Design collaborative launches open-source 'bee homes'

2020-06-03T13:08:00-04:00

IKEA's research and design lab SPACE10 has teamed up with Bakken & Bæck and designer Tanita Klein to launch an open-source Bee Home. The offering is in response to the collaborative's recognition of the essentiality of bees for life on earth, which includes one third of all of the food we eat. The team's aim is to mitigate the impact humans have made on bees' natural habitats.

Bee Home is free and open-source, allowing users to customize, fabricate, and assemble a design of their making locally. "For almost 80 years, IKEA has enabled people to create a better everyday life at home," said Kaave Pour, Director at SPACE10 in a statement. "But our home is more than just four walls, our home is also the planet we live on. That is why we launch Bee Home: we want to enable people everywhere to help rebalance our relationship with the planet and ensure a sustainable home for all of us."

Constructing a Bee Home is a fairly simple process. One would first design their structure online, select...

Kengo Kuma to design major Sydney library

2016-03-15T17:21:00-04:00

A striking circular building at Darling Harbour will house a new City of Sydney library for the area’s existing and incoming residents, following an agreement with Lendlease. The six storey community and retail centre, designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, will be built by developer Lendlease at Darling Square.

The Office of the Mayor of Sydney announced that the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma will design a new multi-use building at Darling Square that will include a two-level library. The developer Lendlease will build the timber-swathed structure.

“I am very pleased that the City has reached an in-principle agreement with Lendlease for two floors of the fabulous Kengo Kuma building," states Lord Mayor Clover Moore. "The contemporary library will include a flexible space for seminars and workshops, with technology to support entrepreneurs and innovators."

Specifically, these "flexible spaces" will include an "Innovation Exchange Program" for start-ups, and a "makerspace," or facility for experimentation with robotics and emerging manufacturing technologies – a new mainstay for many libraries. Pending planning approval, two floors will also be dedicated to a for-profit childcare center.

The current plan, pending its approval by municipal council, would be for the City of Sydney to lease the 2,...

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Design collaborative launches open-source 'bee homes'

Kengo Kuma to design major Sydney library