DukEnvironment article featuring our project’s leaders – Fall 2015

DukEnvironment is a bi-annual magazine that publishes articles about research conducted by Nicholas School of the Environment faculty and students, at Duke University. In this Fall’s issue, our leaders Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela and Scott Winton are featured in the “Student News” section. You can read more about our bird-window collision project and the people involved in this article.

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Read the full story here! (scroll down to page 25)

 

FCIEMAS’ bird deterrent pattern is featured on WRAL

WRAl on pattern

You are now all aware of the fact that the deadliest building on Duke’s campus is deadly no more! CIEMAS has gone bird friendly and the local news are all over it celebrating this wonderful action. The full story will come out on September 17th when Duke’s administration presents the bird friendly pattern on CIEMAS, for now here’s this news piece.

Read more and watch the video here!

“The law of unintended consequences” : Op-ed in The News & Observer

oped News and Observer, July 2015

We all know that architects don’t put lots of glass in buildings intending to kill birds. No, they put there so people inside the building enjoy natural light and beautiful views. So the architects are not to blame, they all mean well and want us happy. However, large amounts of glass take millions of collisions each year, at Duke, one building especially: CIEMAS. The News & Observer, after doing a story about our bird-window collision project, proceeded to write a nice opinion piece on the subject.

Read the article here!

Dotted pattern at NYC Convention Center reduces collisions by 90%

NYC Javits Center

Sometimes architects and project managers argue that renovations to make a building bird friendly are expensive, and don’t give an added benefit to the structures. Well…think again! After a half-billion 5-year renovation, the Javits Center has bird friendly glass that has also reduced energy consumption by 26%. A dotted patter, just like the one installed at Duke’s CIEMAS, has reduced bird collisions by 90%.

This is a great example of a large scale renovation that yields benefits for all. Plus this building now has a green roof with nesting gulls, geese, and (soon) kestrels!

Read the complete New York Times article here!

The Chronicle features our project’s success at Duke!

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Read the article here!

We got a lot of media attention for having the “deadliest” building of all, as you may recall. We identified the engineering building, CIEMAS, as the building with the most bird-window collisions with 72% of the strikes. The obvious solution to prevent collisions on campus, then, was to retrofit this structure and stop about 2/3 of the collisions.

After conversations with the administration in several occasions, and a through media coverage, Duke has decided to make CIEMAS bird friendly! This summer, dotted patterns were applied to the most dangerous structures for birds: glass walkways and large windows. We will continue to monitor collisions at the building to assess the efficacy of the patterns.

We invite other universities and organizations to do the same!