For Our Neighbors - Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden
For the Birds

For Our Neighbors

Joyce Hwang
Ants of the Prairie Project team: Anh Shavindya Seneviratne Do & Joselyne Morocho
Wood, wood shingles, hardware
3 ft. 3 in. × 2 ft. 8 in. × 3 ft.
Plant Family Collection, near the Herb Garden

An a-frame birdhouse with natural wood shingles.
For Our Neighbors birdhouse at Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
A shingled house with four bird cavities and nest materials
Concept art by Joyce Hwang.

For architect Joyce Hwang, birds are stakeholders in the ways that humans design and shape the environment. Made from wood shingles, For Our Neighbors is inspired by the resilience of birds and the ways in which they thrive in urban environments—even when built structures are often hostile to them. “I am also inspired by the sense of joy that the presence of birds can bring,” Hwang says. “They signal the changing of seasons, new birth and life, music and song, optics and camouflage, and many other associations.”

  • A smiling asian woman in a leather jacket and dark-framed glasses in front of a bookshelf

    Joyce Hwang (b. 1974, U.S.) is an associate professor and the director of graduate studies of architecture at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and the founder of Ants of the Prairie, an office of architectural practice and research that focuses on confronting contemporary ecological conditions through creative means. She is a recipient of the Exhibit Columbus University Design Research Fellowship, the Architectural League Emerging Voices Award, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and the MacDowell Fellowship.

    Artist website: antsoftheprairie.com
    Instagram: @antsoftheprairie
    Instagram: @jo.hwang

Photo: Courtesy of Joyce Hwang

Listen

Mine Is Not Your Beauty
Uwade

This recording from The Birdsong Project was selected to complement this birdhouse.

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For the Birds Presenting Sponsor

Logo: Warby Parker