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Bird-Friendly Skyscraper is People-Friendly Too

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Here’s a big problem you probably didn’t know about, right. Skyscrapers kill birds.

You thought it was wind turbines? Wrong. That has been what you might call a “manufactured” rumor.
Skyscrapers kill birds. Wind turbines, not so much. So architects think about bird-kills, because in buildings, this is an actual, not an invented problem. And our cities are full of buildings.

So here’s an incredibly lovely solution from Studio Gang Architects, that deservedly earns a PETA award for  bird-deflecting elements in Aqua Tower, an 823-foot building with 55,000 square feet of retail and office space, 210 hotel rooms, 476 rental residential units, and 263 condominium units & Penthouses.

Here’s the problem. Birds just don’t see glass very well. Or not yet. (They might evolve the ability to see skyscrapers in a million years, but we’ll both be extinct before that).

The more glass a skyscraper has, the more heinous are its bird-killing propensities.

So setting the glass back like this; behind these little shelved terraces, makes the building look more solid to a bird. And that makes it bird-friendly.

But wait! This design makes the skyscraper much more people-friendly too! Would you ever stand outside 300 floors up a skyscraper? I thought not. Me neither.

But – now this actually does look like a very inviting and even a comfortable place to hang out, on this shelf thing that tells birds it’s a building.

Really civilized, in fact. I can visualize a long sustainable future with this sort of lovely design. It really makes you want to not go extinct.

Images: Studio Gang Architects
Source: MyMet