N.E.S.T
N.E.S.T – Network for Endangered Species Typologies is a distinction-awarded Master’s thesis project exploring architecture’s potential role in bird conservation. It proposes NEST typologies —self-built, adaptable structures connecting birding communities along critical migratory flyways, focused on the endangered house martin species.
By merging contemporary and historic birding practices, it creates spaces for listening to birdsong, a fading citizen science and ecosystem monitoring method. In doing so, N.E.S.T forms architectural nodes at both local and trans-regional scales, supporting observation, knowledge exchange, and ecological stewardship to strengthen conservation networks.
The project is rooted in exploring ways of facilitating the practice of Islah, an Arabic term that translates to “peacemaking”, “reparations” or “reform”–“to improve, to better, to put something into a better position.
Historically, Islah was an integral, yet under-documented, function of the Hima altuyur, or bird sanctuary, a slowly vanishing typology throughout the Islamic world. As industrialized farming practices replace these interspecies pigeon tower typologies, this proposal seeks to revive them in a contemporary context.
Speculative image of NEST structures from UK, Morocco (at the Mountian of moses) to The Gambia (in Kutu Creek alongside Gambia's bird watchers association). Birdsong becomes a shared language of ecosystem monitoring, a method of embodied ecosystem monitoring along a vulnerable migratory bird flyway.
Interior view of NEST translated to Kutu Creek in The Gambia
Exterior view of NEST translated to Kutu Creek in The Gambia
Re-imagined NEST at the “Mountain of Moses” in Morocco, located along the vital migratory highway of the Strait of Gibraltar. The structure serves as a meeting point for local Raptor Rescue Teams, which play a crucial role in safeguarding house martins and numerous other migratory bird species.
Initial 1:1 willow experiments organized to develop and refine NEST typology