^NovaHive

^{^{Speculative Hive Design Aligned with Apis Cerana's Natural Nesting Geometry}}

Duration
2021

Researcher
Hanju Seo

Affiliation
- Royal College of Art · Graduate Diploma

Role
- Principal Investigator
- Designer & Fabricator (3D scanning, digital modelling & physical making)
- Researcher (apiculture & bee nesting behaviour)

Collaborator
- Apiary in Hwaseong, South Korea

Award
- Korea + Sweden Young Design Award - Grand Prize · ₩5,000,000
- OPPO Renovators - Shortlist

Exhibition
- London Design Festival, OPPO Renovators Emerging Artists Project, London, 2022
- Design Korea × Sweden Young Design Award, Seoul, 2021

In modern beekeeping, the wax foundation sheet inserted into a rectangular frame is a blueprint designed for the beekeeper, not the bee. It is flat, standardised, and optimised for the convenience of human management. NovaHive began by asking a different question: what would the foundation look like if it were designed for Apis cerana itself? The project drew on the observation that this species naturally nests in rock crevices and curved cavities, constructing comb across three-dimensional surfaces rather than flat planes. By scanning actual stone formations, NovaHive derived a curved, volumetric foundation geometry that follows the spatial logic of the bee's natural nesting environment.

The flat foundation sheet may do more than simplify management. From the bee's perspective, a standardised planar surface could suppress the spatial sensing capacities that the species developed over millennia navigating irregular, three-dimensional cavities. If bees are wired to orient, build, and communicate within curved and complex geometries, imposing flatness onto that process may constitute a form of environmental impoverishment. NovaHive speculates that this misalignment, accumulated across industrial-scale beekeeping, may be one overlooked contributor to Colony Collapse Disorder. The project does not claim a causal proof. It proposes a question worth asking.

The project was awarded the Grand Prize at the Korea + Sweden Young Design Award, presented jointly by IKEA Korea, the Embassy of Sweden Seoul, and the Korea Institute of Design Promotion, and was shortlisted for the OPPO Renovators programme, exhibited at the London Design Festival in 2022.

Stone surface scans, fabricated wax foundation prototypes, and apiary fieldwork documentation.