The Hive is a public art installation designed for the 2022 Winter Stations design competition. It was selected as one of the winning concepts and was displayed to the public on Toronto’s Woodbine Beach from February 21 to March 31 2022. The Hive was reinstalled at R.C. Harris Park in summer 2022.
The one word creative brief for the competition was RESILIENCE.
We took inspiration from the resilience of the honeybees, who work together as a colony to maintain the temperature of their hives through the harsh winter months. They adapt their behaviour and even eating habits in order to survive as a community.
In the context of the pandemic, this example resonated with us as we saw our own communities come together to face the adversity of isolation by spreading warmth and kindness. We wanted to create an experience that invited people to once again come together in a shared space on the beach to form a collaborative community level hive cluster and share some warmth in the coldest months of the year, just like the bees.
The primary design goal was to create a bee hive inspired structure that incorporated hexagonal honeycomb shapes to create an enclosed area around an existing life guard stations on the beach. We wanted the structure to offer protection from the cold, while creating a warm visual experience within. Through an iterative design process, we landed on the form of a modified geodesic dome, incidentally one of the most resilient shapes in architecture. The bright honeycomb shaped windows are meant to represent the different colour variations of honey, which is the result of the diverse floral resources used by the bees.
The original design proposal was submitted as a series of 3D renders of The Hive. We partnered with the talented team of engineers and builders at Anex Works who were able to execute the vision of the design exactly as intended.
Original 3D Renders
Completed Installation
Design & Concept Artwork: Will Cuthbert
Concept: Will Cuthbert & Kathleen Dogantzis
Construction: ANEX Works