Animal Architecture

Whether we want to share our dwelling spaces with animals or whether – as in the case of rats, mice, spiders, mosquitos and the rest – we do not, we have to acknowledge that we are never alone in our homes. Dobraszczyk’s thoughtful book looks at this network of relationships and how we might learn from the way in which other species build and inhabit space. -- Edwin Heathcote * Financial Times 'Best Books of 2023' *
The environmental footprint of the construction industry is used as architecture writer Paul Dobraszczyk’s primary justification for writing this book on the relationship between animals and architecture . . . a fascinating subject in and of itself. -- Oliver Basciano * Art Quarterly *
Paul Dobraszczyk considers the generally accidental interactions between animals and our current architecture to imagine how we might design more consciously with these fellow travelers in mind. * Architect *
This book upends our thinking about architecture. From Ninja Turtles through beaver dams and designer doghouses to the design of zoos, Dobraszczyk asks us to consider architecture from the perspectives of species other than ourselves, and, in doing so, to develop spaces more entangled with this thing we call nature. This could be a roadmap to escape our age of mass extinction and climate emergency. * Tom Dyckhoff, historian, writer and broadcaster *
Our planet teems with an astonishing variety of forms of intelligent life. Yet the ambition of architecture to put the human house in order has contrived to shut them out, forcing them to find room in the cracks where buildings fall apart. Could an architecture of astonishment, open to flights of imagination freed from the rigour of reason, offer greater hope for future conviviality? Paul Dobraszczyk thinks so, and has amassed a wealth of examples, from every corner of the animal kingdom, to prove it. * Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen, author of Being Alive, The Perception of the Environment and Anthropology: Why It Matters *
Dobraszczyk’s book is an invitation to imaginatively reconsider how we share the world with a multitude of species. In the face of biodiversity loss and species extinction, this is an indispensable survey that provokes us to expand architectural thinking beyond anthropocentrism. * Joyce Hwang, architect and associate professor, University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning *
An urgent book for anyone who designs, builds, or even just inhabits human architecture. Termites to foxes, rats to bees, salmon to swallows—we have much to learn from their genius strategies to 'house' themselves. More importantly we're invited to reconsider ways we might accommodate them. Dobraszczyk is asking us to fundamentally re-imagine the way we make spaces, structures, and cities, not exclusively for humans, but as realms for inter-species cohabitation, actively welcoming them into our lives. Or inviting ourselves into theirs? * Fritz Haeg, artist *