruptions. Funded by a number of ARC Discovery grants in collaboration with Professor Pauline McGuirk of the University of Wollongong, she builds upon the foundations of urban planning to explore the partnerships and complex relationships through which contemporary cities are governed, and most recently the notion of smart cities.

Dagma Reinhardt (Chair) is a practising architect, Associate Professor and Chair of Architecture at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the intersection and integration of architecture, acoustics, structure, robotics, fabrication, material and constructions constraints into design and interdisciplinary collaborations. Reinhardt leads two substantial industry and state-government funded projects on new robotic applications for workspace scenarios, and for safer and healthier construction work environments.

Michael Tawa is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney and is passionate about the capacity of design thinking and practice to engage curiosity and wonder. His research interests include the relationship between architecture, cinema and music and exploring spatial and temporal symbolism.

Header image: Still from Grey Gardens. Directed by Albert Maysles and David Maysles. 1975.