sciencefriday:If you’ve ever wonder what it’s like to stand in the middle of a living
sciencefriday: If you’ve ever wonder what it’s like to stand in the middle of a living hive, this sculpture in London is the next best thing. The Hive is an installation by Nottingham artist Wolfgang Buttress, who originally conceived the bio-inspired sculpture for the Milan Expo in 2015. The Expo’s theme was “Feeding the Planet,” and Buttress was inspired by the role that bees play in pollination. The sculpture ended up winning top prize and has now been moved to Kew Gardens for two years. Standing nearly 56 feet tall and 46 feet deep, the Hive consists of 169,300 aluminum pieces that are tightly interlocked in a hexagonal pattern, forming an oblong shape evocative of a beehive. From a distance, the sculpture looks like a swarm. But as you home in on the architecture, says Buttress, “you then get a sense of the hexagons of this abstracted honeycomb pattern, this latticework.” As a visitor enters the hollow structure, she might notice 1,000 LED lights strung around the scaffolding, flickering and alternating hues. The changing luminescence is triggered by the energy inside two honeybee hives, located just hundreds of feet away from the sculpture. Learn how Wolfgang Buttress put this amazing sculpture together. -- source link
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