Lead Firm: Nine Yards Studio
Completion: June 2018
Client: The Urban Beehive Project
In collaboration with the community, the architects created a destination to learn about the importance of bees in a sustainable environment. Two sculptural structures house 120,00 bees and serve as a learning platform for demonstrations. Like a public art installation, they attract people. An amphitheatre made of hexagon blocks gives seating, a framework for interpretive signage, and spaces for children to burrow and climb. The project has become a play structure, a sculpture, a garden and a tool for hands-on learning.
Photo: Tamzin Gillis, Dear Addie Photography
Photo: Tamzin Gillis, Dear Addie Photography
Photo: Tamzin Gillis, Dear Addie Photography
Photo: Tamzin Gillis, Dear Addie Photography
Photo: Tamzin Gillis, Dear Addie Photography
“The innovative Urban Beehive Project shows how urban design can help address, educate, and inspire people to protect and conserve the environment. It is a model for the role of architecture in starting a dialogue on a locally important environmental issue. In addition to the design and building of playful and engaging forms, the project exhibits the expanded role of the designer (in a non-profit capacity) as steward and educator.”