Norway based Eriksen Skajaa Architects’ proposal about Urban Beehives was recently acknolwegded in the Oslo Triennale. The project explores how biodiversity can act as a catalyst for urban development and generate ideas to respond to social diversity. The study examines the environment of the Aker River as an infrastructure for urban food production as well as an apiary at the Vaterland Park. The proposal intends to illustrates how biodiversity, small-scale urban gardening and food production can contribute to a new layer of urban development centered on the riverbanks.
More images and more about the proposal after the break.
Situated close to the Aker River, the Vaterland Park will be transformed into an apiary that “combines the ideas of biodiversity and self-sufficiency with ideas of social change and a participatory democratic urban space.” A series of beehive harvest units will be placed throughout this park to demonstrate the importance of maintaining biotopes in and around our cities.
The apiary will also contain a garden and the two will have ‘a strong social agenda as it will be possible for the public to take part in the honey production and to learn more about bees. It also has strong metaphorical possibilities connected to themes such as reproduction, fear and wealth.’ Since there is a global decline in bee populations, these small-scale urban projects could potentially help raise the public awareness about this phenomenon and at the same time stimulate to a renewed interest in bee keeping.
“We believe that the Vaterland apiary can provide a unique opportunity for exchange between the displaced and the urban middle classes. The apiary combines small-scale food production, which have typically been more important to the poor, with the current obsession on gardening among the urban middle classes,” explained the architects.
Head juror, Marcus Schaefer of AMO/OMA, explained, “By suggesting a series of beehive harvest units to be placed in the green belt around the Aker River, which runs north-south through Oslo, the authors want to show the importance of counter-acting the decline of biotopes in and around our cities today…a first step for a new type of urban gardening, inviting the public to bring flowers and plants for pollination into these urban beehives along the Aker River in Oslo…The beekeepers in their white protective suits could be envisioned as shadows, urban ghosts, that follow any architectural event, perhaps even any project. A new type of awareness is then positively raised through this proposal.”
LOCATION Oslo, Norway
SIZE Based on amount of beehives
SCHEDULE 2010-2011
TEAM Joakim Skajaa, Arild Eriksen, Christina Charlotte Tolfsen
COMPETITION JURY Markus Schaefer (AMO/OMA), Dagur Eggertson (Rintala Eggertson), Knut Erik Dahl (Dahl Uhre Architects) Bjarne Ringstad (Code), Mari Lending
