A birdhouse designed and built by Anton Bytner, a student of technical design.
Idag
They design for Luleå's birds
As their first design project in the civil engineering program in technical design, students get to build their own birdhouses. The birdhouse project has been around for over ten years, but for the past three years, the birdhouses have been hung outdoors to benefit the birdlife in Luleå.
“Design is so much fun! One of the main reasons I applied to this programme was that we have such great access to wonderful workshops,” says student Anton Bytner.
His birdhouse is an imaginative creation with a shingle-roof-like dome and a body constructed from concentric superellipses standing on end. Anton Bytner explains that while the birdhouse should certainly be aesthetically pleasing, it must also be functional for the user.
Blue tits and people
In this case, the users are blue tits and the people who will be handling the birdhouse. Before designing the birdhouse, he researched which birds are found in Luleå. He chose the blue tit, one of Sweden’s smallest and most common birds. He then determined the interior dimensions, hole size, and hole placement that blue tits prefer. For the people who will be maintaining the nest box, it should be easy to hang and easy to clean out. The most challenging part of the project was working with wood.
“I’ve almost never worked with wood in a real workshop before. I’ve learned more about what you need to consider to prevent the wood from cracking when it’s exposed to the elements over a long period of time. And of course, I’ve learned more about how to adapt your design to the users,” he says.
Anton Bytner first enrolled in the open-entry civil engineering program, which means students take a general semester before choosing a specialization. At first, he had planned to apply for a completely different specialization, but some students in technical design convinced him to change his mind—a decision he doesn’t regret.
There is a playground where the birdhouses have been put up.
Anton Bytner, Erik Ennare, and Lucas Eriksson, who are studying for a Master of Science in Engineering Design, are discussing the birdhouse that Anton built.
Designing for a Target Audience
Anders Berglund is a lecturer and instructor for the course module. He explains that the birdhouse is a good first assignment because it has two different users: humans and a species of bird.
“We want our students to learn early on in their education that design is about creating something for a specific target audience, not for oneself.”
Today, Anders Berglund and the students are hanging birdhouses at the playground in the park in Bredviken, but there are also birdhouses hanging on the Hertsö hills. They plan to set up cameras there in March of next year, once it’s warm enough for the cameras to function properly and for there to be some activity in the birdhouses.
“I think it’s nice that all the birdhouses are unique, just as we ourselves are. It’s like a celebration of diversity,” says Anders Berglund.
Anders Berglund, a technical design teacher, is hanging up a birdhouse.
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