(Bee)iodiversity - Part 1

2017/18

(Bee)iodiversity - Kedar Undale

MASTER IN ADVANCED ARCHITECTURE

BARCELONA

Lost in the wild

Picture credits - Rafael Mas Carvalho

MASTER IN ADVANCED ARCHITECTURE Thesis Project Title: (Bee)iodiversity Research Studio: Self Sufficient Buildings Student: Kedar Undale Faculty: Enric Ruiz Geli, Mireia Luzarraga Assistant: Mohamad Rachid Jalloul, Zrinka Radic

Index : 01 Inspiration

01 | 1 Empathic Civilisation by Jeremy Rifkin 01 | 2 Project Site 01 | 3 Visit to Elbulli Foundation, Roses

02 BioDiversity List

02 | 1 Species List 02 | 2 Common Ground for all Species 02 | 3 List with respect to pollinators

03 Pollinators Trajectories 04 Bees

04 | 1 Bee Trajectories 04 | 2 Up and Close with Bees

05 Design

05 | 1 Height of the Hive 05 | 2 Bees and Sun 05 | 3 Bees and Winter Season 05 | 4 Bees and Barcelona 05 | 5 Shrubs bees like 05 | 6 Model Images 05 | 7 Decentralized Solution

06 Conclusion 07 References

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Thesis In our times, there has been plenty of conversation around nature and ecology - To save nature, To protect nature and Everyone wanting to live amidst ‘Nature’. But, we do not really acknowledge Nature for what it is or do something for it. (Bee)iodiversity is a project for nature, an attempt to increase the biodiversity of a chosen site by re-introducing the idea and practice of urban bee-keeping.

In his book The Empathic Civilization, Jeremy Rikfin writes, “We need to bear in mind that there have been five waves of mass biological extinction in the 3.8 billion years since life has existed on earth, and every time there was a biological wipeout, it took approximately ten million years to recover the biodiversity lost”. Even though the author talks about the mass extinction here, mankind’s mishandling of Nature is forcing us to see extinction of different animal, plant and bird species on a daily basis, the numbers growing rapidly. In March 2018, we saw the extinction of the last male white rhino. According to the WWF Global, approximately 0.1% of total species on earth go extinct every year. If there are a total of 100,000,000 different species on planet Earth, which means every year 10,000 of them go extinct. In this regard, (Bee)iodiversity first tries to understand what types and how many different types of native species exist, in the context of Barcelona and Spain, and then tries to find a common ground to save these species from extinction.

We have seen plants grow and come to life but do we know how they come to life, what else do they need apart from food and water? The answer is Pollination. Pollination is the transferring of pollen to a stigma, ovule, flower, or plant to allow fertilization. Few plant species pollinate of their own which are called self-pollinating trees and some plant species need specific variety of animals to pollinate them. These species are called Pollinators. A pollinator moves pollen from the male anther of a flower to the female stigma of a flower. Pollen appears as a fine to coarse powdery substance comprising pollen grains, which are male macro gametophytes of seed plants that produce male gametes (sperm cells).

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According to a U.N report, 40% of pollinators are facing extinction. At this rate, it will have serious implications not just for human food security and economics, but also for biodiversity and the health of ecosystems in general,� says Berry Brosi, assistant professor of environmental sciences at Emory University. To put things into perspective, 75% of the world food crop depends on pollination. The pollinators are important to foods that are key sources for vitamins and minerals in our diet, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. In addition to food crops, they also contribute to crops that provide biofuels (canola and palm oils), fibers (cotton), medicines, forage for livestock, and construction materials. The ten coolest pollinators that exist on earth are Bees, Butterflies, Hummingbirds, Ants, Bats, Beetles, Flies, Moths, Blue-tailed day gecko and Honey Possum. Apart from these, there are total of 20,000 pollinator species who contribute in pollinating at least one species across the planet, and it is important to save all these pollinator species.

As of 2018, the most delicate and fragile and endangered pollinator species are Bees. Bees are the most important pollinators. They pollinate more than 80% of all cultivated crops. It is said that one in three meals that we have is because of Bees. Albert Einstein once said, ’If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left’. If we lose all our bees, we would lose most of our food producing crops and would end up with a bland and boring diet across the year. We would live in a soiled and toxic world. Beekeepers around the world are trying to protect their bees. The loss of bees is such that for all the crops to be pollinated, Europe would need 13.4 million colonies of bees. That is 7 million more colonies. This is what the Bee Decline looks like - 1.5% of a hives population dies in a healthy normal working hive. Marcin who is a beekeeper, reported that he clears 8-12 dead bees every morning in front of the hive entrance. The rate of bee decline in China has gone so high that they have started pollinating their apple trees by hand, this is called Hand Pollination. Hand pollination, as a process is very expensive when compared to the pollination done by bees. The practise of hand-pollinating a hectare [about two acres] of apples would be approximately $5,715 - $7,135. This compared to a recommendation of one two-story colony per acre at a high 08

rental price of $45 per colony and $90 per hectare. In America alone, bees do the work of $11-$15 billion for farmers each year. Some companies in Japan have started designing robot bees, these robots will be trained to learn the swarm behavior of bees and then use them for pollination. (Bee)iodiversity does not want to go this technological route to embrace pollination but rather aims to protect the existing bees and to create a healthy environment for the new generation of bees.

Bees are the simplest and the most fascinating creatures to study. In history, they were not just part of pollination, but have also played a role in inspiration for music, art, religion and technology. The earliest depictions of beekeeping come from the tombs of ancient Egypt around 2400BC. Bees were kept in cylinders made from reeds and covered with mud. Such Hives are still being kept by some beekeepers today. The ancient Egyptian beekeepers were also migratory, putting many hives on rafts up and down the Nile river to where the best bee forage was located. Honey was found in the tombs of the pharaohs including King Tutankhamen. The honey recovered from these tombs is edible even today, proving that honey never spoils. The practice of beekeeping is ancient but even today Urban Beekeeping is not allowed. Few cities like New York, London, Paris, and Berlin have started this practice recently. In Barcelona, the idea of Urban Beekeeping is still banned.

Between 1954 and1960, on 30th December of every year, Barcelona used to celebrate “Fresta de la abeja� - an official day for bees. This lasted for only six years and exactly after a decade in 1970, Barcelona went from exporting honey to importing honey. There are many reasons why urban beekeeping stopped - some of them being human migration, climate change and usage of pesticides.

(Bee)iodiversity wants to bring back this notion of Urban Beekeeping in Barcelona, to improve the rate and intensity of pollination and in turn increase biodiversity.

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At the beginning of the self-sufficient buildings studio, I was reading the book The Empathic Civilisation by Jeremy Rifkin and these are some phrases which stayed with me even after finishing the book.

(Bee)iodiversity 01|1 Inspiration

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Graffiti(1) of a tree at the corner of Carrer de Cristobal de Moura and Carrer de la Selva de Mar 12

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When I first when to the site, this colorful tree graffiti grabbed my attention. Why would anyone paint a tree, instead of planting one? The message was clear when I saw the whole site and there were no much trees around the site.

This graffiti reminded me of the sentence from the book 'it took approximately 10 million years to recover the biodiversity lost'. Will our future be like this, painting trees and animals instead of seeing them?

These two questions, gave rise to the agenda of increasing biodiversity.

BioDiversity Diagram

(Bee)iodiversity 01|2 Inspiration

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These are couple of images when we went to visit the Elbulli Foundation in Roses. Th a list of native plants and animals species.

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he immediate first thing I did after the trip was to find out and make (Bee)iodiversity 01|3 Inspiration

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(Bee)iodiversity 02|1 Biodiversity List

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The list consisted of about 300 species, which include different animals, birds, amphibians, mammals, arthropods, reptiles, big trees, shrubs, small trees, climbers, grass, fungi etc.,

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As Emma Marris said in her TED talk titled 'Nature is Everywhere - We just need to see it', The only way we are going to raise up a generation of people who care about nature is by letting them touch nature and with so many different species we can imagine the human and nature connection becoming more stronger.

Taking one step forward we know pollination is the major cause for food production, it is also said that one on three meals that we have is because of bee pollination. Bees actually top the list of polination, pollinating more than 80% of the crops alone.

It was then important to see which pollinator pollinate's, which plant and to see the percentage of each species pollination.

(Bee)iodiversity 02|2 Biodiversity List

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The biodiversity list was then divided into which plant will be pollinated by which pollinator and which trees self pollinate.

The list of class animalia was divided based on which animal species will get affected first, second or third if there were no pollinators.

(Bee)iodiversity 02|3 Biodiversity List

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(Bee)iodiversity 02|3 Biodiversity List

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The next step after finding out which pollinator will pollinate which plantae species, it was to understand their moving patterns. This was studied in order to locate the specific plant species with their respective pollinator trajectories.

Also, the width, heigth, blooming month, the flower color and the favorable soil conditions of each plant species was found out to have more knowledge and to know where to position the plant species and in which season.

Picture credits - Lars Erik Elseth

Representing the pollinators with their trails and the species they pollinate on the model

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Collection of diverse plant specie

es for the model

(Bee)iodiversity 02|3 Biodiversity List

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Flies - Trail Pattern and Species Pollinated

Beetles - Trail Pattern an

Butteflies - Trail Pattern and Species Pollinated

Humming Birds - Trail Pa ed

nd Species Pollinated

attern and Species Pollinat-

Bees - Trail Pattern and Species Pollinated

(Bee)iodiversity 03 Pollinators Trajectories

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