Re-Entangling The Urban Habitat: Exploring Housing Through An Architecture of Biodiversity

Abstract

The last century has seen a dramatic decline in species populations and diversity across the globe. Today's methods of constructing cities and inhabiting regional landscapes has overwhelmed the homeostasis of Earth's life support systems, fundamentally threatening the survival of Earth's vast biodiversity. In order to repair the degradation of landscapes both within cities and across their vital hinterlands, it is imperative that we continue evolving global attitudes of architecture toward a regenerative entanglement of our cities and the material geographies on which they depend. This thesis explores radical design theories that help to contextualize and advocate for regional opportunities for optimizing biodiversity at various scales. By re-entangling the urban habitat through the urgent mechanism of housing construction, we can prioritize essential landscape services of CO2 sequestration and habitat regeneration while creating equitable urban form in the coming decades.