"Flock House" sculptures - marymattinglystudio

"Flock House" sculptures

Flock House
Sculptures | 2012–2014 | Various public spaces in New York City, permanent installation at PS 62, Staten Island, NY

Flock House is a series of inhabitable sculptures that imagine adaptive living systems for an urban climate future. Modular, mobile, and made from reclaimed materials, each Flock House functions as a self-contained ecosystem equipped with tools for rainwater collection, solar energy, food cultivation, and shelter. These public sculptures were activated across parks, plazas, and streets in New York City and engaged the public through residency programs, storytelling, and workshops.

Through their nomadic movement and site-specific activation, the structures challenged notions of permanence, domestic space, and survival. Inspired by circular design and communal care, the project became a living investigation into alternative infrastructures, ecological pedagogy, and the politics of mobility.

Flock House addresses themes of environmental justice, resource distribution, and urban resilience. The project critiques centralized infrastructures and imagines decentralized, place-based alternatives. It also draws from histories of DIY architecture, ecological futurism, and parasitic design, offering poetic, functional responses to climate volatility and migration.

Project Details
Years: 2012–2014
Locations: Battery Park, Governors Island, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens
Collaborators: Queens Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Hester Street Collaborative, Ghana Think Tank, NYC Parks, and individuals including Rob Wall, Scott Weiner, Greg Lindquist, Rand Weeks, Lonny Grafman, Wilfredo Veras, Amelia Marzek, Amanda McDonald Crowley and more
Support: LMCC, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, volunteers
Materials: Reclaimed aluminum, wood, polycarbonate, solar panels, water filtration, urban agriculture systems

“I’ve lived in and co-built ecosystems and shelters like those in Flock House—experiences that taught me to rethink daily life as entangled with systems of extraction, care, and repair. With Flock House, I wanted to make visible how structures can carry values: the ability to move, to adapt, to host others, and to make a place that prioritizes cooperation and respect for shared resources. I wanted to understand how a single structure could be used to imagine different futures, not as individual pods, but as shared experiments in how we might live differently, more lightly, and more connected. Flock House is about dreaming and demonstrating small-scale autonomy, with room for wildness, improvisation, and collective authorship.” —Mattingly

Exhibitions

  • Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NYC
  • Governors Island, NYC
  • Queens Museum microsphere residency with Ghana Think Tank
  • Permanent installation at PS 62, Staten Island

Documentation

    “Flock Houses Land in New York’s Public Spaces” – The Architect’s Newspaper
    “Parasitic Geodesic Flock House Pops Up in Battery Park” – Inhabitat
    “The Art of Living: The Flock House Project” – Komai
    “Join Artist Mary Mattingly’s Latest Sustainable Floating Commune” – Art + Auction

    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly
    Flock House, 2012, a series of permanent and temporary portable structures people inhabited by Mary Mattingly

    Flock House

    • Presents adaptable models for climate-resilient housing
    • Merges sculptural form with ecological and pedagogical function
    • Supported public programs on sustainability, mobility, and future-making
    • Commissioned for permanent installation at PS 62, Staten Island
    • Collaborated with Queens Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Hester Street Collaborative
    • Featured in Dwell, HuffPost, Art + Auction, The Architect’s Newspaper, and Inhabitat
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