The idea of zoopolis in contemporary architectural dimension

Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Environmental Engineering, University of Zielona Góra, ul. Szafrana 1, 65-516 Zielona Góra, Poland

^* Corresponding author: j.kleszcz@aiu.uz.zgora.pl

Abstract

In recent times, the idea of non-anthropocentric architecture has become one of the determinants of contemporary, conscious approach towards design as a process. Its characteristic feature is the extension of both, recognized as "urban" functions, as well as the group of recipients on which the created space is to interact. The direct connection between the notion of a city created by people (polis) and the animal world (zoo) was a long-lasting, multi-faceted process of broadening the meaning of animal subjectivity in culture, art and politics. The very concept of zoopolis, appearing for the first time in the work of Donaldson and Kymlicka in 2011, was initially applied to political science, in the context of places shared by man and domestic animals, where the city was understood as a political community of its inhabitants, including non-humans. In the sphere of creating physical space, this concept appeared for the first time two years later thanks to Jennifer Wolch. In terms of zoopolis, the urbanized space will be a set of parallel worlds in which both people and nature live in the same area, whose multiple layers only sometimes cross or overlap. The purpose of the work is to allow tracing the main determinants of the transformation process of contemporary policy from small point elements to systemic actions and identify the main features of a non-anthropocentric city as a place for the emergence of new functions and urban forms.