Sparrow Pipe Fitter
Echipa: Alex Axinte, Cristi Borcan, Maria Daria Oancea
Consultant: Dorel Ruşti
Contribution within Tweet Houses project developed by De-a Arhitectura Association.
“Sparrow Pipe Fitter” is the design of a process, a recipe for anyone who wants to build a nest or a feeder for birds. The materials used are existing objects, with the right dimensions for a sparrow nest, cheap, and easy to find at every hardware store..
“Sparrow Pipe Fitter” project is a handbook that contains the elements that can be used, the tools needed, indications for building techniques, locations recommendations, and three prototypes for exemplification. The handbook also contains maintenance tips, follow-up procedures, attendance methods and rules for a good co-habitation.
The nest is for the house sparrow - Passer domesticus, one of the most common birds in the urban environment, a kind of street dog with wings for Romanian cities.
The majority of Romanian urban population lives in block of flats. Whether in the middle of large green spaces, crowded in big peripheral neighborhoods, or lined up along the boulevards that cross the cities, the apartment blocks are everywhere in Romanian cities. As much as the people, the birds live in these apartment blocks: they nest under the balconies and in the cracks of the facades and they eat the seeds laid by people on the banisters or on the jambs of the windows. The house sparrow is one of the closest birds to humans.
“Sparrow Pipe Fitter” functions like a prefab house for humans, and due to the different modules of pipes can be assembled in various configurations.
The nests and the feeders are made of plumbing materials (plastic pipes and fittings), that can be bought from every hardware store. Easily assembled, the modules have the functional, ergonomic and technical characteristics for sparrows’ nests.
“Sparrow Pipe Fitter” project is a “do-it-yourself” process for those who want to extend their house or apartment with a house for sparrows. For the prototypes we went to a local hardware market, we tested variants, we modified them, and we used the power drill, the tape measure, the cutter and the hacksaw.
Prototype 1
Prototypes 1, 2 si 3
HANDBOOK
Tweet workshop
Team: Corina Croitoru (De-a arhitectura Association), Cristi Borcan, Maria Daria Oancea (studioBASAR) and Dani Drăgan (Romanian Ornithological Society)
Location: Galateca art gallery, 25.10.2014
de-a-arhitectura.ro/atelierul-ciripit/
Photo: De-a Arhitectura Association, studioBASAR
The workshop tested the way children can use their imagination to build sparrows’ nests and feeders out of plumbing pipes and fittings. During a two hours’ workshop the children came up with different models of nests combined with feeders - so they can be used during the whole year -, they decorated them with ribbons and stickers, and they colored them. After the end of the workshop, the children and the parents promised that they will install the nest-feeders on their balconies or in their backyards, and that they will keep an occupancy journal.
Placements
After two unsuccessful placements, the feeder from Dionisie Lupu street from Bucharest was attended by a flock of local sparrpows.
