BIRDLAND, the Aviary

DS1120: 3GA Vertical Studio

Instructor: Jackilin Hah Bloom

Assistant Teacher: Zihan Gao

Site: Ballona wetlands, Los Angeles, CA

The term “flight of fancy” refers to ideas that are highly imaginative and speculative, typically free from practical constraints. In architecture, especially when engaging with nature and ecology, this imaginative freedom is often overshadowed by debates that swing between cautious optimism and urgent problemsolving.

How can architecture reclaim its speculative potential in the discourse around nature, not as an escape from urgent challenges, but as a means of reimagining our relationship with them?

The studio posits architecture as a participatory interface – a lyrical and playful relationship between nature and technology that addresses the complex interplay between humans, plants and broader ecologies. We will explore how architecture, as an active mediator, can produce new expressions of the organic and the constructed, the atmospheric and the solid.

In 1991, the Italian architect, Ettorre Sottsass was commissioned by Ernest Mourmans to indulge in a flight of fancy - designing a lively set of spaces for living, to house his art collections, and provide shelter for the endangered birds he loved. The project, a graphic composition of multiple fragmented spaces, offered views of the house and landscape in a way that embodied whimsy and speculative spirit. While we will draw inspiration from the intent of the project, the studio will push beyond composition to engage with a formal synthesis of dualities – presence and absence, the organic and the constructed, the solid and the atmospheric.