Beevarian Antsel and Gretel Chalet. Credit: British Land
The winning entry to the Beyond the Hive competition was announced this morning. The “Beevarian Antsel and Gretel Chalet” designed and constructed by the organisation ‘German Women in Property’ was selected from the shortlisted group of five entries. Though the short-listed group of five entries was chosen by a juried panel of experts the final design was chosen by the public. Arup’s “Insect Hotel” garnered a second place “special award” bestowed upon it by the panel. The disparity in the two designs shows clearly the gap in design-taste between the general public and the professionally trained. But no matter, it is more than likely that both hotels are equally agreeable to bugs — job well done!
For more information on the competition visit beyondthehive.
2 comments
The Arup entry is particularly interesting because it is built off a 2D cellular growth algorithm. The three dimensional version of this model converges to Kelvin solids, a conglomeration of ~14 sided open/closed cells which maximize surface area but not volume. With my limited understanding of insect housing interests, their interest is not in volume but aperature of the holes itself. Therefore, the real advantage of using this type of model to generate the design is that the resulting multi-varied openings allow objects of varied topology to pack the holes with similarly resulting varied pore space for different insects.
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