Eva, Carlos, two Belgian Malinois – Bicho and Bomba –, Harris the owl, five swift families, six kestrel families and twenty sparrows, are all companion species. They live and learn together in this building, thirty kilometres west of Madrid. Sitting in amongst fields, in a rural environment transformed over recent decades by urban development and intensive pesticide-reliant agriculture, Educan School is trialling ways to recover the conditions of the ecosystem.

▼轴测图，Axonometric View © Eeestudio + Lys Villalba

Its architecture is a multi-species design. While the two main classrooms are busy with dog–human pairs practising agility or dog sports like Schutzhund, birds nest on the upper floor’s nest-facade, boasting ideal views and orientation. Small birds of prey feed on rodents, maintaining a balance with crops and other local flora. Small birds and bats – who also inhabit the lettering on the south facade – feed on insects, including mosquitoes that can carry certain canine diseases, and are part of the pollination cycles of flowers and plants in the surrounding fields. Sparrows made an impromptu appearance in this self-regulating ecosystem, nesting in the circular holes of the container edges.

▼夏日的南立面，South facade in summer ©  José Hevia