A book published by the UAE Ministry of Culture which “highlight(s) the significance of the places of worship and community meeting points in the UAE. The aim of the publication is to understand and study how users shape architecture, and in turn, how these spaces have affected or shaped the urban fabric of their surroundings.”

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Azza Abuoalam published her original research in 78th AA files edition.

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RETURN OF THE DEER

Published in the New York Review of Architecture

According to Leonard Lee Rue III’s book The Deer of North America, the white-tailed deer population in his native New Jersey was, as a consequence of over hunting, estimated to be only 200 in 1860. Populations have climbed steadily since 1900, and the current deer population in New Jersey now exceeds 110,000. Staten Island’s deer, which numbered 24 in 2008, reached 2,000 in 2018, an almost 100 fold increase in 10 years. Comparing population density, as is often done with human development, the deer density in New Jersey in 1860 was approximately .023 per sq. mile while the deer density of Staten Island in 2018 was approximately 34 per sq. mile, a 147,726% difference. This density of both human and deer populations has led to an increase in interactions in both locales. Eight incidents of poaching within New York City have been reported in the last three years. One perpetrator was tracked by the authorities for over a year before being caught while another traveled from near the Canadian border for the opportunity to bag an urban trophy. Recently, in an effort to curb the deer population on Staten Island without hunting (which is illegal within the city limits) the non-profit organization White Buffalo was enlisted for an island-wide capture and sterilization vasectomy program. White Buffalo’s contract is now up and over budget, with only a 15% population decrease at a cost of $4.1 million, and the city is now searching for a new vendor and perhaps a new . What this typical narrative of combating deer overpopulation fails to recognize is that the US deer population has only recently neared its pre-colombian level. What is often viewed as a massive increase in the deer population is probably better termed as a return of the deer.

In the 20th Century as deer began to repopulate the landscape (with assistance from conservation groups), they found an American landscape significantly changed by suburbanization, and as a result more hospitable to their existence. A primary driver of suburbanization was the perceived ills of the city, some social, others physical, with New York City in this case at the center of the change. Perhaps the largest geoengineering project of the second half of the 20th century, with significant government support, suburbanization took vast tracts of farmland and reconstituted them into low density housing. The introduction of this development pattern allowed for new growth forest to cover the farmland between the recently constructed housing stock. As the forest grew around suburban lawns and fallow fields the edge condition between woodland and open space was softened and expanded.

Pre suburban edge (left) and suburban edge (right). Approximate linear difference in edge condition shown to scale below. Pre-suburban (top) suburban (bottom)

This soft edge between woodland and open land is an ideal location for the growth of plant life sought by deer. It is in these edge conditions that we find the most abundant quantities of browse (shrubs and young trees) that are the mainstay of a deer’s diet. For this reason we find the densest deer populations in the northeast, not in more rural areas, but instead in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Orange County, New York and North and Central New Jersey. Unique for animals of their size, deer have continually found success adjacent to large scale human development. They are, and have been since their resurgence circa 1950, primarily suburban and exurban creatures.

Though productive, the edge is also precarious. As deer populations outpaced the ideal edge habitat they inevitably entered the city, following the re-urbanizing American population back to the densely populated center. If one edge condition brought about the rise in deer population, another edge may increasingly facilitate their infiltration into the city. Proposed projects such as the “Staten Island Sea Wall” or the “Big U” promise to protect the city from the wrath of nature by wrapping New York City’s coastal edge in a green infrastructure of parks, recreation fields, and gardens. Deer populations need a near continuous green space to move throughout the city, circling the city with these continuous edges of green infrastructure will create the connectivity needed between previously fractured forested spaces . The likelihood of large scale wildlife in our cities will only increase with the propagation of projects that the city. Perhaps we can temper a certain amount of urban hubris through committing to sharing space with deer.

Maine Magazine

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Published in OZ, publication of the Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning, and Design.

“Oppenheimer’s instruments establish this communication through the periodic cycles, travel extents and relative alignments of the various moving components. However, this data is not extractable without points from which all congruences and incongruities can be compared, and to which all movement must hypothetically align. This is the role of the datum, the conceptual line or plane that governs the limits and relations of movement within the instrument and acts as a diagram of the instrument’s governing structure. The datum is both a tool of construction and analysis and represents the medium through which communication occurs between the instrument and the participant.”

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