Generative habitat : a socio-ecological design and assessment framework for architecture and development

Abstract

Biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate due, in part, to anthropogenic land use changes, while newly developed urban spaces continue to be utilized unjustly. As the proliferation of protected areas has been unable to combat the decline, and cities expand outward through the unequal and unsustainable conversion of former habitat, designers, architects, and planners will need to better incorporate ecological and social considerations into the built environment. While some social and ecological metrics are used to analyze and assess the built environment (LCA, S-LCA, EIA, SIA, ESIA), biodiversity and spatial justice metrics are notably absent from integrated assessment frameworks. In order to mitigate biodiversity loss and spatial injustice through architecture, impact assessment frameworks need to be adapted to help guide the design process toward positive socio-ecological outcomes. If we can better predict the outcomes of development, then we can build in better way. Using case studies from existing and speculative building interventions, a new social and ecological impact assessment framework for architecture has been proposed to predict and validate the effects of building through a recursive 5x5 decision-making process. The design of a case study integrates habitat for threatened chimney swifts and socially excluded people in the New York Metropolitan Area through low-cost multi-material additive manufacturing. Within a broader impact assessment framework, the design of this speculative case study is guided through GIS analysis for determining a site, embodied carbon reduction through finite-element structural analysis, and a novel hygrothermal analysis for both humans and chimney swifts. This comprehensive framework for design and analysis can help architects more easily build and validate high-positive-impact design interventions, and ultimately help bring about a world that is more just and conducive to life.