Brook Hill Bothy: Ecological Sistering for a Multispecies Commons

The Brook Hill Bothy is a prototype for material reuse and multispecies cohabitation developed from the remains of a wood-framed shed that had weathered decades of declining use at the edge of a northern hardwood forest. This project proposed a re-pairing of the shed—a structural repair, a repair of ecological relationships, and a re-pairing of its materials with the multispecies networks in which it is enmeshed—all of which we refer to collectively as ecological sistering. During meticulous deconstruction of the shed, we measured, sorted, digitally modeled and stored its components for later reuse and repair, but during this process we discovered that the seemingly abandoned structure was in fact a thriving home to many non-human creatures. In response we designed and built a “new” writing/drawing studio using materials from the original shed while also providing new spaces for the many other species who had called the former structure home. Called a “bothy” after the simple dwellings in the Scottish Highlands left unlocked for anyone to use, the project extends this shared resource beyond the human realm. The design softens the boundary between human and nonhuman occupants that has characterized modern architecture’s tendency toward purification, instead constructing architecture as an edge habitat: a structure that makes space for both, and thus better acknowledges each species’ coexistence and mutual dependence.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AIA.InterMaterialEco.23.32

Volume Editors
Caryn Brause & Chris Flint Chatto