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Nuova Giudecca Creating a Multi-species Community between Honey Bees and Humans within Venice

Matthew Smith

Nuova Giudecca Creating a Multi-species Community between Honey Bees and Humans within Venice ARC8060 Design Thesis Matthew Smith 130207573 Newcastle University 2019/20

Contents

Exploration of Oikos

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Thesis Research

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Experiments and Development from Research - Island - Building - Interfaces

43 45 61 113

“Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence.�

Hannah Arandt

Exploration of Oikos

This section explores the idea and concept of Oikos to design a piece of furniture that respresents the sense of Oikos we want to explore.

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The following pages explore the idea of ‘man’s condition’ through the exploration of using a painting of the garden of eden combined with mechanical images to show how human’s have enslaved animals and only use them in a way that benefits themselves. Later images explore the idea of nature being more in control and being more dominant than man.

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Bee Bath

After exploring themes through Hannah Arendt’s concept of everything man comes into contact with becomes a condition of their existance, as well as, George Monbiot’s concept of ‘rewilding’, whereby reintriducing key stone species to an area can change the ecosystem and add to it, I designed this bee bath which benefits both Honey Bees and Humans.

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The idea of the bee bath is to allow the bees to have access to the outside so that the plant species can thrive and the bees can have access to the water from the bath to help them regulate the heat of the hive, which is underneith the bath. The bath for humans allows them to hear the movement of he bees through the vibrations in the water, which will help calm them.

Thesis Research

This section of the Thesis Document shows, through reasearch, the possible avenues to explore when going forward into a design synthesis. The information presented was found through the reading of established literature and scientific papers, which led to the illustrations and conceptual ideas presented which were then taken forwards into the experimental development of the design.

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Outline Document

“Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence.”1

This quote by, Hannah Arendt is precisely the issue with humanity today. We adjust everything around us to suit our own needs for survival, without realising that we would benefit more from a healthy and balanced ecosystem. As, Arendt tells us, everything humans touch becomes a condition of our own being whether it is a plant species, animal species or the elements. There needs to be a fight against this eco-systematic turmoil created by humans. Although a proposal for a project, designed and built by humans ready for animal domination still involves man’s participation perhaps there is a way in which human interaction could be reduced so there is an even experience experienced for each species, to create a symbiotic and harmonious environment. Perhaps what we are looking at is creating an anti-garden of eden, where instead of a garden becoming ready for man, a garden is made ready for animals and humans to work together in harmony.

Where to begin? We must engage in activity to enable restoration and better health of an ecosystem, which can enhance others in a wider context. Although what we need is something we can introduce to an environment, which can change an entire ecosystem. A possibility would be to introduce a keystone species. George Monbiot tells us; “The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone shows that a single species, allowed to pursue its natural behaviour, transforms almost every aspect of the ecosystem, and even alters the physical geography of the site, changing the shape and flow of the rivers and the erosion rates of the land.”2 However, introducing wolves into, Venice seems a bit farfetched.

Therefore, perhaps a more logical species to introduce would be Honey bees. Honey bees completely change the ecosystem due to the pollination of flowers, which helps feed other creatures like birds, creatures considered vermin and so on, which will have a further knock on effect of the ecosystem. Although we cannot predict nature, we can help it

by leaving it alone. What I’m talking about is George Monbiot’s idea of ‘Rewilding’.

Rewilding, is introducing a species or to an area and just allowing them to live and begin the domino effect within that eco system.

From this we can take inspiration from, Donna Haraway and her description of the Chthulucene. To live and die in the Chthulucene, Haraway tells us “… is to join forces to reconstitute refuges, to make possible partial and robust biological – cultural – political – technological recuperation and recomposition, which must include mourning irreversible losses.”3 Therefore making kin with honey bees within our environment and ecology is the most important part of the entire process of creating that symbiotic relationship we should be hoping to strive for.

How can humans have a symbiotic relationship with honey bees so that they can benefit one another? Perhaps something that could be considered is health. Every honey bee in the world is infected with different degenerative viruses, which can be helped with a solution of specific mushrooms in sugar water, which have an antibiotic effect on these viruses. Then in regards to humans, there are healing properties honey can have to aid us in our health. If there was a way to stop the decreasing population of bees, or even increase their life spans then this would be an act humans can use to give back to nature, by providing the most important species in the world, honey bees, with the tools to help save the rest of the animal kingdom from starving.

Although another bigger question is; why Venice? Venice is a utopia for people but an inhospitable wasteland for bees and this is exactly the reason why. If bees can live here then they can live anywhere in the world!

This will be further explained within the next section of the document.

Philosophy “The Chthulucene needs at least one slogan .. I propose “Make Kin Not Babies!” Making kin is perhaps the hardest and most urgent part.”4

Perhaps looking at the epoch’s and their controversy can shed some light onto the drive behind wanting to make animal species equal again. The above quote by, Donna Haraway tells us a slogan for the Cthulucene, which is what I propose we should be striving for, to make kin with our animal brethren to create a symbiotic multi-species healthy ecosystem.

In contrast to this there is the controversial Anthropocene epoch. The

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controversy mainly lies around whether or not there has been long enough between the last epoch and our own. It reiterates, Arendt’s human condition as; “The idea of the Anthropocene inflates our own importance by promising eternal geological life to our creations. It is of a thread with our species’ peculiar, self-styled exceptionalism—from the animal kingdom, from nature, from the systems that govern it, and from time itself.

This illusion may, in the long run, get us all killed. We haven’t earned an Anthropocene epoch yet. If someday in the distant future we have, it will be an astounding testament to a species that.”5 That is if we haven’t destroyed the planet and it’s global eco-system by then.

To avoid global collapse we need to think about how it is currently collapsing now and it has a simple answer. “The glaciers melt from the bottom. The insects and bees and little fish and mammals are dying off first. The oceans are warming faster than the atmosphere. Economies are imploding because a new class of poor has grown — whether in America, Britain, or Europe.”6 The collapse is happening from the bottom-up.

The reason this is happening is because “… we are undernourishing and impoverishing the weakest things around us.”7 Therefore surely it’s our moral duty as a species that has caused so much destruction to rectify what we’ve done.

The ultimate goal should be to enable every species, economy, atmospheres etc in the world should be able to work together. “Maybe, but only maybe, and only with intense commitment and collaborative work and play with other terrains, flourishing for rich multispecies assemblages that include people will be possible.”8 These multispecies ecosystems will be the focus of the project I am proposing. From rewilding the ecosystems that will come out of it will not be the same that prevailed in the past because we will not be able to predict the way that it evolves9, which is why rewilding is so important because while conservation looks to the past, rewilding looks towards the future10. That is exactly what I want this project to do, look towards the future for a healthier and stronger ecosystem.

1. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. The University Of Chicago Press, 1991., p9 2. Monbiot, George. Feral. Penguin Books, 2013., p85 3. Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin”. Environmental Humanities, vol 6, no.

1, 2015, pp. 159-165. Duke University Press, doi:10.1215/22011919-3615934. Accessed 15 Dec 2019., P160 4. Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin”. Environmental Humanities, vol 6, no.

1, 2015, pp. 159-165. Duke University Press, doi:10.1215/22011919-3615934. Accessed 15 Dec 2019., P161 5. Brannen, Peter. “The Anthropocene Is A Joke”. The Atlantic, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/arrogance-anthropocene/595795/. Accessed 3 Oct 2019.

6. Haque, Umair. The Age Of Collapse: Why Everything’s Collapsing, And What To Do About It. 2019, https://eand.co/the-age-of-collapsee606bfc1b46d. Accessed 2 Oct 2019.

7. ibid 8. Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin”. Environmental Humanities, vol 6, no.

1, 2015, pp. 159-165. Duke University Press, doi:10.1215/22011919-3615934. Accessed 15 Dec 2019., p160 9. Monbiot, George. Feral. Penguin Books, 2013. p10 10. ibid, p10

Image on right hand page concept image showing man’s ignorance of the declining bee population, with the activity of bees as if studied by man signifying our desire for understand something but not giving a solution when needed.

Architectural Agendas

The Ecology of the Architecture

The architectural agendas for the project is to reinforce everything that has already been mentioned. It is to support a sustainable and healthy ecosystem. Although the actual architectural intervention may not be a building per se, it could be a series of interfaces, a small building, or a garden to achieve the desired effect of a multispecies community.

There are different ways in which this could be achieved, however if we look at precedents by Le Corbusier and his view on the way cities can be formed. “One important difference about things as they are is that the skyscrapers will not simply be blocks of offices (as in American cities), but genuine concentrations of dwellings. For all his life he spoke tirelessly of the ecological and economic advantages over the endless multiplication of suburban on-family houses with their tiny gardens. … We now often refer to these blocks of flats as ‘anthills’ or ‘beehives’ …”11. By thinking about this in relation to beehives, each cell can be referred to as a unit that fits to another and another and so on, this suggests a building or scheme could be used as separate elements with each part contributing to a different part of the community. This links with Italy as “… the Modular and the universal man provides a link with humanist architecture rooted in Italy.”12 Later in the Building Program, Le Corbusier’s venice hospital will be discussed in more detail but he describes the interaction of patients, society and Venice;

“The significance attributed to the direct encounter between the patients and the city suggests an egalitarian attitude, in accordance with the historic perception of Venice as an ideal society. Finally, by linking the Unité de soins with the campielli and calli, Le Corbusier guaranteed an unequivocal link between the Hospital and the floating city.”13

This ‘floating city’ could also be something to take forwards as Venice floods regularly the building/ garden should not be designated on the ground floor but elevated above the ground to ensure the ecosystem isn’t instantly wiped out in a few hours due to high tide. This will also be discussed later within Building Program.

The project constitutes an ecological architecture by considering all aspects of what each species needs. So everything in beedom and humandom will be considered for what they want to achieve. The challenge of the ecological architecture is to bring each species to the same level, therefore it is important to revert man back to his more natural roots within it. When thinking about a house or home it is important to think about the environment for a human as humans must come to realise “… that the cosmos molds mankind, that it can transform a man of the hills into a man of islands and rivers, and that the house remodels man.”14 Therefore the environment of man molds humans as much as, the humans mold the environment, which is with have such an ecological architecture that considers the health of both species involved.

Relating this to the ecological architecture of bees; “From the conceptual point of view it is important to note that any radical change in the design of the beehive implies a noticeable increase in the benefits for the beekeeper. The idea that architectural design substantially modifies efficiency (alters behaviour) is being put into practice for bees a century before the same idea is applied to the dwellings of ‘ordinary’ human beings.”15 So by considering what each species needs they will effect each others health and ecosystem, which is why using the architecture to achieve harmony amongst the species is so important.

The important link between the two species in ‘health’ due to the situation of the decreasing population of bees and climate change, which we have caused, we are not only causing harm to the environment but to our own ecology. Therefore a link to this could be water, as it is what keeps all species alive.

However, how should we think about ‘health’ so each species benefits? There are many different ways of looking at health; “Given that we can’t really agree what, exactly, health is (a functional capacity, a state of psychosexual balance, a plentitude of being?).”16 So how will this health be defined? Whatever the paradigm of health there is always the same process of; Symptoms, Tests, Diagnosis, Treatment, Recuperation. Therefore it would make sense to focus on these elements and how each phase could be used to benefit and treat both the health of bees and humans.

To allow this ecosystem to be the healthiest man must not interfere it with too much, so it is not allowed to flourish naturally. From rewilding and humans living with that; “The ecosystems that result are

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best described not as wilderness, but as selfwilled: governed not by human management but by their own processes. Rewilding has no end points, no view about what a ‘right’ ecosystem or a ‘right’ assemblage of species looks like. It does not strive to produce a heath, a meadow, a rainforest, a kelp garden or a coral reef. It lets nature decide.”17 With nature in control it will only do what is best for itself.

Therefore in conclusion I need to make sure that the processes involved in each stage need to be precise as the “… the metabolic processes cerate dynamic conditions that change both organism and environment means that nothing in ecosystems remains the same.”18 Therefore if something is not designed properly this could manifest into something extremely negative.

11. Ramirez, Juan Antonio. The Beehive Metaphor. Reaktion Books, 2000., p131 12. Monbiot, George. Feral. Penguin Books, 2013., p10 13. ibid, p10 14. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics Of Space.

Penguin, 2014., p68 15. Ramirez, Juan Antonio. The Beehive Metaphor. Reaktion Books, 2000. p28 16. Dutoit, Allison et al. Quality Out Of Control.

Routledge, 2010., p161 17. Monbiot, George. Feral. Penguin Books, 2013., p10 18. Morton, Timothy. Ecology Without Nature.

Harvard University Press, 2009., p84 19. Aristotle., and Trevor J Saunders. Politics.

Clarendon, 1995., p12

Oikos

The oikos of the project, taking example from the family, the family’s property and the house, I will be focusing on the multispecies community, the interfaces they share and the ecosystem they live in.

The architecture articulates a way of living through the oikos by a series of interfaces that are to be designed, based on the methods used in each health paradigm.

These interfaces will deal with a type of exchange or trade of what each species can offer the other. These interfaces could be described as a possession as it belongs to and benefits the community. Aristotle describes the use of possessions as; “Every possession has a double use; both are uses of it in itself, but they are not similar uses of it itself; for one is proper to the thing, the other is not; for example, the wearing of a sandal, and its use in changing-round.”19 This can be symbolic of the different uses humans and honey bees will with the interfaces or building for. One will take what they need and leave another and vice versa.

Top image on right hand page - Concpetual image showing humans mmoving forwards and absorbing importance and power from other species and ignore the species decreasing population and involvement within the ecosystem.

Bottom image on right hand page - Concpetual image showing humans working with other species and interacting and creating ‘interfaces’ and ‘moments’ where humans and other species live in harmony.

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Site

The site is situated within, Venice for a plethora of different reasons. The effects of Venice resonate around our seen and unseen world. Within Calvino’s Invisible Cities the unseen elements can be expressed and related back to us to help envision what’s through the portals within Venice. ‘Invisible Cities’ describes Venice as a utopian fantasy, envisioned as a Roman forum; islands, campi, streets and works of art too had created popular ‘fantasies’ and variations on the Venice that exists20. Therefore it allows any person to read in between the lines of these islands to create their own fantasies, such as Le Corbusier and his Venice Hospital he designed but was never built. Even with the

stories of the book, the character ‘The Khan’ “… grasps Venice immediately as the ideal city…”21.

These islands which create the structure of Venice, lend themselves to the significant analogies of spatial networks and conceptual structures in the fiction22. There are many combinable elements which link between Calvino’s work and Venice itself such as; squares, churches, bell towers, wellheads, bridges and loading steps23.

However not only do these links relate to one another but also with the navigation of bees. Using the site of Venice as a physical entity and Calvino’s work as a metaphorical fantasy, links can easy bee made to the ways in

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which bees create cognitive maps throughout their time foraging for flowers, returning to the hive, other food sources etc. This is done through a series of ‘landmarks’ within the area, which can be related to the elements that make up Venice and the structure of the stories within the ‘Invisible Cities’.

Through the literature, Venice can also linked to growth, through the imaged city by artists, writers, cartographers and the Venetians themselves24. Again relating to bees with their physical growth of colonies depending on seasons, over population of a colony, a new queen has been born therefore it will take workers and split the hive, taking them to another site. There is also the environmental

20. Psarra, Sophia. Venice Variations: Tracing The Architectural Imagination. UCL Press, 2018., p139 21. ibid, p145 22. ibids, p170 23. ibid, p170 24. ibid, p175 25. Prest, John M. The Garden Of Eden. Yale University Press, 1988., p42

growth bees offer, changing and expressing the health of entire eco-systems.

As will be explored further within the ‘Buliding Program’ portion of the document, the site presents the potential for a flourishing Botanical Garden. This is appropriate, as it links to Venice’s history of having “… the first modern Botanic Garden was that founded at Padua … the university city of Venice with its interest in the geographical discoveries, in 1545.”25 Therefore the appropriateness of re-introducing Botanical Gardens within the utopia of Venice seems potentially justifiable.

As Honey Bees are pollinators, having a Botanical Garden will provide them with a wide range of diverse flowers from all over the world

to create more than the amount of honey they need to sustain them. From this the gardens could allow them to produce various amounts of honey from a variety of different flowers such as, Manuka Honey, which would create the bees side of the symbiotic role proposed, of a health ecology and oikos. Human’s role in this symbiotic relationship will be explained later in the document.

Elements can be taken from Baroque gardens, however due to the intention of showing mans ‘mastery’ over nature, Baroque gardens are supposed to have, they pose a threat to the manifesto of this project, due to this meaning controlling nature and not allowing it to flourish. Therefore perhaps a

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more anti-baroque garden could be proposed allowing nature to take it cause while still including several elements.

The involvement of Batonic and Baroque Gardens will be developed further within the section ‘Building Program’ on how these elements could be included.

Murano

Before venturing to Venice on a site visit I conducted research beforehand to see some potential sites that I would want to look at. The first of which was in Murano, an island towards the north of Venice. The initial reason for exploring Murano as a potential site was due to an artist called, Judi Harvest who had created a small garden out of the back of the glass factory on Murano, which she then artificially introduced honey bees.

The garden she built was much too small for all of the bees to survive, however the some honey bees still survive there to this day.

Something which will have sustained the honey bees somewhat would be the allotments towards the north of the island, however most of these plants were not flowering vegetables although there were some potatoes who’s flowers will have been of some use to bees.

There is indeed a large plot of land at the very top of the island which could have been used a potential site however the bees would not have been able to venture much further far as the only useful flowers would have been part of the garden created on the island and not from green areas already situated on Murano, therefore there is a risk of the bees not creating enough honey or collecting enough pollen to sustain them.

Image on left hand page - exploration into a site onto the Murano.

Images on right - Images showing the green spaces on Murano.

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Giudecca

When looking at different islands within Venice I ventured south towards Giudecca.

Instantly on arrival there was a noticeable difference in the amount of green space scattered throughout the island. The green spaces being used for, football pitches, agriculture, allotments, parks, gardens to residential areas and flowers perched on people’s windows. Once of these larger areas was even called, Giadino Garden (Garden of Eden) and although I was unable to access the inside of the garden, form the exterior it appeared to be one which was vastly overgrown and left to “rewild” on it’s own.

With the use of larger and smaller agricultural green spaces throughout the island it would supply bees with enough pollen and honey, whilst allowing the people of the island to grow a wider variety of plants, such as more varieties of fruit and vegetables which would allow them to either sell, consume themselves without having to buy food from elsewhere, have a more balanced diet; changing the local economy of the island, while enabling the bees to also thrive.

In regards to the people of the island, there seems to be this want for something more in terms of vegetation, as there were many potted flowers outside of windows of residential buildings. This seems to indicate an enjoyment and longing for nature in a place mainly surrounded by water.

By introducing the bees there could be a way in which this could benefit the community by enhancing this apparent want and thinking of a way the people of the island can work together with the bees to create a symbiotic relationship between them.

The actual site I have chosen to pick is the, Sacca San Biagio, which is basically a man made island of rubbish made by the people of Venice. The reason I have chosen this as my main site is due to the fact it can be an example of new life. A new life for a new, healthier, more balanced ecosystem. Planting a variety of different plants, which will take the toxins from the earth and completely cleanse it, can rejuvenate the earth. From this a garden can be formed, introducing the bees and creating a new Anti Garden of Eden. (Or Garden of BEEden if you will).

Image on left hand page - indicating the location of the final site on the Giudecca.

Images on right - Images showing the green spaces on Giudecca.

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Image showing all green spaces on the Giudecca indicating that the Giudecca has the largest amount of green spaces within Venice and therefore shows that it is the right part of Venice for the project.

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Images showing more areas on the Giudecca where there are green spaces. Including residential areas, ‘the garden of eden and, parks.

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Building Program

“IN ORLANDA, IF you go out with a magnifying glass and hunt carefully, you may find somewhere a point no bigger than the head of a pin which, if you look at it slightly enlarged, reveals within itself the roofs, the antennas, the skylights, the gardens, the pools, the streamers across the streets, the kiosks in the squares, the horse-racing tracks.

That point does not does not remain there: a year later you will find it the size of half a lemon, then as large as a mushroom, then a soup plate.

And then it becomes a full-size city, enclosed within the earlier city: a new city that forces its way ahead in the earlier city and presses it toward the outside.”26

The story of Orlanda, from, ‘Invisibile Cities’, can be one taken to represent the possible lives of bees and the programming of the city/ hive. The different areas designated for different events, such as the division between the honey and brood within a hive and the gardens, pools etc in the city of Orlanda.

When considering the building program there are various species, interfaces and paradigms that must be considered for the project to be a success. Looking at previous attempts and examples of how health paradigms have been applied within Venice would be a good use of precedents. This is something Le Corbusier proposed when designing the Venice Hospital, therefore the design, process and program will be analysed to try and find a correlation between the design and nature.

Another aspect, which needs to be focused on is the relationship between the honey bees and human’s in the multispecies relationships, how this affects the program and the benefits it can provide. By looking at this it will be easier to move forwards to ensure the garden and related building and interfaces will be appropriately planned out to benefit both species.

Le Corbusier and Architecture for Health in Venice, informing approach to building program

When discussing Le Corbusier’s

work in Venice, first we need to see how it relates to the context. As, Calvino’s work is essentially written about Venice, although conceptual, ‘Invisible Cities’ can help with this as the title itself implies our ability as humans to ‘see’ what is invisible27, which is one of Le Corbusier’s great abilities of seeing things others do not. The nature found within the design of the Venice Hospital can be seen immediately due to it’s open ended logic based on cell aggregation, which differs greatly from Le Corbusier’s other work designed as simple volumes28. The building was designed to be embedded within Venice’s age-old fabric with a combination of modernity due to the inclusion of courtyards, classical proportions and the modular29.

Le Corbusier greatly considered the context in which the Venice Hospital would be built, although it differs from his previous work “… the Hospital was inspired by the calli (streets) and campielli (squares) of Venice. In the design of the project, these elements were translated into a series of pinwheel squares with radially arranged corridors, and were assembled into a matrix. … The purpose was to create an easily accessible system that could expand horizontally according to future changes in medical care and technological innovations. Systematically engaging constraints imposed by different kinds of demands, Le Corbusier articulated a response to one of the most complicated programmes and sensitive contexts of our time.”30 Therefore within the design, not only does Le Corbusier consider the current state of the site in Venice but in the brief he considers and acknowledges the changes that could take place in the future, as ‘medicine’ changes or perhaps changes it’s definition.

When looking at the program of the building it can definitely be compared, Calvino’s work due to the way in which the stories use symmetry; “There are four types of symmetry in the tessellation: reflection, translation, glide-reflection and rotation … This means that bilateral symmetry articulates hierarchical relationships …”31 in which these symmetries bring about various modalities; “… first, the four local-scale symmetries and their permutations, conveying the ideas of organic growth, transformation, evolution and adaptation; second, the idea of a combinatorial syntax between the physical city erect on the ground and the city in the mind as representation through language, signification, discourse, perception, nature, knowledge of the past, projections into the future, memory and desire; or a mathematics of combinations between signifier and

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signified.”32 Considering this, some of these elements can be found within the design of the Venice Hospital as, when considering the first modality, the entire third floor was to provide the same conditions of city life with the entrance into the Calle, Campiello and the hanging gardens, which Le Corbusier Claimed was to accommodate the flexibility to accommodate growth33. The second of the modalities could refer to the autonomously functioned ‘care unit’ within the hospital, which yields a horizontal framework through the progressive juxtaposition of building units. This programmatic organization is a combination of all elements; uses context of Venice, chance for growth and relates to the literature.

The aesthetics of the building have been discussed by critics and is considered an example of a ‘Mat-building’, which is “a building without walls, overcoming the boundary between itself and the city.”34 The benefit of this is that these walls could be considered a series of interfaces that does not distrupt the city flow but creates a different area for people based on existing values.

This is something that can be taken forwards as at the time the Ventian authorities “… enthused over the horizontal arrangement of the volumes that left the silhouette of the city unchanged and generated the possibility for an extendable hospital.”35 Le Corbusier designed the building similar to that of Villa Savoei and the Tokyo Museum, where people enter the building from underneath36.

As well as the horizontal factor taken into account the hospital was layered vertically with different uses on each floor with the patients’ area on the top floor, where the floors consisted of squares and pathways, arranged in a pinwheel pattern around a central space37.

Conceptually the building was designed around the needs of humanity, where the campiello and the calle serve to create relationships between the patient and the city38. This can be seen in the design through the use of “… the Modular and the universal man provides a link with humanist architecture rooted in Italy. … Finally, by linking the Unité de soins with the campielli and calli, Le Corbusier guaranteed an unequivocal link between the Hospital and the floating city.”39 The conceptual idea of a floating city also links to nature as when honey bees nest naturally, they

26. Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. Vintage, 2009., p117 27. Psarra, Sophia. Venice Variations: Tracing The Architectural Imagination. UCL Press, 2018., p140 28. ibid, p175 29. ibid, p175 30. ibid, p177 31. ibid, p152 32. ibid, p154 33. ibid, p181-182 34. ibid, p180 35. ibid, p180 36. ibid, p178 37. ibid, p178 38. ibid, p184 39. ibid, p185-185

Le Corbusier. Venice Hospital. Diagrams of morphogenesis and geometrical analysis of the building.

Psarra, Sophia. Venice Variations: Tracing The Architectural Imagination.

UCL Press, 2018. P185

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will chose to nest in a tree high up into the air, representing a link between the bees in nature and the patients within the hospital.

When looking at some of Le Corbusier’s other work we can see clear links between his own design and nature. I am talking about when he designed his apartment blocks or ‘Lotissements fermés à l’Alvéoles’; “He made clear reference to the cells of the bees’ honeycomb and proof of this can be seen in the fact that, in his Oeuvre complete, the English translation of the phrase ‘le volume alvéolaire’ is ‘the honey-comb volume’. The overall effect is that such blocks closely resemble the open cells on a honeycomb, even though they are of horizontal, prismatic shape instead of hexagonal …”40. These cells link in a way in which Le Corbusier designed the technology so they are like an ‘air-intake valve’ and makes the block ‘breath’41. This seems to be a way to make the building ‘natural’. Another technology developed by Le Corbusier is basically what we call ‘double skin facades’ today, but he called ‘neutralizing walls’. “Indeed, in order to prevent bee colonies dying of cold in the winter beehives were made with double walls and vents …”42 therefore natural way in which bees insulate their hives seems to have been a precedent for Le Corbusier in hi design. These ‘neutralising walls consisted of stone or glass to make a double membrane with a few centimeters between each element, which in theory was the allow air to flow and keep the space as a constant temperature43.

What can be used to take forwards in regards to the building program?

- The interfaces on the site can be used to create the Mat-Building and a way to link the bees and humans together in a multispecies community.

- Paths and squares being used for bees n similar way is was used for humans within the hospital. This connects bees to the culture and architectural history of venice.

- Due to the floods in Venice the garden cannot be on the ground floor as it will everyually be underwater when there is high tide, therefore using the vertical mthod of Le Corbusier, different levels can fit into different function.

Horizontally this can be used to separate the different health paradigms to create a full configuration of elements in each direction and form a Floating city.

40. Ramirez, Juan Antonio. The Beehive Metaphor. Reaktion Books, 2000., p140 41. ibid, p141 42. ibid, p145 43. ibid, p146

The concept of a Mat-Building poses an interesting point as a garden does not usually have walls around (unless we are talking about 17th century garden) but does have divisions inbetween, like paths, squares etc. Designing a space for both bees and humans in this way will link them and integrate them both to the surroundings of Venice.

With considering how everything fits together in the program we can think of the different modules, Le Corbusier used to design the Modules in the hospital in a way connecting the same thing to the way in which hive cells ,in a bee hive, fit together.

- Using context to inform elements within garden and building to use examples of venice and adapt to benefit bees and humans.

- Layout of garden to inform a way it can grow.

Image on this page - Grid created from tracing over Le Corbusier’s plan of his Venice Hospital.

Images on right - Image showing the Giudecca flooded so the need for the building to be raised is essential.

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Garden of Beeden; Benefiting the Human-Bee multispecies community on the Giudecca Now we need to consider the HumanBee community and how this informs the building program. Linking it to the work produced by Le Corbusier and Calvino, the types of symmetries could play a part in the organization of the garden. “The four symmetries evoke the idea of tessellation, gradually constructing a representation of the narrative structure as a network in the reader’s mind.”44 This narrative structure is something that could relate to things such as maps or constructs, which would be appropriate as there has been research done to show how bees create a cognitive map to find their hive.

There were different observations made to find how bees find their way back; “Tracing the full flight paths of displaced bees clearly demonstrates that novel shortcuts were taken from any place around the hive within the range of orientations flights. Because the three groups of bees tested in our experiments have performed orientations flights but differed with respect to other navigational experience, we conclude that the information they used came from observations during orientation flights. This observation-based memory must have a structure that allows bees to perform novel shortcuts and to choose between two potential goals, the hive and the feeder.”45 Therefore from this it is obvious that bees take into account their surrounding but what exactly do they take into account?

“Familiar landmarks are recognizable by bees and associated with the home vector (28). In the case of an extended landmark (in our experiments a border between two textures on the ground), bees are known to follow such a landmark (9), and they do so here, a behavior known also from homing pigeons (29). Besides this extended landmark, which was not essential for homing, such landmarks were local landmarks provided by the ground structure and the tents. They were redundant because removing some of the landmarks (the tents) did not alter navigational performance. Bees reached the landmarks at which they initiated homing flights from many directions, and multiple sequential tests with the same bee started homing flights from different locations. We conclude, therefore, that familiar landmarks

are recognized from different angles.”46 Landmarks can be something that are easily recogniseable on Giudecca, whether it is the bridges, gardens, parks, trees etc, therefore integrating similar elements onto the site would seem an appropriate thing to explore.

This feeds back to the way Le Corbusier used the streets and squares to organize his space.

As the Giudecca forms a similar pattern of streets, but with parks instead of squares, this is something that could be analysed more and used as a concept frame for the layout and program of the garden.

These aspects could be used to create the stricture within the site to aid in the formation of the program. The example we could take is by looking at the comparison of Calvino’s fictional work and Venice’s urban fabric.

“There are significant analogies between the structure of Venice’s spatial networks and the conceptual structure in the fiction. Both consist of discrete, small-scale units that are aggregated into networks. The large number of divisible and combinable elements in Calvino’s text can be compared to Venice’s urban fabric, which consists of discrete islands, buildings and plots which are recursively linked, such as squares, churches, bell towers, wellheads, bridges and loading steps. Both Invisible Cities and Venice have a poly-focal structure and overlapping networks whose organizing strength is almost equally distributed into multiple centres.

Both have patterns that emerge out of the collective logic of elements, rather than a pre-conceived idea of a whole.”47 These existing physical structures; churches, bell towers, bridges, loading steps; could easily be used as ‘landmarks’ on the site to link it with other elements within the area, along with this ‘poly-focal’ structure to emphasise the concept of a multispecies interface.

With the concept of a ‘hospital’ there won’t be such thing as a large building but having a building on the periphery of the garden to allow the bees to flourish in the garden without too much interference from humans.

Within le Corbusier’s design of the hospital he centres man as the most important thing by using these modules. “By defining the cell as the elementary unit, he expressed the patient as the universal man, and the Hospital as the realm of humanity.”48 This is something that can be manipulated to suit the needs of bee and humans so that the interfaces, modules or cells can have benefits for both species.

This building in the periphery could constitute a ‘nest’ for humans, in a similar way a hive would constitute a ‘nest’ for bees. “Already in

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the world of inanimate objects, extraordinary significance is attached to nests. We want them to be perfect, to bear the mark of a very sure instinct. We ourselves marvel at this instinct, and a nest is generally considered to be one of the marvels of animal life.”49 “A nest, like any other image of rest and quiet, is immediately associated with the image of a simple house.

When we pass from the image of a nest to the image of a house, and vice versa, it can only be in an atmosphere of simplicity.”50 Therefore the function of this building or nest should be something simple for both the bees and humans; perhaps a greenhouse, or honey storage system, water purification system to clean the water around Venice for drinking water.

The actual garden layout needs to be considered so the question is; what format or program should it follow. There are Botanic gardens and Baroque gardens that could be used as examples for the program or a combination of the two styles. Each garden style seems to include the elements of air, water and earth into the program and this could be something interesting to follow on from.

44. Psarra, Sophia. Venice Variations: Tracing The Architectural Imagination. UCL Press, 2018., p154 45. Menzel, R. et al. “Honey Bees Navigate According To A Map-Like Spatial Memory”.

Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, vol 102, no. 8, 2005, pp. 3040-3045.

Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.0408550102.

Accessed 5 Jan 2020.

46. Menzel, R. et al. “Honey Bees Navigate According To A Map-Like Spatial Memory”.

Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, vol 102, no. 8, 2005, pp. 3040-3045.

Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.0408550102.

Accessed 5 Jan 2020.

47. Psarra, Sophia. Venice Variations: Tracing The Architectural Imagination. UCL Press, 2018., p170 48. ibid, p184 49. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics Of Space.

Penguin, 2014., p112-113 50. Psarra, Sophia. Venice Variations: Tracing The Architectural Imagination. UCL Press, 2018., p118 51. Prest, John M. The Garden Of Eden. Yale University Press, 1988., p40 52. ibid, p44 53. ibid, p46 54. ibid, p47 55. ibid, p49

There are Western European gardens; “The conventional garden of western Europe was a square enclosure divided by paths into four quarters with a fountain at the centre, and gardeners were perhaps particularly receptive to the idea that these might correspond to the four continents.”51 “In the guides to these great gardens the theme is always the same – it is that of gathering the plants together from all over the world.”52 Therefore it seems that western European gardens were a collaborative between different section that have been brought together, similar to the way we are bring different species together. However, this could be something taken literally to come up with a program to separate the garden into spaces where different honey is made due to the different plants in that area or the purpose of the plants coming together within the honey to create a different type of beneficial honey that could be used.

There were other ways in which gardens were layed out; “In these epitomes of the world, the four quarters of the garden came to represent the four continents, and there is also a little evidence, though not as much as one would expect, to show that attempts were made to plant them out accordingly. In his account of the garden at Padua, Porro drew attention to

Image top of right hand page - Analysis of activity within a hive.

Images on right hand side bottom left - Map of the gardens of Padua.

Images on right hand side bottom right - Map showing how bees create their own cognative maps from their environment.

the fact that the plants which came from the east (mentioning the ceder, the laurel and the myrtle among others) were to be planted on the eastern side of the garden.”53 It seems to be a pattern that these gardens were separated into different sections for various reasons.

The Botanic Gardens were important in the development of other forms of gardens to create different forms; “The Botanic Gardens, which are the most perfect examples of the attempt to collect the whole world in a chamber, may be said to have lain at the academic end of the gardening spectrum. But it would be a mistake to think that the same theme did not contribute inspiration to other gardens of the period – not least the gardens of Renaissance princes, where trees and bushes might be laid out in rings to represent the orbits of the planets, where trees and bushes might be laid out in rings to represent the orbits of the planets, and waterworks installed to illustrate the laws of hydraulics and mechanics – all revelatory of the laws of nature and the works of God.32”54 In fact some gardens at period in time were transformed into hospitals to help those in need; “When the Dutch first settled at the Cape in 1652, their object was to provide a station for their ships sailing between Holland and the East Indies. Ships reached the Cape with up to one hundred or one hundred and fifty sick,39 and the settlement was laid out with a fort, a hospital, a church and a cemetery, and lying next to the hospital a great garden approximately one thousand places long by two hundred and sixty in width. From this garden the Dutch supplied fruit and vegetables to the scurvy-ridden sailors, and thus far the demands of commerce were clearly dominant.”55 From this hospital garden it brings to mind what exactly health actually is and what paradigm can be followed to enable us to begin to think about how this could be layed out on site. Whatever the health paradigm; chinese medicine, patient centred, western medicine; there is always a process of; Symptoms, tests, Diagnosis, Treatment and Recuperation. Therefore perhaps this could inform the program of the garden and the ways in which each section is used. This could also inform the series of interfaces within the garden and how this benefits the multispecies community.

Figure agove Menzel, R. et al. “Honey Bees Navigate According To A Map-Like Spatial Memory”. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, vol 102, no. 8, 2005, pp. 30403045. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.0408550102. Accessed 5 Jan 2020.

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The site on the left has been risen by 2.5m so be able to still be above water during aqua alta to ensure the building and site is still above the record 1.8m height the water has risen in the past.

Original site level

Image on the right shows how having multiple layers could be benefitial within the building to ensure the site and building doesnt get affected by the rising water within Venice.

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Environment

The environment is much more than just the plants, animals, buildings, etc but it is everything all together and how they work together. If these elements are not in harmony then an environmental issue is raised.

Recently this is highlighted in recent reports of climate change, decreased amounts of insects and wild fires. Although many different things needs to be done to rectify humans impact on the world, one seemingly small thing can have a butterfly effect and completely change the environment and ecosystem of the world.

Honey bee populations have been decreasing since the 1980s yet what exactly has been done about it? It just seems as though we don’t care as we carelessly pump pesticides onto the vegetation, which poison the bees. If the bees go then what happens to us, since we rely so heavily on them for food?

Is it even too late since parts of China has started hand pollinating plants as the bee population there has decreased so much.

In Venice this is particularly challenging as, while on my visit the only other species I noticed other than humans were mosquitos … because they were everywhere. The streets, my bedroom and my dreams. Mosquito’s, however offer no use to humans, other than a trip to the doctors.

The fact mosquitos can live here though does so that insects can live on this watersurrounded island so why are there so few of them? Although it would be more accurate to check in spring, it seems to indicate that the environmental health of Venice is not doing well. So how can this change?

One answer is what, George Monbiot calls, ‘Rewilding’. Rewilding includes the introduction of a keystone species to an environment, such as wolves to Yellowstone park in USA, and leave them to completely change the ecosystem in a natural process that we cannot predict or control. According to, Monbiot; “Rewilding is not about abandoning civilization but about enhancing it.”56 Therefore with this enhancement of civilisation, humans are clearly another species who develop along with the flourishing species introduced to an area. Honey bees are a keystone species, as they pollinate allowing plant species to grow, reproduce and spread, they aid in producing food for all kinds of animals, not just humans.

Simply put the more higher the bee population the more it will effect the health of the animal kingdom in a positive way.

The challenge with rewilding honey bees is ensuring enough green space for flowers to be planted so they can get enough pollen to make to honey so they can survive, therefore the specific site is very important. Hence the Giudecca, having the

largest amount of green space offers the best potential ecosystem for bees to thrive, with the potential of purifying water to give the bees enough water to bring back to the hive.

This is important as worker bees venturing outside of the hive will also go and collect water as well as honey and pollen, to dilute or cool their nest and propolis, which is used for plugging small holes of their nest57.

As well as the wider context environment, we should also consider the microenvironment for humans and bees and the optimum to make their oikos possible. For honey bees there are six components they look for when deciding on a new place to hive; “… cavity volume, entrance height, entrance size, and presence of combs from an earlier colony …”58. This could relate to humans shopping for a house, designing/ building their own home and the qualities we look for in the dwellings anthropologists like to call, ‘Houses’. We may then decorate the’House’ to make it feel more like a ‘Home’. This may be done with changing the aesthetics rather than function of spaces where as the bee world equivalent is more intrusive to the dwelling they are making their home;

“The tree cavity is carefully checked by the bees before it is occupied, to be sure it offers sufficient space (no less than about 25L), has an entrance opening which is not too large (maximum diameter about 4cm), and ideally has an entrance which is near the floor of the cavity for easy removal of debris, faces south for warmth, and is high off the ground for safety from predators. Inside the hollow, the bees scrape off any loose, decayed wood from the inner surfaces and coat them with propolis (dried tree resin) to produce a clean, form interior surface. They then build their beeswax combs downward, attaching them to the cavity’s roof and walls and leaving small passageways along the edges.”59

By doing this they have changed their immediate environment, being the architects of their own dwelling, making it exactly how it needs to be for them to survive.

So how does architecture come into this? Well for this project I want everything to be ‘living’ is essence, much like the beehive.

This includes the interfaces and the ‘hospital’ and what that entails. The architecture and the garden I hope to achieve by the end of this project will be to try and show examples of how an ecosystem could be changed to allow for the population of bees to increase and cause a butterfly effect in the ecosystem.

In the development of the project, I feel it is essential for me to focus on the environment and environmental health of the garden and architecture, therefore I feel aspects I will focus on will be looking more

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closely at Giudecca, what it has to offer and how it can contribute to be a positive effect for the health of the ecosystem, bees and humans.

Also focusing on ‘beeworld’ and how this will effect the design through the environment so I feel it is important for me to really try to understand how bees see things so research into ultraviolet light would need to be done in an attempt to make the bees more involved within the multi-species community.

56. Monbiot, George. Feral. Penguin Books, 2013., p10 57. Free, John B, Bees and Mankind, London; Boston Allen and Unwin, 1982, p53-54 58. Seeley, Thomas D. Honeybee Democracy.

Princeton University Press, 2010., p43 59. Seeley, Thomas D. The Wisdom Of The Hive.

[Acme Bookbinding], 2008. p33-34

Image top of right hand page Section of beehive activity Images on right hand side bottom - Plan of beehive activity.

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Community/ Social

In regards to community there are human elements and bee elements that needs to be considered separately at first to find the shared qualities cherished by both species.

For centuries human kind has been wanting for a harmonious community between animals; “Societies working with tame, and living in fear of wild animals, cherished the ideal of a truce between the creatures …”60, however unlikely this seems to be between each species, due to the natural order of the animal kingdom of predator and prey, as conscious entities we can begin to create environments for specific creatures, while keeping humans away or limiting their access.

There is no creature better at limiting a human’s access to an area as other creatures don’t see invisible borders between countries, for example.

So how can this order be achieved?

Unfortunately within every family, species, hive, house, oikos there is a hierarchical order that is expected to be respected. Within the bee’s domain there is a difference from the human level of discrimination and ordering. It seems for bees, instead of following a class system that divides people of similar interests and intelligence based on their family’s situation at birth, bees follow a “usefulness” system to discriminate against who will live or perish depending on the season of the year.

Human’s “king”dom can be compared to a honey bee’s “queen”dom easily by recognising the queen bee as the very top of the hierarchical order. Focusing specifically on honey bees their queen’s are different from bumble bee queens as she cannot feed her young, build comb or gather nectar or pollen and have even lost the ability to feed themselves and depend on worker bees for their food61.

The worker honey bees. The heroines of the hive. The worker bees can represent any human who is over worked, whilst obeying a higher figure; an employee, a child of a neglecting and demanding parent, a nurse, a builder, a doctor, the working class, the middle class, etc. They are the female honey bees who were not chosen to develop into queen bees and “… apart from laying fertile eggs, all tasks which are necessary for the growth and survival of the colony are done by workers.”62 “These tasks include feeding and caring for the brood produced from the queen’s eggs, building new comb and repairing existing comb, defending the colony and foraging for food, water and propolis, which is a resinous exudate from the buds or bark of various trees.”63 In the hive women rule and are ruled but what about the male bees? The drones?

In contrast to our hierarchical system of gender, we have within the human realm, within the bees world men are only necessary for part of the year and optional for the rest. “Drones are produced in most honeybee colonies from May to July. The drones lacks the food-gathering apparatus of the work but has very large eyes and long antennae, which he uses to locate the queen during mating flights. Indeed drones have no function other than that of mating with the queens.”64 It’s true the drones only have one job but after their job is done once they explode, die and are dragged out of the hive by the workers. If that

was to happen to human males some experiences would probably be considered twice …

Community for beekind and humankind, although we may have forgotten, is essential for survival. Without everyone playing their part in the hive or city chaos and collapse would inevitably ensue. For humans, in the modern day, this community is kept moving by such things as, calls, texts, emails etc, however what about the honey bees? They lack both the intelligence to create such technology and the opposable thumbs to text, so how do they communicate with one another across a long distance to ensure their survival?

Such scenarios include a bee returning from a hive after being lost to help foraging bees find their way back, alert others in the hive they are being attacked, where a large amount of flowers are for collecting pollen etc. “In such circumstances the foraging bees themselves compensate for the lack of floral scent by releasing their own Nasonov gland (pheromone) at the site, and so help by scentmarking the target area for recruits searching in the vicinity.”65 As well as this long distance communication, within the hive a returning bee will communicate to the others where to find these flowers;

species on earth needs is water, which is helpful for Venice since there is so much, so perhaps this can be purified so both species in this new community can benefit from it? As a main theme of the project I am proposing also relates to health then it would make sense to focus on the symbiotic relationship of humans creating antibiotics for the bees, through reishi mushrooms and sugar water solution, and bees can create medication for humans by producing Manuka and regular honey.

Therefore perhaps there is a way these interfaces could group these elements together.

60. Prest, John M. The Garden Of Eden. Yale University Press, 1988., p11 61. Free, John B, Bees and Mankind, London; Boston Allen and Unwin, 1982, p43 62. ibid, p45 63. ibid, p45 64. ibid, p44 65. ibid, p59 66. ibid, p57 67. ibid, p57 68. ibid, p58

“When the source of forage is within about 25m of the nest a successful forager on its return home may perform what is known as a ‘round dance’ on the comb surface.”66 “In this dance, known as the ‘waggle dance’, the forager moves forward a short distance in a straight line or ‘run’, prescribes a semicircle back to the beginning of the run, moves to the top, and makes a semicircle back to the beginning of the run again, but this time in the reverse direction and on the opposite side.”67 “During the straight run, the bee rapidly waggles its abdomen. The duration of the straight run and the number of waggles increases with the distance of the food source from the nest.”68

Therefore, although the sense of community in bees is shared with humans, everything one bee does is for the good of the hive as a collective, whereas the same cannot be said for humans.

The diagrams I have drawn show the different ways in which bees move within the hive to complete the separate jobs they have to complete to ensure survival of the community.

These jobs include; building comb, having sex with the queen, dragging out dead drones, flying, walking, returning from foraging and showing the waggle dance to show the hive where they can find flowers.

From this is makes me think maybe there could be a series of interfaces, which could help. How can a series of interfaces be created to connect humans and bees to create a crossspecies community, where the bees can pick up for the lack of every human putting in some effort?

Looking forward to the rest of the semester I will be exploring how this community element within the Giudecca can flourish to enable a symbiotic cross-species community. There is plenty for the humans to offer; flowers, land, parks, agriculture, medicine; and in return the bees have more to offer; vegetables, fruit, honey, medicine. Something every

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Image right hand page - Initial design of interface between humans and bees. Showing how we can give them sugar water solution and how they give us food.

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Technology

In terms of technology there are several elements that need to be considered for the project. These points relate to the environment of Giudecca, honey bee’s and human’s symbiotic relationship, health and how the technology relates to the architecture.

The technology relating to the environment of the Giudecca is the garden, which will be designed. The garden is the technology that effects the eco-system. It effects the ability for he bees to collect pollen, controlling the level of human interference of the bee world and the way in which the interfaces are managed to enable the multispecies community to benefit one another through their health. Therefore the garden encompasses all points of the technologies that will be considered. The technology and program will inform one another’s forms and properties.

By rejuvenating the soil found on the site using plants to re-introduce nutrients to the soil the earth will become cleaner, which will allow more plants to be planted in the area, potentially including fruit and vegetables.

This would then change the ecosystem and aid the multi-species community by providing different types of food or both species.

Consideration of the technology would need to be made to avoid the land becoming flooded in the event of high tide, as this is something Venice falls victim to often. Therefore the technology may need to be elevated above the ground.

When thinking about any kind of construction in relation to the project, bees already set a great example. They produce wax themselves, which is why the garden technology is so important to them as; “To produce wax bees need to consume large amounts of carbohydrate and long festoons of bees may often be seen hanging in parts of the nest where new comb is being built.”69 Therefore form using the garden technology is allows the bees to use their own natural technology to construct their hive. The wax they produce is used to repair damaged comb, build a wax cap over the mouth of a cell containing honey or larvae70. Perhaps this concept of production of material for growth is something that can be taken and used in the project.

As described in the building program there is the idea to explore the growth of the island to allow the ecosystem to continue to be healthy as the bee colonies break off from one another and need another site to live.

There are ways in which bees use water to control the temperature of the hive.

This is similar to Le Corbusier and his method

in inspired by nature. He called this method the ‘precise breathing’, which Le Corbusier invented to create a constant temperature within large public buildings71. In the way beehives use double walls and vents to ensure bees don’t die of cold in the winter, Le Corbusier designed “…‘neutralizing walls’ of stone or glass which would comprise a double membrane with ‘a gap of several centimetres’ between each one. A permanent current of air would flow through this space at the stated constant temperature of 18 degrees.”72 Through Le Corbusier’s work we can find a link between the humankind and beekind architectural technologies to develop to create a natural atmosphere even in the event of enclosed areas. By having this natural essence it can help cause calm for humans and allow bees to not be disturbed by the unnatural technologies ordinarily used by humans.

To further discuss the health of the ecosystem, this mainly involves the health of the multispecies community. This means the health of the honey bees needs to be improved to rid them of all diseases they carry and to help increase their population. The health of the human beings also need to be improved, which would be done by improving the health of the ecosystem around them.

A technology and interface needs to be developed in which we can aid bees while they also help us.

The issue bees have if they are all infected with either the wing deformation disease or the Lake Sinai virus, however with Paul Stamets research we know that Armadoo mushrooms get rid of the wing deformation virus and the Raishi mushroom gets rid of the Lake Sinai Virus73. From this, Stamets developed a bee feeder with a mushroom/ sugar water solution to attract the bees to allow them to receive this antibiotic. The way in which it was designed was that the base would comprise of a small maze for the bees to find their way around, as wasps and hornets are not maze runners where as bees are74. By using this mushroom/ sugar water solution the bees lived much longer than if they hadn’t.

Therefore in terms of the health technology for the bees, there needs to be an area for these mushrooms to grow, which could then be used to create medicine in the ‘hospital’ to be designed on the site. Considering mycelium is the immunological network of nature there are important qualities it has to be able to make this network effect for what is to be accomplished the foundation of the foodweb, influencing the health of animal and plant species resident within.

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69. Free, John B, Bees and Mankind, London; Boston Allen and Unwin, 1982, p49 70. ibid, p49 71. Ramirez, Juan Antonio. The Beehive Metaphor. Reaktion Books, 2000., p145 72. ibid, p146 73. Paul Stamets 74. Paul Stamets

Image right hand page (top left) - Analysis of bees building hive with honeycomb.

Image right hand page (top right) - Diagram explaining how plants take in bad nurtiants from the earth and give out good nutriants to rejuvinate the surrounding earth.

Images right hand page (bottom) - Technical drawings of Paul Stamets bee feeder, of the sugar water and mushroom solution.

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Structure

The most information gathered at this point, in regards to structure, is in relation to the bees and how they construct the structure of their hive. There is a different between man made hives and hives that happen naturally in the wild. The man-made structure, although is made with wooden frames to be able to extract the honey and honeycombs, follow the same structure as natural hives.

“As it is well known, the combs inside a beehive hang vertically and each is made of two layers of horizontal cells, with openings on opposite side of the comb (Figure 2.6). These cells serve both as containers for stored food (honey and pollen) and as cradles for the developing immature bees. They are precisely hexagonal and form a beautiful, regular array, except around the edges of the comb, where they are attached to the substrate, or where there is a transition between the smaller cells used for workers (“worker cells”) and the larger ones used for rearing drones (“drone cells”) …”75. The way in which the bees layout the structure of the hive is by storing honey in the upper region of the nest and the rearing of the brood at the bottom76.

From being able to see the difference between the hierarchy of the workers and drone bees, there are also the way in, which bees prepare the natural structure before constructing their own combs. “The tree cavity is carefully checked by the bees before it is occupied, to be sure it offers sufficient space (no less than about 25L), has an entrance opening which is not too large (maximum diameter about 4cm), and ideally has an entrance which is near the floor of the cavity for easy removal of debris, faces south for warmth, and is high off the ground for safety from predators. Inside the hollow, the bees scrape off any loose, decayed wood from the inner surfaces and coat them with propolis (dried tree resin) to produce a clean, form interior surface. They then build their beeswax combs downward, attaching them to the cavity’s roof and walls and leaving small passageways along the edges.”77 Along with the structure of the typical cavity that they make there are also elements such as the way in, which they form their pathways. This can be seen as “… each comb formed a wall-towall curtain spanning the (generally) narrow tree cavity, I was impressed by the way bees had built small passageways in the combs where they were attached to the cavity’s wall, so they could crawl easily from one comb to the next.”78

“A small entrance is easily defended and helps isolate the nest from the outside environment. An entrance high up in a tree is less apt to be discovered by predators

than one near the ground, and is certainly inaccessible to predators that cannot fly or climb trees. An entrance at the bottom of the nest cavity rather than at the top may help to minimize the loss of heat from the colony by convection currents. And an entrance that faces south provides a warm, solar-heated porch from which foragers can take off and on which they can land.”79

The structure of the swarm is temporary, therefore the risk of swarming on Giudecca is likely however, as the swarms waits for scout bees to return to tell them where the best new hive will be and they fly away; “… the swarms demonstrated preferences in the following nest-site variables: entrance size, entrance direction, entrance height above the ground, entrance height above the cavity floor, cavity volume, and presence of combs in the cavity. The bees had revealed to me that they prefer a nest entrance that is rather small, faces south, is high off the ground, and opens into the bottom of the nest cavity.”80 Is there a way that we can follow this structure of the temporary swarm in the growth of the land of the site. This would be due to the fact most swarms occur after a new queen has been born and takes half of the current hives population with her.

75. Seeley, Thomas D. The Wisdom Of The Hive.

[Acme Bookbinding], 2008. p31-33 76. Seeley, Thomas D. Honeybee Democracy.

Princeton University Press, 2010., p50 77. Seeley, Thomas D. The Wisdom Of The Hive.

[Acme Bookbinding], 2008. p33-34 78. ibid, p50 79. ibid, p55 80. ibid, p55

Image right hand page (top) Diagram showing the structure of panels within a man made behive and how the bees create their hive from that Images right hand page (bottom) - Diagrams showing that worker bee cells and smaller than drone bee cells when they are brood.

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Frames from an artificial bee keepers hive

Worker Bee cells

Drone Bee cells

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Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics Of Space. Penguin, 2014.

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Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. Vintage, 2009.

Dutoit, Allison et al. Quality Out Of Control. Routledge, 2010.

Free, John B, Bees and Mankind, London; Boston Allen and Unwin, 1982 Haque, Umair. The Age Of Collapse: Why Everything’s Collapsing, And What To Do About It. 2019, https://eand.co/the-age-of-collapse-e606bfc1b46d. Accessed 2 Oct 2019.

Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin”. Environmental Humanities, vol 6, no. 1, 2015, pp. 159-165. Duke University Press, doi:10.1215/22011919-3615934. Accessed 15 Dec 2019.

Menzel, R. et al. “Honey Bees Navigate According To A Map-Like Spatial Memory”.

Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, vol 102, no. 8, 2005, pp. 3040-3045.

Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.0408550102.

Accessed 5 Jan 2020.

Monbiot, George. Feral. Penguin Books, 2013.

Morton, Timothy. Ecology Without Nature. Harvard University Press, 2009.

Prest, John M. The Garden Of Eden. Yale University Press, 1988.

Psarra, Sophia. Venice Variations: Tracing The Architectural Imagination. UCL Press, 2018.

Ramirez, Juan Antonio. The Beehive Metaphor. Reaktion Books, 2000.

Seeley, Thomas D. The Wisdom Of The Hive. [Acme Bookbinding], 2008.

Seeley, Thomas D. Honeybee Democracy. Princeton University Press, 2010.

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Experiments and Development from Research

This section shows the experiments undertaken from the research conducted from concept to finalised design synthesis of building and interfaces, both within the building and in the wider context of the Giudecca.

To make sure everthing is explained in it’s entirety this section is split into sub-headings.

- Site - Building - Interfaces This is so that the experiments and developments made at every level of detail is explained fully.

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Island

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Above is an image analysing the current vegetation on the island and understanding how the distribution of the plants has been affected by the wind coming onto the island mainly from the western side of the Island.

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Image right - Concept amp showing how the bees move around the island and start to move from there to the rest of the main section. It also indicates where potential interfaces wcould be.

Venice Hospital - Le Corbusier

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Traced plan of Le Corbusier’s, Venice Hospital. This precedent was used in a couple of ways; a way to use structure within the site of the project and inspiration of pathways throughout the building.

Experiment of grids taken from tracing over Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital to impose over the site on the Giudecca.

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From analysing the site I experimented with a way of placing the grid on site and ensure a way that the building prevents vegetation from being negatively effected. Therefore I placed a wall (indicated by the line) over the imposed grid over the site.

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These photographs show initial experiments of ‘the wall’ and how it spanned th length of the island to prevent the wind impacting on the grow of the vegetation.

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This experiment shows the next phase of the design development of the grid, where is was imposed with the rectangles being smaller in scale.

This was done as the initial grids was too large and the scale of the rectangles where far too large to then use to determine a location for the building.

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Within the research section of the document it mentioned the exploration of dividing the building up into sections of the recuperation of health. This is that experiment, trying to see how this could form. However, this experiment showed that this was not something that could easily work as each of these sections needed different sized areas and many could be grouped together. Spanning it the length of the idland would also be too much of a task for a patient or nurse/ doctor to always be walking backwards and forwards. Therefore this experiment showed that this was not an appropriate route to continue within the design synthesis.

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Parc De La Villette Bernard Tschumi

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For a short period I experimented with the idea of using inspiration of Parc de Villette and the dynamic movement it has within the park. The next few pages show the experiments where I explored how this could be applied to the main site.

The plan above shows the collaboration of the different elements used so far. Exploring combining the idea of ‘the wall’, the grid and lines taken from indicating where the main areas of vegeation are within the island currently.

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These model photographs show the final experiments of work inspir by Parc de la Villette. The model above shows the main outlines that were taken from tracing where the cuirrent vegation remains on the island and using this as an indicator of what was there when the building is built.

come from it. Other than causing interesting dynamics on the island there was no other need to continue. It was something I considered incorporating at a later date with a final design however the development of the design had changed so much that this was no longer appropriate.

The Images on the right show further experiments where I played with light and how this could create interesting shadows within the island.

The reason this experiment failed was because there was no mutual benefit for humans and bees that could

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These images show in sequance how the building expands down the island as more space is needed.

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Building

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SS Giovanni e Paolo

Inspiration was taken from this building within venice due to the elements that could be used within the building such as courtyards, squares and bridges, which are all surrounding or involved within the building’s design.

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Le Corbusier Sainte Marie de la Tourette Convent - Le Corbusier

This precedent was used to experiment with the idea of ‘the cell’ as this brings together how humans and bees live their lives. Above are traced plans of the building and were used to analyse how the munk’s bedroom were configured, which give this ‘hive like’ effect.

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Experimental conceptual section. bringin together the points of the ‘hive’ and the idea of a bee cathedral attached to the building which can bee used as a large interface between the humans and the bees.

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Experimental sketches showing the develpoment of the form of the building and how this could be brought onto the island using the grid that has already been imposed onto it.

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Experimental sketch of the entrance of the building, where the idea was to arrive underground and then have various paths that you could take.

However this would not be a warm welcome to the patient’s of the island.

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Experiments and development of the building on the island.

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Experimenting with the use of courtyards and form on the island and how this could be integrated with the grid imposed onto the island.

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Experimenting with the idea of a ‘single cell’ building which could be further developed and added onto as demand was increased and the building needed to be extended.

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Experiment using different sized cells in the building.

However this breaks the flow and does not fit in as well with the grid imposed onto the island therefore this was not kept when coming up with the final design.

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Experimenting with the psotioning of rooms and placing the bedrooms on the garden side of the building so they can be viewed by the patients as they wake up.

Also taking inspiration from Le Corbusier’s convent when design the room as if they are ‘cells’.

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Further development of the building, while experimenting on the structure of the building and creating something that could easily be added to and ‘grow’ which gives the building a kind of organic feel to it. Therefore as medicine progresses the building will be able extend to keep up with these changes.

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Above is a scale model of a behive cell which was used as an experiment when trying to think about the bedrooms and how this could be used when configuring the floor plan.

On the next page are developmental models showing the progress I made when designing the bedrooms.

Some models experimented with light, however with the extra height that would be needed within the buliding it would make it too high for them to get to the green roof.

Therefore the layout of the room is left as a standard rectangle that can be fit together for a standard room size within the buliding.

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The next few pages look at experiment of thinking about how the bees can move through the building. These experiments looks at how they could move throughout the building and the island. The diagrams that are looking at the full island was not something that could be taken forward so rigidly but the experiments drawn through the building were later developed when designing the interfaces to help with navigation.

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From analysing the movement of bees and thinking about how they can move through the building, elements such as the bee ladder were incorporated into the final design.

This was used as a way to help the bees get higher in the building and ecourage them to get to the green roof easier.

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Above is an image of the how the bridge connects the site to the mainland and the way in which bees travel across it so that they dont have to directly fly over water.

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Image showing the final movement diagrams of bees (red) and humans (blue) and how they interact with eahc other within and outside of the building.

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Image showing the final movement diagrams of bees (red) and humans (blue) on the ground floor of the design and how they interact with eahc other within and outside of the building.

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1. Hydrotherapy pool 2. Changing rooms and shower.

3. Docking points for boats. For both patients and services

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1. Bee Cathedral 2. Labratory with changing rooms and showers.

3. Reception 4. Admin offices 5. Cafe 6. Kitchen 7. Services and shorage for food and equipment.

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1. Bedrooms 2. Nurses stations 3. Physiotherapy rooms 4. Kitchen 5. Group therapy room 6. Speech and Language therapy spcaes.

7. Meeting room 8. Storage 9. Consultation/ Interview room 10. Bee keepers office

11. Gardeners office 12. Seminar rooms for nurses.

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1. Bedrooms 2. Nurses stations 3. Physiotherapy rooms 4. Kitchen 5. Group therapy room 6. Speech and Language therapy spcaes.

7. Roof garden for patients and nurses

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1. Bedrooms 2. Nurses stations 3. Physiotherapy rooms 4. Kitchen 5. Group therapy room 6. Speech and Language therapy spcaes.

7. Beehive

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Interfaces

The interfaces withint the building and in the rest of the Giudecca must bring together different things. These elements are; Plants, humans, honey bees and the building materials. This is because these are the things that are needed tp achieve the most appropriate benefit in acheiving a multispecies community.

From this the main elements the interfaces needed to cover were to; help with navigation, supports life and health.

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Within Venice there are so many points and nodes that could be used for wayfinding and they are used on both land and river. These elements can be used by both honey bees and humans to create a cognative map. Therefore taking inspiration from these elements and incorporating them into the buildling in the form of interfaces would be benefitial.

These photographs show some of these points, such as poles indicating to the boat drivers where they can dock.

Other nodes could be the numerous amount of bridges within the city, which would be an imporant thing to consider for the bees as they would need a way to fly over the water from the site to the rest of the Giudecca.

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Poles within river act as wayfinding for the Gondaliers and boat users to know where they can dock within the city. These areas of the city act as interfaces between travelling by river and travelling by path with the boats being the points where the two meet. This helped inspire the idea of using interfaces as points of navigation and wayfinding for bees and humans. The interfaces then act as the point that connects the two worlds of the humans and Honey Bees.

When considering Honey bees and their environment we need to think about how they navigate and create their cognative map.

The map above shows the points within the entire city that already exist, such as; large open green spaces, towers and change in roof topology. As you can see most of these points are already on the Giudecca and will therefore allow the bees to create their own wayfinding of the Island to collect pollen from more areas.

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Experiements took place so that I could try and understand bee vision and make sure that they would be able to naviagte and create their own cognative map.

These pictures show an experiment of creating a kaleidoscpe the try and emulate bee vision by distorting the views of some pictures that were taken within Venice.

The issue with this experiment is that is causes reflections which bee eyes do not, however it gives an indication of the way their eyes break down an image into less detailed images and judge their surroundings by colour (in the ultraviolet spectrum).

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Through researching flowers and plants to incorporate into the design of the building, I came to the conclusion of using Manuka (top image); due to it’s previously mentioned health benefits when bees use it to make manuka honey, as well as the white, purple or blue colours of the flowers petals being attractive to bees.

When needing a climbing flowering plant to use so that the bees could easily navigate around the building, Clematis Armandii (bottom picture) seemed to be the best choice as it is evergreen, climbs and the colour of the petals are attractive to bees.

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From research the above shows the colours bees are most attracted to. This is yellow, white, purple and blue.

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These images show the comparison of what a human would see when looking at flowers (above) and what a bee would see (right).

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This image shows how bees see things in much less detail but because they are attracted certain colours the lack of detail doesn’t matter as long as there is a big enough areas for them to be able to use a wayfinding element.

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Experiment for thinking about how the interfaces could interact with the physiotherapy room. This is to see if there could be points where the bees and humans could meet inside of the room. However the bees would have to travel too far and might get stuck so it would be better to have the interfaces on the edge of the inside and outside.

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Experiment for thinking about how the interfaces could interact with the hydrotherapy pool. As the hydrotherapy pool is underground this does not seem to be a possible space that could be used as a interface point as there arent any point the room touches a surface that bees could also touch.

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Experiment for thinking about how the interfaces could interact with the bedroom. This is to see if there could be points where the bees and humans could meet inside of the room. However the bees would have to travel too far and might get stuck so it would be better to have the interfaces on the edge of the inside and outside.

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This render shows an initial idea of what the bedroom interface could look like. However, the flowers used are not the correct ones but it shows the movement of the bees on the outside and the movement of the humans on the inside while also showing where the interface of mushroom solution is found.

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Experiment for thinking about how the interfaces could interact with the labratory. This is to see if there could be points where the bees and humans could meet inside of the room. However the bees would have to travel too far and might get stuck so it would be better to have the interfaces on the edge of the inside and outside.

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This render shows an initial idea of what the lab and bee cathedral interface could look like. However, the flowers used are not the correct ones but it shows the movement of the bees on the outside and the movement of the humans within the bee cathedral.

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Cognative map of building while using the interfaces as navigational points. This shows the points where humans and bees can use to navigate.

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Physiotherapy Interface

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Physiotherapy interface provides the bee with sugar water solution and pollen from the flowers and the humans have an area within the physiotherapy room to create the mushroom/ sugar water solution which will help with dexterity. It also creates a nice view from outside of movement, from the bees, and relates to the movement which is happening within the physiotherapy room.

The section above show the point where the two worlds, of the humans and honey bees meet.

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The plan to the left shows the movement of the humand and bees in relation to each other and the points where they meet.

The above plan of the interface shows the point where the humans and honey bees meet, joining the two worlds.

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Bedroom Interface

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Bedroom interface provides the bee with sugar water solution and pollen from the flowers and the humans receive the pleasant view of looking out and seeing flowers and the bee have pollinated them, as well as creating a calming environment such as through the shadows made from the bees flying around outside.

The plans above show the point where the two worlds, of the humans and honey bees meet.

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The plan to the left shows the movement of the humand and bees in relation to each other and the points where they meet.

The above plan of the interface shows the point where the humans and honey bees meet, joining the two worlds.

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Labratory Interface - Courtyard side

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Labratory Interface - Bee Cathedral side

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Bee Hive Interface

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These photographs show the interfaces which already exist between insects and humans that can be seen throughout all of Venice.

The interfaces on the right hand page shows how the interfaces can be integrated into the residential areas of the Giudecca and the rest of Venice.

The map on the right hand page shows all of the residential areas on the Giudecca and where these interfaces could be placed so that the multispecies community can be from a wider context.

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Wider context plan showing the potential spread of honey bees throughout the city by looking at all of tghe green spaces in the city.

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