Avian Infrastructures: Urban Experiments and the Makings of a Seabird ‘Hotel’

ABSTRACT

The urban arrival of black‐legged kittiwakes in the United Kingdom and Norway has made the embrace of socio‐ecological complexity a necessary part of urban planning, involving pragmatic, ad hoc experimentation as much as it has structured forms of learning. Focused on the relationship between infrastructure, animal architectures and avian geographies, the paper draws on a collaboration between cultural geography and marine ecology that examines how black‐legged kittiwakes are transforming urban life. The paper positions urban design as a set of more‐than‐human achievements to focus on one strand of the research: the development of artificial nesting structures in the form of so‐called ‘kittiwake hotels’. By tracking the movement of kittiwake hotel design and understandings of morphological adaptations between the United Kingdom and Norway, we demonstrate how ad hoc experiments have transformed understandings of urban‐avian life, with wide‐ranging implications for planning, policy and conservation. From small‐scale interventions in the built fabric to large‐scale infrastructural works, we demonstrate (1) how ad hoc experiments and forms of learning become critical to more‐than‐human cities and the place‐making practices of avian inhabitants; and (2) how distinctive temporalities, fidelities and ways of sensing shape infrastructural projects that are necessarily more‐than‐human. The paper finishes with a reflection on the design of more‐than‐human cities, the role of academic research and its public life; and the significance of collaboration and diverse forms of learning in a context of novel socio‐ecological change.