Mark Your Calendar, Bird Lovers

On March 11, 2005, the Illinois Institute of Technology will be hosting Birds and Buildings: Creating a Safer Environment, a one-day conference "for architects, landscape designers, building owners and managers - anyone interested in bird-friendly design solutions." From the conference web page:

Over one billion birds strike windows in the U.S. every year...rapidly becoming the most significant contributor to the overall decline in bird populations. Birds don't see or understand windows and reflections. Instead, they see trees and sky -- and fly into the glass...At this conference, speakers and panelists will discuss their experiences designing bird-friendly buildings and retrofitting existing facilities. The event will conclude with a brainstorming session to consider the most common building designs that have the most fatal impact.

Ironically, participants need only walk down the street to Helmut Jahn's recently completed campus dormitory. When I walked from 35th Street Green Line station along the east side of the dorm, I saw dead birds lying on the ground next to the clear glass wall separating the elevated train from the courtyard, a recipe for bird collisions.

Does Helmut Jahn hate birds?

One of the speakers will be Jeanne Gang, most likely talking about her firm's competition-winning proposal for the Ford Calumet Environmental Center which features a woven exterior to prevent bird collisions. This conference is long overdue. This is apparent in the glass walls all over the city with makeshift solutions for this problem, many mounting silhouettes in the shape of birds to the glass. It seems that architects don't acknowledge this concern when designing buildings, favoring transparency and a contemporary aesthetic over anything else. It's time for architects to re-evaluate the importance of transparency, perhaps opting for layering and depth and other design methods where the result falls somewhere between transparent and opaque. (via Chicagoist)