After growing up in Galveston, Texas, moving to Jackson, Mississippi for college, and then on to Seattle for his career, West Pierce developed a keen interest in the confluence of rural, suburban, and urban environments.
Now a designer in our Seattle studio, West is focusing his interests on research around the concept of “rapprochement urbanism.” Here, he shares five key aspects:
- Rapprochement urbanism uses this definition of wilderness: land supporting fully functioning habitat with the requisite balance of species serving the spectrum of flora and fauna through predatory species and ultimately human life.
- A rapprochement urban design relies on habitat and spatial requirements for key apex predator species as well as key zoning ordinances for human population density and connectivity.
- The success of rapprochement urbanism is determined through its ability to address these constraints in a wholistic, sustainable way – in comparison to adjacent functional habitats and with reference to future urban development trajectories.
- With rapprochement urbanism, cities can foster and nurture ecological systems that exist around and within them through specific articulation of the transitional spaces between human and animal populations.
- In rapprochement urbanism, boundaries are not mere divisions but stitched edges, facilitating the constant interplay of human and animal spatial priorities allowing for new experiences within them.
