The Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly is all around us in San Francisco. The butterflies can live their entire lives in the city, which is an ideal habitat thanks to its warm climate and London Plane trees (they're the knobby-looking ones you can see near City Hall along Market Street.) However, the butterflies start out as caterpillars, and the caterpillars often fall out of trees and land on the city streets, where many don't survive. Now SITELAB, the studio responsible for one of the studios behind the upcoming 5M project, has joined together with Nature in the City to suggest a prototype that would catch the caterpillars' fall and create a new habitat for the butterflies.
The prototype, called Habit(At), will head to Market Street for three days in April as part of the upcoming Market Street Prototyping Festival. It is set to include a mesh canopy stretched beneath London Plane trees that will catch the caterpillars and let them remain in their treetop home. People will be able to look up into the canopy, which will be surrounded by clear plastic tubing, and see the butterfly habitat while reading accompanying information about the butterfly.
· Habit(At) [Neighborland]
· Previous Coverage of the Market Street Prototyping Festival [Curbed SF]
· Behold: Conceptual Designs for SoMa's Grand-Scale 5M Project [Curbed SF]
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