DWELL

MENTOR, ANDREW STONE FALL 2022

Dwell is a habitat explicitly designed for the Dung Beetle. The Dung Beetle initially used the balls of dung and tunnels it dug and compiled to organize its shelter, nesting place, and food source, giving the beetle its three main identifications: rollers, tunnelers, and dwellers. Dwell does the hard work for the insect and compiles an environment with all the dung the beetle needs to reproduce and settle safely while allowing it to interpret its own territory. Instead of the architect making the beetle’s tunnels for them, they instead would design the composition of which the beetle would customize and make their own. Furthermore, Dwell takes an inorganic-organic form, meaning it takes these very uniform “units,” which take a manufactured shape, but take multiple of those, mixing, matching, and customizing, an organic composition arises. Specifically, with Dwell, a covered cluster unravels radially with spacious uncovered areas, encouraging two spaces for the beetle, dwelling, and exploring.

The organization of Dwell is a centralized cluster of units then radially unraveled. This is meant to create two distinct spaces for the Dung Beetle, one for dwelling and one for exploring. Furthermore, the “unit” encourages customization and expansion to Dwell, allowing multiple possibilities and combinations catering to different kinds of movement and spaces.

Dwell’s units have two possible combinations, one allowing more space connecting at the ends of each unit and one enclosing space connecting at the centers of each unit. Dwell encloses space in the middle of the composition, encouraging the beetle to settle, and then unravels, making more spacious areas incentivizing movement towards the ends of the structure.