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(BEE)IODIVERSITY
Video - Pollinators Trajectories
The master project started with a question, why would anyone make graffiti of a tree (image on the right) rather than planting an actual tree. This graffiti were everywhere around the chosen site in Barcelona, especially at the intersection of Carrer de Cristobal de Moura and Carrer de la Selva de Mar resulting in a non-diverse, non-active dull setting. This lack of diverse species gave rise to the agenda of Increasing Biodiversity.
As an immediate step, an elaborate list of species local to Barcelona was made and a common denominator was found which was the Pollinators. The decline of these pollinators, especially bees (a species which this project focuses on primarily) have reduced the biodiversity globally. The species list was then divided as per the pollinator’s liking (below list) to attract them to the site.
To plant the specific trees at a specific location, the trajectories of these pollinators were studied.
For instance, butterflies always move in a closed-looped with their neighboring butterflies. Similarly, the moving patterns of other pollinators were studies and plotted using Processing software (top video).
Important pollinator for the project were bees, they move in a swarm behavior in search of food &
water and find their coordinates with respect to the sun’s location. The project wants to establish
two bee highways, one vertical and one horizontal with three de-centralized beehives. If we
consider bees moving to these three spots and Pollen falling from their hind legs, we will get
the below Bee-Pollen drawing.
BEES
BUTTERFLIES
BEETLES
HUMMING BIRDS
BUTTERFLIES
BEETLES
HUMMING BIRDS
The next step was to design the beehive for these bees, a decentralized system of designing
three beehives was conceived and the design criteria's were -
The hive design was abstracted from the tree trunk to gel in with the site and was 13m in height, this was because bees like to move above 5m from the ground. Bees love wood and so the primary structure was made up of untreated timber from pine trees.
Bees like the sun with an ideal temperature of 32-35 degrees Celsius, to maintain this, the panels of the hives opened and closed to the sun’s location also helping them in orientation when they go out. To increase human and bee interaction, the hive core was surrounded by a spiral ramp. To see more details please see the booklet attached at the end of the page.
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