Constructed Ecology

Utilising redundant infrastructure space for urban ecosystem services

Constructed Ecology is a scenario unfolding on a central dock in Oslo exploring the possibility of using redundant parking spaces for habitat for biotopes with a specific benefit to the city and its inhabitants. These benefits are known as urban ecosystem services.

The scenario initiates as a parking structure which will be built within the next 5 years. Over the next 30 years the structure then changes function from parking to urban habitat. This is made possible due to the autonomous vehicles of the future which will not need the same parking capacity as Oslo currently offers.

Besides initial parking spaces, the programme incorporates biotopes that especially focuses on a selection of urban challenges. The biotopes work in parallel with our existing solutions, but rather than polluting and using energy the services they provide cascade into positive effects such as creating circularity, resilience, health benefits, CO2 reductions and habitat.

An example of these urban ecosystem services is using sparrows to collect cigarette buds rather than using cleaning personal or cleaning trucks. The cigarette buds contain nicotine which the sparrows use a pathogen remover in their nest – thus improving the survival rate of their offspring while they are cleaning the city. If we collected this waste fraction, we could furthermore explore how to reuse it as a low-cost insulating material creating a circular loop in our urban resource management. The sparrows are part of the mountain biome – one of four biomes which the project is divided into. The scenario includes a Meadow Biome, a Marine Biome, a Mountain Biome and a Forest Biome