Urban Apiary / Palafito Arquitectura

Selected at the XII BIAU and the Colombian Biennial, this small bamboo building for thousands of Apis mellifera bees allows bees and students to coexist in the same place. With the paradox that bees are inside - but in a space that opens to the sky - and humans are outside - but protected by a slender and sculptural forest.

The design is based on squares of different sizes that complement each other in plan and section, marking the corners of an efficient structure. The building is resolved with only two materials: on the one hand, bamboo that forms the structure, like a forest of columns that do not always touch the ground, but give order to the building and accentuate its powerful verticality. And on the other hand, metal, which forms the enclosure and allows certain permeability between the inside and outside, between the building and its context.

Through thresholds, circulations of different dimensions, and interstices that the columns create, layers of permeability are formed. For this unusual commission, we addressed the concerns of the researchers at the Faculty of Science of the University, with whom we discovered, for example, that bees do not like black, and white was much more suitable since the program required two very different spaces.

On the first floor, where researchers wanted a small laboratory, the workspace is located: a translucent metal box that prevents the entry of bees and forms a solid base in the bamboo forest. This contrasts with the upper level, reserved for beehives: a lightweight, equally metallic and translucent enclosure that opens to the sky and invites bees to go out in search of more urban gardens.