---
title: Students Channel Animal Instincts to Create Urban Spaces
date: 2022-08-24T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/students-channel-animal-instincts-to-create-urban-spaces"
section: Articles
---
# Students Channel Animal Instincts to Create Urban Spaces

*August 24, 2022* — by [Maggie Haslam](/author/maggie-haslam)


> Summer Design Course Explores Human, Wildlife Cohabitation

*Eye level view from hill 1920x1080 — Catherine Dunkerson '23’s design concept for a shared community near Miami Beach carves out protected space for wood storks. The indigenous bird also serves as inspiration; living spaces for people are modeled on their nests.*

One of Washington, D.C.’s fastest-growing hot spots may be a recreational and culinary boon for D.C.’s human inhabitants—but it’s a bummer for its winged ones, particularly the reclusive American bittern, a native bird that makes its home along the Anacostia.

So when undergraduate architecture student Valeria Lopez conceived a proposed residential enclave for Navy Yard, the Southeast D.C. neighborhood known for Nationals Park, she considered both District denizens and wharf-frequenting waterfowl. Her scheme, which features a staggered cluster of mixed-use buildings, buffers its waterfront views with expansive green space and a robust constructed wetland, transitioning from an urban vibe to an organic one.

It’s just what architecture Lecturer Sarah Bolivar had in mind for “Animal Occupation,” a new summer studio course that explored the co-habitation of humans and wildlife at the intersection of built and natural environments. Using five distinct ecosystems along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, students were asked to design for dense, highly populated areas—from Miami Beach to Maine—each with special consideration of an indigenous species that bears the brunt of human activity.

\[*[Architecture Student Designs Imagine an Autonomous Aerial Future](https://today.umd.edu/blue-sky-thinking-for-college-park)*\]

“These coastal areas are prime real estate and often heavily developed,” said Bolivar, a landscape architect. “I wanted to challenge students to think about how animals, who have called these places home long before humans, fit into this new urban ecology. How do we encourage more hybrid spaces despite these constraints?”

Students spent the beginning of the nine-week summer course researching their sites and the animals they intended to protect, along with both architectural and landscape precedents. Then they created sketches and experimented with physical models to test ideas that both connect and separate wild and urban areas with design interventions such as strategic placement of communal spaces and thoroughfares that guide human movement.

In Myrtle Beach, S.C., students considered the loggerhead sea turtle, an essential player in the marine ecosystem whose migration from dune nests to the sea is often fraught.

“Baby turtles are easily distracted and particularly vulnerable to human activity,” said Xuan Vo ’24, who elevated her proposed hotel 11 feet, creating both a safe spot for turtle nesting and an engaging observation area for guests. “One of the biggest challenges for them is artificial lighting, which sends them inland rather than out to sea.”

A proposal for New York City’s coastal Sunset Park replaced an old pier in Brooklyn with five elevated “public education” jetties. The jetties featured pedestrian pathways and greenspace built atop a marine animal education and monitoring center, with direct sightlines to secure resting areas for Horseshoe crabs underneath. A design for Portland, Maine, would reposition a popular trail out over the ocean and create an intertidal area that closely connects Maine’s outdoorsy population to its lobster habitats.


*sketches of storks and nests — Animal research on habitat, behavior and personality—reflected here in Dunkerson's art—offer cues for resilient designs that serve both humans and animals.*




**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Plant Science and Landscape Architecture](https://today.umd.edu/topic/plant-science-and-landscape-architecture), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation](https://today.umd.edu/topic/school-architecture-planning-and-preservation)