Marie Davidová, María Claudia Valverde Rojas, and Hanane Behnam
This paper reports an ecologically informed co-design intervention within the COLife project, implemented in the biodiversity hotspot of Hoppenlau Cemetery in Stuttgart, adjacent to the University of Stuttgart campus, during winter 2025. Building on prior COLife interventions, we focused on restoring micro-habitats for reptiles—particularly the common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis)—alongside bats and insects, through the design, prototyping, and on-site placement of modular “BioBarnacle” units. The work, carried out by a transdisciplinary student team, integrates Systems Oriented Design methods (gigamapping and synthesis mapping), environmental simulations, and full-scale prototyping to enable interaction between human and non-human stakeholders in real-life conditions. Findings indicate that a co-design approach can align ecological insight with spatial intervention at an urban scale, while highlighting requirements for facilitation and long-term monitoring. The contribution will interest planning and design practitioners as well as systemic design education.
Keywords: more-than-human, systems-oriented design, gigamapping, urban biodiversity, urban intervention