“Insects, worms, and other small animals that carry out vital functions for life on earth have declined by 45 percent average over 35 years, threatening human, water quality and food supplies…”
– Steve Connor, “Vital invertebrates decline 45 percent, study finds,” independent.co.uk, July 2014
Research Proposal
My plan for my insect hotel was to design and create something that differs from the many other insect hotels in existence. One thing that I’ve noticed about insect hotels from research is that many of them do not contain many out-of-the-box shapes and designs such as round and triangular shapes. I was aware that creating such complex shapes with wood would be difficult to do and plan but I knew I could accomplish my goal of making my insect hotel unique and pleasing to look at.
Insect Research
My plan for my hotel was to create different pieces/rooms for many different types of insects. One material that I used in my final piece is cardboard, which attracts many different types of insects. For example, cardboard attracts insects such as roaches, termites, and crickets. These three insects like to either eat the cardboard or just find shelter within it. I also planned to fill some of my other “rooms” with leaves/plants to attract slugs and other leaf-eating things.
Initial Sketches
While doing initial research of insect hotels I noticed that an important factor to the function of the hotel was to create little pockets to store the materials for the insects inside. In order to make my hotel visually interesting, I wanted add pieces of chicken wire staggered on the fronts and backs of my “rooms.” This is also useful to the function of the hotel because it would help to hold in the materials that I fill the rooms with.
Digital Design: Google Sketch-up
For my final piece, I planned to create a three-layered insect hotel. All of my wood triangles are the same and I planned to attach them in a pyramid-like shape, then separate them by circular wood dowels in order to add more dimension and height to my piece. I decided not to add a roof to my final plan because I did not think that it needed one and I did not think that it would help my piece in any way, even though it is part of my sketch-up drawing. The goal for my final project was to have it completed almost exact to the way that my sketch-up drawing looks (except for the roof) and for everything to come together smoothly.
Final Reflection
Overall, I am very proud of how my insect hotel turned out. This project taught me a lot of useful things that I will use for the rest of my life. For example, it taught me how to use many different woodworking machines that I had never used before. It also taught me how to measure things out more accurately and how to put pieces of wood together. Another thing that this project taught me is how badly the population of insects has gone down within the past decade. It is a wonderful thing that I get to use my power as an artist to inspire other people to create insect hotels and hopefully help the insects! I believe that in the end I made the right decisions with my final design and I hope that the people who view my project can enjoy looking at it just as much as I enjoyed creating it. I also hope that the insects find a good home in my project too!