After a busy week prepping for our studio design review, I got to take a quick break from our Plymouth Park project to meet with my nonprofit partner for Community 1:1. I met with the Charleston Parks Conservancy a few weeks ago, and we decided that my project for the semester would be to design a native bee hotel. This bee hotel would be a structure that provides nesting spaces for bees to lay eggs and find shelter. Even though this is a smaller project, it will still follow the general structure of the design process. Being in the beginning research phase, I started with learning all about native bee hotels and looking into precedents to show the client.
Yesterday, I met again with the Parks Conservancy to discuss the research and precedent study before diving into the design of the bee hotel. In this meeting, we discussed things such as site location, size, materials, and general structure. We also discussed what types of bees are local to the area, and I was shown a “bee box” which had the actual bee species (which I was assured were no longer alive). All of this information gathered during the meeting will help inform the design of the hotel moving forward.
