friendly Circles: a series of habitats built to house a flock of Starlings and to protect them from predators.

Starlings are lowland invasive birds; they nest or take over other birds nests, dryer vents, rooftops of buildings or light posts.  The female Starlings usually lay and incubate four eggs. Along with being invasive, Starlings are often considered the noisiest and social birds, especially during dusk and dawn. The birds tend to soil cars and buildings surrounding the areas of their habitat.  

Starlings cohabitate with humans in cities and towns, and in agricultural areas where there is plenty of food(fruits, seeds, and bugs) and water. Starlings flock together in the sky creating murmurations to protect themselves from predators like the Peregrine Falcons. Predators find it difficult to target one bird in the middle of thousands of hypnotizing Starlings.  The location of the project is such that is not easily visible to a predator in the sky while being unreachable from the ground. The Starling's nesting would be tube-shaped possibly made out of PVC. It would be placed somewhere in the city where they are not a nuisance; in a high and safe altitude that exudes low heat, so Starlings can keep their eggs warm.  Starlings are already in our environment, and large numbers, so why not provide them with a home.

Portfolio Day

After the Final Presentation, you have the opportunity to consider your presentation in light of final feedback and discussion. You will spend additional time reviewing you presentations, refining you portfolio, and polishing you work before it is made public on the internet.

The Self Evaluation is an opportunity for you to reflect on your work during the Studio. Students and Coaches receive the same prompts and categories, and the students will evaluate their own progress and skill levels in Design Skills and Subject Skills applicable to the studio both numerically and textually. Through a narrative, you will also reflect on the quality and rigor of your work, give feedback on the studio, and have the opportunity to receive similar feedback directly from the coach.

• Portfolio & Assessment
• Self Assessment
• Final Brief
• Portfolio Checklist
• Portfolio Boards

Monarch Garden: This project specifically addresses the falling population of Monarch butterflies, due to climate change, gentrification, and other man-made threats, and attempts to bring them back into the lives of city-dwellers by creating an intervention.

In recent years, the rise of gentrification has made the gap between humans and nature grow, causing animals and humans to be wary of and hurt each other both directly and indirectly. Monarch Garden is an intervention: a flower box specially designed to grow milkweed, the only plant that Monarch caterpillars and larvae can feed on. The flower box is located on the river wall next to the MIT Sailing Pavilion and functions so that the river is the flowers' source of water making it entirely self sustainable. The flower box itself is made out of wood. Two wave shaped panels make up the length of the box making it look like an ordinary flower box. However, the bottom of the box has a few holes drilled in it for drainage, and the back panel has two cut out strips where mesh is laid so that only water can enter and leave. This means that when the river rises the plants will be flooded with water (milkweed actually likes flooding) and effectively water the plants. The goal of this flower bed is to bring Monarch Butterflies back into the lives of Bostonians and help them interact with these creatures more consistently in their everyday lives. It also aims to introduce Monarchs to urban environments in a positive way and create ways for them to coexist with humanity.

Aveen:

The Highway to Haven is a tunnel system for squirrels and chipmunks to keep safe in the dash from bush to bush and burrow to burrow. In the wild, chipmunks and squirrels' main predators are hawks and eagles. Highway to Haven protects them in the journey from point A to point B while also allowing for humans to interact with them on the way. Chipmunks and squirrels normally have a system of running from one pile of leaves to another to cross large fields without being spotted by hawks and eagles, but this doesn’t always work.

The solution; construction of multiple tunnels made out of plywood that stretch between multiple landings, feeding banks, and planted landings that allow humans to view and interact with whatever passes through them. Highway to Haven is a modular system that can be installed on the siding, along gutters, and under window sills of a residential or commercial building. When installed, the system mimics the natural way in which a chipmunk constructs its burrow, this helps them feel safe and more relaxed around the bustling city. In the seed bank unit, humans can dispense seeds into a feeding tray that squirrels and chipmunks can eat out of. With the planted landing, humans can plant various flora such as berry bushes where chipmunks and squirrels can feed. With the landing, squirrels can make their nests.

Cardinal Calling is designed for interaction in a shared space by cardinals and humans while providing for the needs of both. The Cardinal Calling acts as a perch for cardinals to preen and safety from predators with viewing accesses and increases song volume for humans. The project feeds and amplifies the bird's song with a cone-shaped platform.

Architecture today is designed for human use, ignoring the creatures who share the same space. The structures do not allow the two to interact in a non-disruptive way. Cardinal Calling takes down the barrier between humans and wildlife. The project creates an environment to simultaneously support the specialized needs of humans and cardinals. Cardinals are a songbird. They use their bright color and song to mate by preening in a high open space ready for danger. Exposing themselves attracts mates proving their strength. These are all taken into consideration in the project. The main structure is placed on the roof. It has a tall tube that had a bird bath, feeding station, and a cone-shaped platform for the bird to preen as it amplifies its song. Cardinals are a popular back yard bird due to humans fascination with their bright color and the bird's love of sunflower seeds. 

Because cardinals attract danger for mating, they always look for shelter that they can get to fast for protection in the face of an attack. A clay birds nest hangs from under the roof with an opening at the top. This allows for a quick escape. Due to cardinals large body and small wings prefer to hop rather than fly. Because of this, a spiral ladder is attached to the gutter allowing the bird to hop rather than fly to the roof.

The placement of each part of Cardinal Calling allows a human to view and enjoy the bird without threatening their safety. 

Basking by the window: a project designed for painted turtles which allows them to reproduce without any predators attacking their eggs. The structure is comprised of a temporary habitat allowing a coexistence between painted turtles and humans.

The main objective of this project is to provide a safe habitat for painted turtles, which allows them to reproduce and coexist with humans.In technical terms, the project consists of a turtle tank with a table that it sits on, allowing turtles to be easily protected, because there would be no predators in the area. This tank could be able to move outside so the turtle can bask in the sunlight. Turtles are smelly, their smell is caused by being in large bodies of water, so using a spout, a fume extractor, and a carbon filter for the air, clean air would be cycle through and allow humans to coexist with the turtles without constantly cleaning their tanks. In addition part of the tank would be filled up with sand so the turtles could lay their eggs with no predators hunting them down. After the eggs hatch all of the turtles would be released into the wild. This project exists because most turtle eggs don't survive and if painted turtles cannot reproduce, than eventually they will become extinct.

Opossum Garden is an installation in someone's garden that interacts with an opossum by providing it a safe and sustainable habitat.       

Opossum Garden is a small habitat in a humans garden that can provide the opossum with a sustainable food source and even a place to nest. Opossums are nocturnal marsupials that eat meat, plants, insects, carrion, amphibians, reptiles, earthworms, birds, and small mammals, as well as seeds and fruit.  It consists of two dirt piles one that is 40 centimeters tall and 110 centimeters wide and a smaller one that is 30 centimeters tall and 5o centimeters long. In the taller pile, there is a one-foot trench that provides shelter and a place to nest. The smaller pile has a bunch of vegetables that attract worms and food for the opossum. All of this allows the Opossum Garden to attract opossums to kill any and all of your garden pests.

The Fox Playground allows humans living in urban housing to interact with red foxes living in their neighborhood by giving people the opportunity to see the playful nature of foxes, similar to those of household pets. This is achieved by installing devices onto the walls of a Cambridge home.

The Fox Playground exists to allow people to interact with red foxes living in urban and suburban areas. It raises a question to the way people think of foxes and how their so-called hostile nature is actually rather playful. Most do not know that foxes are never aggressive towards humans and are considered shy because of their nature to run away from loud noises. The project consists of small additions to the exterior walls of the home that allow foxes to "play." There are surfaces made out of wood and bark for foxes to climb to represent the way that they climb trees. There is a device similar to that of a seesaw for the foxes to balance on to represent the way that they use their tails to keep them balanced, similar to a dog or cat. Another insertion is a "slide" to be used for both climbing and sliding. There is also a small ledge on a window for small cubs to rest and eat on, connecting children and parents to cubs and adult foxes. Overall, the Fox Playground for humans to fully understand that foxes are not dangerous scavengers, but rather are playful, family oriented animals. Many want to remove foxes from their neighborhoods, but this project aims to show that foxes are not a real threat to people's everyday lives. 

Video filmed by Lutz Dammbeck which shows a reconstruction of the machine "SEEK" by Nicholas Negroponte who is the founder of the "Architecture Machine Group" at MIT.

The installation was presented for the first time in 1970 in New York at the Jewish Museum.