17 June 2010
London's buzzing with the news of five new City hotels
From next Tuesday (20 June 2010), members of the public can vote
online to award a ‘Golden Beetle’ to their favourite new
architectural addition to the City of London from among five luxury
insect hotels.
The hotels are being constructed this week across the City of
London’s gardens by five teams shortlisted to win ‘Beyond the
Hive’, a unique architectural competition launched by British Land
and The City of London Corporation to celebrate 2010 as the
International Year of Biodiversity.
Designed to attract stag beetles, solitary bees, butterflies,
spiders, lacewings, and ladybirds, members of the public can view
the completed hotels from Monday (19 June 2010) at Bunhill Fields,
EC1; West Smithfield, EC1; Postman’s Park, EC4; St Dunstan’s in the
East, EC4; and Cleary Garden, EC4.
Online public voting will take place from 20 to 27 June 2010,
with two ‘Golden Beetle’ awards subsequently presented during the
London Festival of Architecture, one to the winner of the public
vote, and a second to the winner as selected by a panel of
celebrated industry experts from the property, architecture and
insect worlds, including:
Sarah Henshall, Brownfield Officer, Buglife; Paul Finch,
Chairman of CABE and Programme Director of World Architecture
Festival and editor emeritus of Architectural Review and
Architects’ Journal; Adrian Penfold, Head of Planning &
Environment, British Land; Graham Stirk, Director, Roger Stirk
Harbour + Partners and Peter Wynne-Rees, The City Planning Officer,
City of London Corporation.
Entrants to the competition were required
to submit proposals for an ecologically sustainable and creative
insect habitat. The shortlisted designs and teams are as
follows:
Scheme A: The Bumblebee City Nesters
Designed by Fisher Tomlin (Professional Garden Designers &
Landscapers)
Location: West Smithfield
This design is inspired by the City of London’s prestigious
tower buildings, and uses a flexible system that allows it to be
adapted to create anything from a two-storey wildlife B&B for
smaller spaces, to a complete five star hotel for larger
gardens.
At West Smithfield, the team will create a series of five
towers, ranging in height from 900mm to 1200mm, made entirely from
recycled materials, including recycled timber, recycled broom
poles, and garden and building waste.
Two local schools in Wimbledon will help the team in creating
the towers, which are designed with solitary bees and bumblebees in
mind, but will also provide homes for an array of other insects and
invertebrates.
Scheme B: Brookfield Bug Buddies
Designed by Brookfield Europe in collaboration with consultants
Arup, DP9, Hilson Moran Partnership and Sir John Cass’s Foundation
school, Stepney Way, E1
Location: Postman’s Park
For its entry, Brookfield has pooled the resources of its
consultant team for new City tower development, The Pinnacle, even
undertaking a BREEAM assessment of its design.
Taking its inspiration from the City of London itself and the
juxtaposition between the ancient past and the modern age, the
hotel uses pipe work of different widths and lengths sourced from
the Pinnacle project. These are fixed together in a sweeping line,
rising up from a recycled wood planter base.
Reinforcement bars used to create the framework will both
support the structure, and allow a plant climber, such as native
traveller's joy (clematis vitalba), honeysuckle (lonicera
periclymenum) or hop (humulus lupulus).
Hilson Moran Partnership was employed to assess the design’s
environmental impacts, Arup Structures reviewed the structural
design and DP9 advised on possible planning considerations.
Brookfield Construction co-ordinated the team effort and will
deliver the scheme, whilst children at local secondary school, Sir
John Cass, will assist in procuring the materials and furnishings
for the project.
Scheme C: Beevarian Antsel and Gretel Chalet
Designed to commemorate the excursion to London of the German Women
in Property; entry co-ordinated by Helaba Landesbank
Hessen-Thueringen
Location: Cleary Garden
Based on the design of a typical Bavarian mountain chalet, the
‘Beevarian Antsel and Gretel Chalet’ was designed by “German Women
in Property” to commemorate their recent excursion to London.
The design features reclaimed bricks to attract solitary bees,
rotten logs for invertebrates, louvered boxes filled with bark for
hibernating butterflies, a log drilled with holes for ladybirds and
eaves filled with bamboo for lacewings.
Set over three floors, all materials used to construct the hotel
will be collected from within the City.
Scheme D: The Insect Hotel
Designed by Arup Associates
Location: St Dunstan’s in the East
In its design for ‘The Insect Hotel’ Arup has identified, and
catered for, the specific requirements of stag beetles, solitary
bees, butterflies and moths, spiders, lacewings and ladybirds.
The façade of the hotel consists of a series of compartments
based on a Voronoi pattern found in the natural world, which
generates a series of voids varying in size at a depth of 500m.
A variety of recycled waste materials and deadfall are loosely
inserted into these voids, whilst the sides of the hotel are
accessible for butterflies and moths, and the top is suitable for
absorbing rain water through planting.
Scheme E: InnVertebrate
Designed by ORTLOS Space Engineering and Metalanguage Design
Location: Bunhill Fields
Designed to reflect the diverse architecture of London, the
‘Inn’ is a stylish multi-story habitat with different-sized
cavities to accommodate a wide variety of invertebrates.
The main structure will be built off-site, where a network of
talented crafts people and designers will be involved in the
sourcing and storing of materials, and construction, whilst the
final phase - the filling-in of the cavities and planting – will be
undertaken when in situ.
The inn will be constructed from recycled and reclaimed wood,
bricks and off-cuts found in surrounding areas. Cavities will be
filled with soil and stones collected from the garden, whilst seeds
for planting wildflowers will be donated by the Bumblebee
Conservation Trust.
Ends
Notes to Editors
For further information visit
www.britishland.com/beyondthehive
For media enquiries please contact Sarah Keltie on 020 7269 9382
(Sarah.Keltie@fd.com) or
Victoria Wallin on 020 7269 9360
(Victoria.Wallin@fd.com)