An Approach to Multi-species Architecture
Abstract
In critique of the continued abstraction of animals anthropocentric architecture facilitates, my thesis is interested in exporing how embracing a multi-species ethic might change the way in which we conceptualise space and design built form.
This project is situated within the context of ongoing redevelopment of black and white houses within the Rochester Park Colonial Estate. I query how the close examination of a non-human protagonist - the red junglefowl - subsequently leading to its consideration as equivalent “home-owner”, might inform the way we conceive of and design for cohabitation in an primarily human domain.
Supervisor Comments
Seeking to articulate a multi-species ethic, Xuan investigated the anthropocentrism underlying human relationships with animals, and the way that architecture has helped to circumscribe boundaries and underscore hierarchies amongst species. Ultimately choosing the jungle fowl as the non-human protagonist, i.e. the “other,” this project forces an intimate reckoning and reconciling between two animals in an otherwise human domain: the single-family home. By forcing an examination of ownership and use, boundaries and simultaneity, enclosure and leakiness, the thesis pushes us to question the role of architecture with respect to other forms of life beyond ours.
- Assoc Prof. Ong Ker-Shing
Tan Xuan
Tan Xuan