UrBird

Michael BarakatDesign Project 2010

UrBird

The Client:American Kestrel

The Kestrel is the smallest bird of prey. It’s widespread throughout north america. But, absent from urban places

Biodiversity:Good for birdie and for you too.

One focus of Urbird is the issue of Biodiversity in the urban environment. Awareness of biodiversity and the di-verse natural world inside Philadelphia serves to inspire, engage, and collec-tively prioritize human sensitivity and understanding of all life around human-

Why the bird? Why Philly?

There aren’t very many predatory birds in Philadelphia, and the numbers are dwindling. UrBird takes the pastime of birdwatching and adapts it to the urban environment. We are focusing on pred-atory birds that already have a widely available food source (city rodents and insects). What’s more, Philadelphia has excellent access to two large rivers for drinking.

ity. The Kestrel is a great example of an animal that can help humans by elimi-nating pests.

You’re anUncommon Bird Mr Kestrel.

So, you can live in cities?

Getting them back: The nestworks attracts Kestrels back and shows people their homes.

A series of nesting boxes, or nestworks has a dual function: One, it builds an infra-structure or roadway to urban places. And, two, makes a public display of biodiversity where viewers can see birdsv homes. The path seeks to put bird homes on display thus creating an urban museum of nesting boxes. The nestworks uses the walkability of the neighborhoods as a factor in choosing locations. http://www.walkscore.com/ al-lows UrBird to taylor it’s programming around the offer-ings (food, public space, transportation) of the various neigh-borhoods of Philadelphia. Through local partnerships, Podcasts and a Nestworks Guide program the path to nesting locations.

NaturalKestrelHabitat

Nesting Boxes

Philadelphia

The Nestworks

Spread the Word.

Podcasting and web outreach will advertise the Nestworks as a walkable trail so anyone can see the beautiful Kestrels living side by side with city dwellers in the urban environment.

podcast

Nesting box location

Urban trail

The UrBirdWorkshop

A workshop was held to raise bird awareness. Found materials were collected to build birdhouses. Locals were invited to participate and build their own birdhouse!

Partner

The next step is to find local partners to keep kestrel box-es on their properties. Then the kestrel will find its way back to cities.

So what? Results?

The result of UrBird is a more aware population, support for a threatened bird, and biodi-versity that helps to balance the urban environment by lessening the need for pesti-cides, bird countermeasures, and rodent poisons. All things that harm the environment and human beings.