Modern architecture should embrace – not ignore or repel – the nonhuman world
Joyce Hwang, an architect and associate professor at the University at Buffalo, New York believes in integrating the world of nonhuman animals into human architecture. This means taking inspiration from the sustainable ways animals build. It also means considering how to accommodate nonhuman animals when planning human structures rather than ignoring or repelling them. Part of Museum of Modern Art’s Built Ecologies video series, this short film surveys some of Hwang’s most notable projects to explore how a recognition of and respect for wildlife is at the centre of her work.

videoNature and landscape
Scenes from Aboriginal Australian pottery chart the turn of the seasons
7 minutes

videoArchitecture
Steep climbs lead to sacred spaces carved high into the cliffs of Ethiopia
9 minutes

videoHistory of science
Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful
8 minutes

videoLove and friendship
What does it mean to say goodbye to a creature that doesn’t know you’re leaving?
13 minutes

videoEcology and environmental sciences
Join endangered whooping cranes on their perilous migratory path over North America
6 minutes

videoArchitecture
A lush tour of Fallingwater – the Frank Lloyd Wright design that changed architecture
14 minutes

videoEnvironmental history
In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests
13 minutes

videoArchitecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes

videoLanguage and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes