Archinect - News

Brighton passes planning condition requiring new buildings to feature bee bricks

2022-01-24T15:56:00-05:00

An initiative in Brighton aimed at helping protect the bee population could do more harm than good, scientists have warned. The council in Brighton has passed a planning condition that means any new building more than five metres high will have to include swift boxes and special bricks with holes known as bee bricks. They will provide nesting and hibernating space for solitary bees.

The mandate was first proposed in 2019 and then attached to all planning permissions after April 1, 2020. As reported by The Guardian, scientists warn that this move may not result in a notable difference for biodiversity, with some arguing that it could actually harm bees if the holes aren’t properly maintained or if they attract mites.

Others have asserted that the bricks don’t need to be cleaned because there will be beneficial microbes in the holes and bees possess natural hygienic behavior. It is clear that further research is required in order to better understand the costs and benefits to implementing these bee bricks. One professor believes Brighton’s planning condition will provide a good opportunity to evaluate the efficacy of the bricks on a wide enough scale over an extended period of time before thinking of employing it elsewhere.

Design collaborative launches open-source 'bee homes'

2020-06-03T13:08:00-04:00

IKEA's research and design lab SPACE10 has teamed up with Bakken & Bæck and designer Tanita Klein to launch an open-source Bee Home. The offering is in response to the collaborative's recognition of the essentiality of bees for life on earth, which includes one third of all of the food we eat. The team's aim is to mitigate the impact humans have made on bees' natural habitats.

Bee Home is free and open-source, allowing users to customize, fabricate, and assemble a design of their making locally. "For almost 80 years, IKEA has enabled people to create a better everyday life at home," said Kaave Pour, Director at SPACE10 in a statement. "But our home is more than just four walls, our home is also the planet we live on. That is why we launch Bee Home: we want to enable people everywhere to help rebalance our relationship with the planet and ensure a sustainable home for all of us."

Constructing a Bee Home is a fairly simple process. One would first design their structure online, select...

This McDonald's is for the bees

2019-05-22T18:48:00-04:00

McDonald's, the American fast food chain central to debates on overconsumption and sustainability, has started a few notable initiatives overseas. Over the last few years, several of their restaurants in Sweden have recently installed beehives on their rooftops to accommodate the globally waning bee population, for example. A more recent initiative is the McHive, the "world's smallest McDonald's" built in a Swedish forest, according to the corporation.

Interior of McHive.

The project was overseen by creative agency NORD DDB, both as a way to advertise recent initiatives by McDonald's to consider its impact on the environment and as a genuine method of increasing and sustaining the honeybee population. The interior of the McHive is a wooden beehive fit to serve thousands of bees a day.

The Hive pavilion moves to Kew Gardens

2016-07-07T12:38:00-04:00

Kew Gardens has been home to many notable sculptures and architectural pieces such as Henry Moore’s “Reclining Mother and Child” and Marks Barfield Architect’s “Tree Top Walkway”. So it was no surprise when it was chosen to showcase “The Hive”.

The Hive is the award-wining pavilion designed by artist Wolfgang Buttress and built by architectural practice BDP and engineers Simmonds Studio. It was first created for the 2015 Milan Expo where it attracted over 3.3 million visitors and became one of the main attractions. It is the first structure to be brought back to Britain after an Expo.

The Hive brings together art, science, sound and landscape representing the important relationship between bee and human.

Prompted by the theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life" the Hive seeks to showcase the relationship between humans and bees. It’s outer structure is made from aluminum rods arranged hexagonally in a honeycomb fashion. The porous construction mimics the whirlwind motion made by a sw...

Animal architecture: Rescued bee colony gets new waterfront home

2012-06-21T14:10:00-04:00

A massive and thriving colony of bees living in an abandoned industrial site in Buffalo has been moved into a brand new home, designed for them by architecture graduate students in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.