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). 07
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. 14
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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Butterflies
The trail pattern on the previous page was very rigid which is not how the pollinatiors move, so the path of each pollinator was studied and tried to represent it on the site using processing. 28
Ants
For example, butterlies always move in a closed looped with their neighbouring butterflies. Ants move with a column raids with or without a singular swarm, with less or more number of ant columns respectively.
(Bee)iodiversity
03 Pollinators Trajectories
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Beetles
Bettles walking movement demonstrated that correlated-random-walks have similitude with levy walk. Humming birds move in a circular pattern around a flower or a tree. 30
Humming Birds
(Bee)iodiversity 03 Pollinators Trajectories
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Bees
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About Bees : Bees are the most important pollinators in the environment. The constant loss in bees is becoming a constant threat to all life forms. Albert Einstein once said "If the bees disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live"
The drawing on the left hand side represent the swarm behaviour of bees and how they move in a group. The group of bees consist of drone bees with leader bees, they move in search of food and water. When a leader bee founds a food source, he comes back to the hive and take the rest of the hive with him, representing the location with respect to the sun's location. The (Bee)iodiversity project tries to establish two beehighways, one vertical and one horizontal. With three de-centralized beehives on each spot. If we consider the bees moving to these three spots and POLLEN falling from their hind-legs while moving, we would get this bee-pollen drawing. (Bee)iodiversity 04|1 Bees
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Up and Close with Bees:
To have these trajectories, we needed a bee-home on the site. Before designing the hive, it was important to visit one. Thanks to Alex Munoz for taking me to visit his hive above the Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona. Unfortunately there was no honey, bees where still building the wax but I got stung twice by a bee which was unexpected. For the design of the hive after talking with Alex, I undestood that the two most important thing for bees are constant temparature and sun.
Alex Munoz - Beekeeper 34
Window to check on the bees
Bees all the way
(Bee)iodiversity 04|2 Bees
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Design : To design the hive, it was important to understand why are bees declining and in what kind of environment bees love to stay. Some of the paramaters which bees love and hate are :
The basic form of the hive was deď€ rived from hexagon, as we know hexagon as a shape is the most modular shape and even the bees love hexagon shape
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Modifications to the original hexagoď€ nal planes
1. Height of the hive The preferred height of a beehive is above 5m, this is because bees move above 5m from the ground. So, the primary consideration of the hive was to have a tall structure and that's why the structure is 13m high, making easy access for bees to come and go and not get disturbed from neighbouring activities.
Intertwining them to each other, to get a tree trunk shape
The tree trunk shaped hive, would merge into the nature site and will be made up of wood
(Bee)iodiversity 05|1 Design
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2. Sun Bees love sun. They move with respect to sun, pass on the direction from one bee to another bee using sun as the center of movement. The preferred temperature of a bee hive is between 32-35 degree celsius, maintaining this constant temperature will also defend the hive from varroa parasite, the major cause of colony decline.
Panels opening and closing de
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The primary consideration was Sun. The form of the hive has circular panels which open and close depending upon the sunlight hours and sun location. The panels which face the sun during summer will be closed and the panels which face the sun in winters will be open. This strategy removes the consideration of orientation, as the hive could be oriented in any direction, but since the panel will open when the sun rises, the bees willl automatically know suns location.
epending upon the sun position (Bee)iodiversity 05|2 Design
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3. Material of the structure Bees like wood and thats why we see the usual bee hives being built with timber. The structure here is of timber form pine tree which is not treated with any solvent.
Inner core of the hive during summer season (21st June), where the number of bees are more
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4. Winters Winters are the hardest months for the bees to survive, as the temperature decreases the bees need to move their wings constantly with more speed to maintain the required temperature. To avoid this the designed hive, will reduce the size of the hive depending upon the number of bees in the hive using proximity sensors.
Inner core of the hive during winter season (21st November), where the number of bees are less
(Bee)iodiversity 05|3 Design
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5. Bees and Barcelona Bees and Barcelona have a long history : - During1954 and1960, 30th December was official day for the celebration of bees and their products.
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1 Site
Map of Barcelona with past and present BeeHives
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- In the beginning of 1970's Barcelona went from exporting to importing honey. This has continued ever since then. - As of present Urban Bee keeping is banned in Barcelona, which has slowly started in different parts of the world like Paris, Berlin, London and New York.
Nineteenth Century 1 2 3 4 5
Today
Clot de la Mel (Honey Hollow) 6 Montjuic Statue near Font del Vell 7 Parc de la Ciutadella Llotja, Pla de Palau Monument to Frederic Soler, Pitarra Former headquartes Banc de Barcelona, La Rambla
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Site
Connection between beehive locations and the site
(Bee)iodiversity just doesn't want to design a beehive but wants to re-introduce the idea of Urban Beekeeping in Barcelona. For which it wants to have a connection between the past and present hives in Barcelona. It wants a create a window from the designed beehive to the others, for the people of Barcelona to reflect upon what they have lost and to save what is existing.
(Bee)iodiversity 05|4 Design
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Final design of the Hive 44
6. What bees like Apart from Sun bees like shrubs like thyme, rosemary and sage. These shrubs will be grown on the exterior vertical wall of the hive. It will be inbetween the moving panels. This will also make the structure merge with the farming, that is already happening in the site.
Interior of the hive The 7 beehive locations of Barcelona become 7 viewing galleries in the hive. The first 5 galleries have a mesh outside with dead bees attached to it, to rethink of what we have lost as a human race. The interior of the hive shows the two contrast, the central core being the living hive and the outer core being the dead bee mesh.
(Bee)iodiversity 05|5 Design
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Image of the 3D printed model
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Image of the 3D printed model (Bee)iodiversity 05|6 Design
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5. Bees and Decentralization Instead of designing only one bee hive, the site will have 3 beehives at 3 corners of the site. This is in order that even if one beehive fails, the other two can function and help in pollination. The 3 beehives will be made up of 3 different materials pine tree timber, bamboo and transparent plexi glass.
c
a - pine wood timber b - transparent plexiglass c - bamboo
Bee M
ovem
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ents F
rom T
he Th
ree H
ive Ar
ound
The S
ite
a
b
(Bee)iodiversity 05|7 Design
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Conclusion It is a proven fact that bees are disappearing and declining and that number is increasing day by day. (Bee)iodiversity wants to increase bees, pollination and biodiversity by creating a comfortable and optimum environment for the bees. The idea is also to understand the importance of pollen which is the beginning of all life forms on Earth. The agenda is to promote urban beekeeping by educating people and creating awareness - by being in contact with bees, learning their habitats and trying to understand the various causes of their decline. The schemata is to study what kind of plant species are prefered by bees and then plant them, in and around people’s homes or on terraces, which in the long run reduce the economic burden caused by hand pollinated seeds. This first step to urban beekeeping might also inspire people to have smaller beehives in their homes, a trend that is slowly becoming more and more common in different parts of the world. The abundance of bees is a crucial indicator for the health of the wider environment as a whole. The more bees we see, the healthier the environment will be. Bees help sustain farmers. It will promote urban farming, and if urban beekeeping happens in every city, we will all have pictures like we see on the left hand side. It will be the time to fall in love with nature, celebrate the blooming of a flower, nurture nature and embrace nature. Hopefully, we will no longer see tree graffiti that instills sadness, and instead see more variety of real live trees. Biodiversity Bee, the youtube channel has already said that ‘Biodiversity begins with a B‘. It is time that we act on this slogan and make it happen in reality. ‘INCREASE BEES to INCREASE BIODIVERSITY‘.
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In love with nature at shenandoah national park Picture credits - Nikoleta Mougkasi
Celebrating nature
Picture credits - Nikoleta Mougkasi
(Bee)iodiversity 06 Conclusion
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Exhibit at the BeeHave exhibition at Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona
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References
Learning About Biodiversity : Extinction - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/25/ half-all-species-extinct-end-century-vatican-conference How to foster Biodiversity - https://e360.yale.edu/features/urban_nature_ how_to_foster_biodiversity_in_worlds_cities Biodiversity - https://www.thenbs.com/knowledge/biodiversity-the-new-challenge-for-architecture Emma Marris Nature is Everywhere - https://www.ted.com/talks/emma_marris_nature_is_everywhere_we_just_need_to_learn_to_see_it#t-883463 How many species are we losing? - http://wwf.panda.org/our_work/biodiversity/biodiversity/ List of diverse Species : Travellers Nature Guide Spain - http://www.iberianwildlife.com/wildlife-books/travellers-nature-guides-spain/plants-fungi.htm Street Tree Managemnt Barcelona - https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/ metadata/case-studies/barcelona-trees-tempering-the-mediterranean-city-climate/11302624.pdf Birds of Barcelona - https://iberianature.com/barcelona/geography-of-barcelona/birds-of-barcelona/ Animals and Plants in Spain - https://sciencing.com/animals-plantsspain-6388271.html Barcelona Wildlife - https://www.shbarcelona.com/blog/en/wildlife-of-catalonia/ Mammals of Spain - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mammals_of_Spain Pollinators : Learn About Pollinators - https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/ learn-about-pollinators/ Ten Collest Pollinators - https://www.earthrangers.com/wildwire/top-10/ top-ten-coolest-pollinators/ Pollinators favourable color - https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/ What_is_Pollination/syndromes.shtml#traits Sound - https://retired.sounddogs.com/extendedsearch.asp?keyword=humming+bird&ddCategory=-1 Nest Sites for Pollinators - http://xerces.org/providing-nest-sites-for-pollinators/ Fly Pollination - https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/animals/flies. shtml Underatanding Pollinators Trajectories : General - http://www.pc.rhul.ac.uk/staff/J.Zanker/old_web_stuff/teach_previous/PS3060/L2/Ps3060_2.htm Beetles - https://www.nature.com/articles/srep03158/figures/1 Beetles - https://www.nature.com/articles/srep03158 Butterflies - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1599857/ Honey Bee - https://www.nature.com/articles/srep32612 Ants - https://armyantsbiol2205.weebly.com/army-ant-foraging-behaviours. (Bee)iodiversity html-
07 References
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Representing Trajectories using Processing : Following Objects - https://forum.processing.org/one/topic/how-do-i-getobjects-to-follow-a-separate-moving-object.html Flocking Behaviour - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoKfQrlQ7rA&list=PLRqwX-V7Uu6YHt0dtyf4uiw8tKOxQLvlW&index=8 Coding Train - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvjgXvBlbQiydffZU7m1_ aw Pollen and Pollination: Pollination as Inspiration - https://thefinchandpea.com/2014/09/17/ the-art-of-science-pollination-as-inspiration/ Conversation with Wolfgang Laib - https://www.sculpture.org/documents/ scmag01/may01/laib/laib.shtml Pollination and Bees : Pollination by hand - http://www.dw.com/en/pollinating-by-hand-doing-beeswork/a-17822242 Bees and Biodiversity - http://www.beeodiversity.com/en/issue/issue-pollination-biodiversity-and-our-well-being What will happen if bees die tomorrow - https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/ d7ezaq/what-would-happen-if-all-the-bees-died-tomorrow Why honeybees dying is a problem - https://www.techly.com.au/2015/06/24/ honeybees-dying-big-problem-farmers/
Studying about Bees : Take care of Bees - http://www.beeculture.com/take-care-bees/ Sun or Shade for bees - https://honeybeesuite.com/sun-or-shade-which-isbest-for-the-bees/ Beginning Beekeeping - http://www.beginningbeekeeping.com/ManagingBeehives.html Making a bee hotel - http://www.foxleas.com/make-a-bee-hotel.asp Climate inside hive - http://eixams.cc/ Beehive Case Studies: Hive Talking - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/09/tomas-libertiny-bee-living-sculpture Vulkan Beehive - https://snohetta.com/project/186-vulkan-beehive Skyscraper for bees - https://www.dezeen.com/2013/05/06/skyscraper-for-bees-by-university-at-buffalo-students/ Transparent beehive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMYKVo5D2Uk
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Beekeeper for an hour
Photo Credits: Alex Munoz (Beekeeper)
(Bee)iodiversity 07 References
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