i have started to make some bumble bee nesting boxes…here are the first prototypes!
1/4 scale formal explorations
not ghosts!
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1/4 scale formal explorations
animals in the city
1/4 scale formal explorations
Bug infested London hotel wins prestigious architectural prize
British Land and the City of London Corporation have unveiled the winners of ‘Beyond the Hive’, a unique architectural competition to design five star hotels for insects.
The competition, which was organised to celebrate 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity and coincides with this year’s London Festival of Architecture, saw five shortlisted entries built across the City of London’s public gardens.
A two foot high hotel, which takes its design inspiration from children’s fable Hansel & Gretel and was constructed entirely from scavenged waste material, was crowned the ‘public’s favourite’ following an online vote.
Located at Cleary Garden, off Queen Victoria Street, EC4, the ‘Beevarian Antsel and Gretel Chalet’ was designed and constructed by the organisation ‘German Women in Property’. The hotel is based on a traditional Bavarian mountain chalet, and features reclaimed bricks to attract solitary bees, rotten logs for invertebrates, louvered boxes filled with bark for hibernating butterflies, a log drilled with holes for ladybirds and eaves filled with bamboo for lacewings. Set over three floors, all materials used were collected within the City.
A further award, chosen by an expert judging panel including Paul Finch, Chairman of CABE, the government’s advisor on architecture, urban design and public space, was presented to ‘The Insect Hotel’ at St Dunstan’s in the East, between Lower Thames Street and Great Tower Street, EC4.
Created by architectural firm Arup Associates, the façade of the hotel consists of a series of compartments based on a Voronoi pattern, which can be found in the natural world as in the rib structure of a dragonfly’s wing, and bears a close resemblance to honeycomb.
The ‘compartments’ created by the pattern provide the supporting armature for a variety of recycled waste materials and deadfall that are loosely inserted into the voids. In addition to catering for the needs of stag beetles, solitary bees, spiders, lacewings and ladybirds, the sides of the hotel are accessible for butterflies and moths and the top is suitable for absorbing rain water through planting
In addition to Paul Finch, the panel of celebrated industry experts charged with selecting their favourite design comprised Sarah Henshall, Brownfield Officer, Buglife; Adrian Penfold, Head of Planning & Environment, British Land; Graham Stirk, Director, Roger Stirk Harbour + Partners and Peter Wynne Rees, The City Planning Officer, City of London Corporation.
The remaining three shortlisted ‘hotels’ can be found at Bunhill Fields, City Road, EC1; West Smithfield, EC1; and Postman’s Park, between King Edward Street, Little Britain and Aldersgate Street, EC4.
If You Build it, They Will Come… by Ben Faga
Royal College of Art graduate Ben Faga is encouraging bees in London to swarm and set up new hives.
Called If You Build it, They Will Come… the project involves installing boxes Faga calls bait-hives within five kilometres of an existing hive and using a specially-developed chemical to attract the bees.
Faga mixed this substance from essential oils, beeswax and the pheromones of a queen bee.
This project interrogates the border between fear and hope of an event and the prosaic preparations surrounding the possible event. I have created a series of vessels that attract swarming bees, called bait-hives.
The vessels contain a custom designed bee attractant that I have created by taking the queens pheromone and mixing it with various essential oils and beeswax. This mixture attracts bees from up to 5 kilometers, engaging their swarming instinct encouraging them to leave their current hive to take residence in my bait-hives.
In attempts to expand my current apiary, I have set up a network of bait-hive hosts throughout London. The hosts were selected due to their proximity to current beehives, making it very likely that, one day, 20,000+ bees will swarm into the space to inhabit the hive.
This scenario forces the bait-hive hosts to confront their comfort level with this object. Do they want to attract a swarm to their space? Are they excited or scared of the prospect of living so close to a swarm of bees?
Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven by London Fieldworks
Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven,
Duncan Terrace Gardens, Islington and Cremorne Gardens, Kensington & Chelsea
Spontaneous City by London Fieldworks comprises two sculptural installations specially designed for the Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus Altissima) an unusual tree of Chinese origin which grows in Cremorne Gardens, Kensington and Chelsea, and Duncan Terrace Gardens, Islington. The two sister sculptures are made from a collection of over 250 bespoke, wooden bird and bug boxes that create a sculptural ‘habitat’ for the birds, insects and invertebrates that occupy the gardens, providing spaces for shelter, nesting or feeding. The design of the boxes in Duncan Terrace reflects the Georgian terraces and 1960s flats that surround the park, and in Cremorne Gardens, the structure is inspired by the architecture of the nearby Worlds End housing estate.
London Fieldworks are an art/architecture collaborative that create art installations for urban and rural settings that engage with ecology as a complex inter-working of social, natural, and technological worlds.
These sculptures have been commissioned for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Islington Council by up projects as part of their Secret Garden Project ; a new programme of artists’ commissions and events for secret gardens, lesser known green spaces, and urban corners across London. They will be in situ for three years.
The Secret Garden Project programme continues to grow, and each new commission is connected by written works, events and blogs by our writer in residence Sarah Butler. To find out more, or make a written contribution visit the Word Garden blog.
Animal Wall by Gitta Gschwendtner
Animal Wall
a site-specific Ecological Artwork
Charles Church Developments, WYG Planning & Design and Safle are pleased to announce the completion of ‘Animal Wall’, a site-specific ecological artwork by artist Gitta Gschwendtner.
‘Animal Wall’ is part of a 50 metre long wall, running along the south-western edge of ‘Strata’, a new residential development in Century Wharf, Cardiff Bay. It can be accessed via the riverside walk leading from Clarence Road towards the city centre.
The environmental impact of Cardiff Bay’s extensive development is an ongoing concern and various measures have been put in place to mitigate this. The approach taken for this artwork is to assist wildlife in the area and encourage further habitation. The new housing development of Century Wharf which provides approximately 1,000 new apartments and houses; Gschwendtner’s design for the ’Animal Wall’ will match this with about 1,000 nest boxes for different bird and bat species, integrated into the fabric of the wall that separates the development from the adjacent public riverside walk.
Through consultation with an ecologist, four different sized animal homes have been developed, which have been integrated into a custom-made woodcrete cladding to provide an architecturally stunning and environmentally sensitive wall for Century Wharf. The animal wall also transcends the barrier between the private and the public, with the wildlife roaming freely between the two areas.
The Hand Up Project: Attempting to Meet the New Needs of Natural Life-Forms
Building homes for hermit crabs
Right now, 30 percent of all hermit crabs on our shorelines are living in shells that are too small for them. In the springtime, when the animal has its growth spurt, this shortage skyrockets to 60 percent. Hermit crabs, whose own bodies provide only thin exoskeletons, must scavenge and appropriate hard-walled shells abandoned by marine gastropods for shelter. The problem is that there currently are not enough shells left on our beaches for hermit crabs to use. This situation is not only uncomfortable but dire. Marine hermit crabs depend upon properly fitting shells for protection from predators (Hazlett, 1981), mating success (Hazlett, 1989) and reproduction (Childress, 1972). The present lack of housing is so severe that biologists now routinely find land hermit crabs attempting to shelter themselves in glass jars and whatever other ill-fitting forms of refuse they may find at their immediate disposal.
The Hand Up Project
Based on what we know about the new needs of these animals in their current environment, the Hand Up Project proposes to manufacture alternative forms of housing, specifically designed for use by land hermit crabs, out of plastic. This solution offers multiple benefits. Not only will the project afford the animal badly needed additional forms of shelter, but we also contend that, by utilizing current technology, we may now be better equipped to meet the needs of this life-form than nature ever has.
Reviving New York’s rivers — with oysters!
Architect Kate Orff sees the oyster as an agent of urban change. Bundled into beds and sunk into city rivers, oysters slurp up pollution and make legendarily dirty waters clean — thus driving even more innovation in “oyster-tecture.” Orff shares her vision for an urban landscape that links nature and humanity for mutual benefit.
A city a box a bee 