This is what happens when starchitects design birdhouses

The birds of San Antonio will soon have nicer homes than you do.



Ten new birdhouses designed by some of the top architecture firms in the U.S. are set to be installed in historic Brackenridge Park, a 400-acre cultural park north of downtown San Antonio. With daring shapes that put the typical boxy birdhouse to shame, these form-altering habitats are bringing high design to the avian world.



Architects from prominent firms including Snøhetta, Gensler, and Olson Kundig have contributed these designs as a benefit to the conservancy that oversees Brackenridge Park, and they’ll all be installed along a new walking path being built throughout the park.



[Photo: courtesy Brackenridge Park]



One birdhouse is a blur of interwoven wires forming a 3D grid. Another is an abstracted totem pole, with several openings for birds to fly inside from underneath. Another takes the idea about as literally as can be: It’s made out of an ostrich egg.



The idea to add architect-designed birdhouses to the park is the brainchild of Suzanne Mathews, director at the San Antonio-based architectural lighting manufacturer Lucifer Lighting and a member of the Brackenridge Park Conservancy’s board of directors.



[Photo: Ansen Seale]



Mathews had been thinking about the park’s birds after being introduced to bird enthusiast Randall Poster, a music supervisor in the film industry who’s worked on TV shows like Boardwalk Empire and the films of director Wes Anderson. During the pandemic, Poster developed For the Birds: Birdsong Project, a collection of compositions that celebrate the music of birds. Poster released it as a box set of 20 LP records featuring 172 songs and 73 poems inspired by birds and performed by artists including John Cale, Thurston Moore, and Yoko Ono. Proceeds from sales benefited the National Audubon Society.



Mathews saw an opportunity to do something similar for Brackenridge Park. But instead of bird-inspired music and poetry, Mathews wanted bird-inspired (and bird-serving) architecture. Working with Poster, she made a plan. Unique birdhouses could help the park better accommodate the large population of regional and migratory birds that use the space, including hummingbirds, chickadees, and martins. The birdhouses could also improve the visitor experience. Mathews started asking some of the architects she knows through Lucifer Lighting if they’d be interested in contributing a design to the project. “Everyone said yes,” she says.



The result is a collection of 10 architectural showpieces, all of which were revealed recently during a gala event that also raised funds for the park. The birdhouses are on display at the McNay Art Museum, after which they’ll be installed in the park. Specially designed walking paths are now being constructed for visitors to stroll past the new collection.



“I thought it was a great way to bring design to San Antonio,” Mathews says, “to bring an appreciation of architecture to San Antonio, and to bring a further appreciation of nature and the environment to San Antonio and to the park in a way where it’s a soft sell, but very exciting.”



See the designs below, and learn more about what inspired them.