Spec project: A manual for animal

[Keren]

Hi! I am a student embarking on the study of a speculative project about the zoo. In the course of my research, I have come across a term known as ACD, which stands for Animal-Centric Design.

A question has germinated within the confines of my thoughts: What if I were one of the animal realm and desired to compile a guidebook tailored for the usage of my fellow creatures, what would such a publication entail? When the user is an animal, how do we interpret the zoo, a spatial facility designed by humans for animals, from their point of view?

I am immensely inquisitive regarding the opinions of all who interested in this matter, for it is an open-ended topic, and I extend a cordial invitation to all to partake in this discourse: (the following question is what l am thinking about)

- Imagine you are an animal denizens; what manner of information would you hope to discover within an animal's publication?
- If you encounter a human in the wild, what measures should be undertaken to elude potential hazards?
- How to become a city animal dweller?

 

[iloveyourzoos]

I really like the creativity of trying to write a guidebook from the animals' perspective!

I found an "Animal Welfare Program Template" from the AZA (Association of Zoos & Aquariums), that may be helpful to you for your project. It doesn't go quite so far as writing it from an animal's perspective, but it is highly animal-centric in terms of the considerations that are used.

I think a great many of the recommendations in the document could be "translated" quite easily into a guidebook from an animal's perspective. For example, page 5 (of the document, page 6 on the pdf) includes a blue box with a six-component framework that might serve as a creative inspiration for your chapter headings. The first point is nutrition, so in the same way that one might include restaurant reviews in a human guidebook, you could easily translate that into an animal guidebook chapter titled "Where To Eat!"

Further into the document, (pages 16-27), it goes into a a great deal of scientific and evidence-based ways to measure the inputs and outputs of how each of the six components have been designed, which may be helpful to you in thinking through all the various things to include within in each chapter.

Here's the link if it's helpful:
https://assets.speakcdn.com/assets/2332/welfare_program_template_final.pdf

 

[iloveyourzoos]

Two other thoughts:

One is that some of the puns that zoos use in their educational signs and exhibit titles may be useful places for inspiration for your animal guidebook. So maybe a section for nocturnal animals that highlights "Nightlife", or a section on aquatic animals themed around "Relaxing by the Pool".

Another thing to consider (and apologies if your classes have already covered this): While the idea of "animal-centric design" is great for getting us humans to stop putting ourselves at the center of everything, I wonder if the next level is to think not just of humans vs. animals, but thinking through how guidebooks for different species of animals might need to look very different from each other.

I got the idea by noticing how many of the recommendations in that AZA document talk specifically about making sure that welfare is considered for each individual species. Would you really trust a lion to write a non-biased guidebook for zebras? Of a ground animal to understand what a bird or arboreal animal might need?

Of course, that may be way too much to include in your school project, so the level of detail may need to be cut down. But in the same way that some human guidebooks give "options" for people with different tastes, your own book might want to include different options for fish vs. birds, or carnivores vs. herbivores, or day animals vs. nocturnal ones.