Today we're focusing on a single thing that made our radar at Homes & Gardens of the Northwest because of its cool quotient. Or maybe its crazy quotient -- you decide. Vote in the poll below, and/or leave comments. Just keep them clean and civil.
Feral cat shelter:
Everyone needs shelter, including the estimated 10,000 or more stray cats who make New York City their home. From Architectural Record:
Area architects may not have had to claw their way in but they recently put their design and engineering skills to the test on an animal-rescue mission to design warm, weatherproof, portable and safe shelters for New York City's stray cats. The designers volunteered their time and resources to design and build the shelters for the second annual Architects for Animals competition, part of the non-profit Mayor's Alliance for New York City's Animals.
The winning design, which includes a data-monitoring device powered by a solar panel, was a joint project by
and architect Kathryn Walton, who founded the nonprofit
The shelter, which is constructed of recycled and donated materials, is equipped with a pressure sensor, LED light, and a radio transmitter that lights up when occupied and sends information to a base station that posts the weight of the cat and the duration of its stay on the web in real ti
me.
"Since one base station can support hundreds of shelters within a one-mile radius, multiple shelters located within multiple cat colonies can provide useful data for caretakers and certified trap-neuter-return (TNR) workers," Co Adaptive says. The firm hopes that the shelter will ultimately be used "to expedite efforts to minimize the overpopulation problem."
Check out the photos here of the winning shelter, which include a drawing of its working parts and a labeled display of the electronics. Or go to
plus a slide show of shelters in the contest. One or two of them may have you scratching your head, wondering, "What were they thinking?"
Maybe like a cat.
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