" Animals are a lot like humans—they like fresh air, sunlight and a peaceful, quiet place to call home. But if you’ve ever been to a crappy animal shelter, you know that the spaces can be the exact opposite of comfortable. Oftentimes, animals are shoved into cramped, windowless rooms where the decibel level rivals that of a frat bar on Friday night.
It’s a stressful situation for everyone: for the animals, their caretakers, and for the people who will potentially adopt them. “We’re trying to reverse all of that,” says James Garrison, founder of New York City-based Garrison Architects.
HOW DO YOU DESIGN A SHELTER THAT ENCOURAGES THE ADOPTION OF ANIMALS?
Garrison and his firm were tasked with revamping the Staten Island Animal Care Center, a facility that’s part shelter, part treatment facility for dogs, cats and small animals. At the beginning of the design process, Garrison asked himself this question: How do you design a shelter that encourages the adoption of animals? What he found was happy animals make for happy humans. “Animal shelters are really interesting projects,” he says. “It has to be wonderful for the animals and wonderful for the people who come see them.”
Garrison Architects hopes to design an animal shelter that encourages adoption. Image: Garrison Architects
This meant totally revamping what you think an animal shelter would be. Garrison began by inverting the traditional layout. Typically, animals are placed in cages on the inside of the building, while offices and human-centered spaces get the sunlight and outdoor views. “What we did was turn the building inside out,” he explains.
The holding rooms line the perimeter of the building, meaning the animals—not humans—get the sunshine from the full-glass walls. This also allowed Garrison to reduce the number of animals kept in each room; so instead of 20 dogs and cats in one giant holding space, a series of eight rooms holds around seven or eight animals each, who all face away from each other to discourage barking and noise. “When you put dogs in a single room, their anxiety starts to feed on itself,” says Garrison.
Of course, in a perfect situation, every animal would get its own individual room, but space and budget constraints didn’t allow for that. “In flush communities, that’s the standard,” he says. “But we made it to the greatest degree of individualization that we could possibly afford.” The firm worked to incorporate added comfort in other ways, like adding acoustic separations that keep the noise from resonating throughout the entire structure. Garrison couldn’t use carpet or cloth to absorb the sound—those same materials readily absorb pee and poo. Instead, they used the ceilings a special perforated steel material that absorbs sound and the walls of the room are a multi-shell polycarbonate, which doesn’t reflect sound as much as hard glass.
The project is part of New York City’s Design Excellence program, which places public building projects in the hands of top-tier architects so the often drab public architecture of places like libraries, police stations and yes, animal shelters, get a high-design facelift. Garrison’s focus has long been on using nature to improve our built surroundings, and that ethos is evident in the animal shelter. Natural ventilation was a must. “The air, like in hospitals, needs to remain extremely clean,” he explains.
But perhaps the building’s biggest asset is its capability of spreading natural lighting. The entire shelter is made from translucent and and transparent glass that hugs a steel frame. “It looks I really love buildings and spaces that have an elegant neutrality about them,” Garrison says. “Buildings that allow us to feel light and air and nature without imposing themselves on us.”
(Stinson, L., 2013. A Clever Animal Shelter Is Designed to Make You Say ‘Aww!’ [online] 18th December 2013. Available at: http://www.wired.com/2013/12/a-smartly-designed-animal-shelter-that-encourages-adoption/#slideid-374741 [Accessed 7th January 2014].)
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The main objective behind the design for the new Staten Island Animal Care Center was to create a high quality environment for the animals, staff and visitors. The building is sheathed in a highly insulating, translucent polycarbonate envelope. This provides higher performance in comparison to typical glass and maximizes the benefits of natural light. The roof of the outer perimeter housing the animals is raised above a lower interior roof plane, which covers other shelter functions. This configuration permits the daylight to enter the facility on multiple sides. Natural ventilation is encouraged along the periphery with the use of a passive air ventilation system. A sophisticated mechanical system that uses heat recovery to feed heat gain energy back into the system is incorporated into the design to provide constant fresh air exchange.
Architect: Garrison Architects Location: Staten Island, New York City, New York, USA Project Area: 5,500 sqf Renderings: Courtesy of Garrison Architects
Courtesy of Garrison Architects
By inverting the typical shelter programming inside out, the animals are housed on the perimeter of the building while offices and other functions are placed in the interior. Such an arrangement, combined with the use of translucent exterior allows the animals to benefit from natural daylight and creates an animated façade that engages the passers-by. By night, the glow of the building creates a presence in the otherwise dark neighborhood.
west elevation
The building is designed as a low budget, high performance space that aims to achieve a LEED Silver rating. The selection of locally produced materials that can withstand abuse should minimize the long-term maintenance costs. The approach to landscaping follows a similar principal. The native plants and grasses surrounding the building do not need supplemental irrigation. The new shelter is scheduled to be completed in 2011.
(Henry, C., 2011. In Progress: Staten Island Animal Care Center / Garrison Architects [online] 2nd April 2011. Arch Daily. Available at: http://www.archdaily.com/121670/in-progress-staten-island-animal-care-center-garrison-architects [Accessed 7th January 2014].)