“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
Proposal
Building an insect hotel is something that sounds very intriguing and fun, as well as being a factor in helping out our environment. I plan to make a hotel that will help a multitude of insects, focusing on bees and how they contribute to the world’s ecosystem.
Research
After reading through the issues insect reader, I learned a lot of about the environment and how insects affect our everyday lives. I was really intrigued by bees in general, as there are more than 300,000 bee specimens worldwide, and their populations have been declining rapidly. I think I liked choosing bees the most as they do a lot for our ecosystem, like produce honey and pollenate flowers. Another interesting thing is that besides making hotels for the bees to house in, we are also using them as a means of studying, to find out where some certain bees came from, and if they are native or not.
Sketches
I first thought about going really realistic with this assignment and making a ladybug shape, that would then have different rooms for the bees and ladybugs, but I thought maybe that would look silly and out of place. Even though doing a circle isn’t a safe and easy way to go, I think that the organic shape and final outcome is going to look really interesting and intriguing. I drew some diamond shapes, and I really wanted to incorporate that, so I am going to throw that in the middle of the whole shape. I would like to hang this hotel on a tree, as I think it will be very aesthetically pleasing, but if the weather is to affect this, I will just make a stand for the hotel to sit on. One factor for the circle I considered and drew for was cutting a circle out of a tree stump, but I do not think I am going to go with that option.
Final Design
For my Final design I decided to go with a circle base as I feel like it is something different and in-organic, and I think It will look really cool as a final piece. I also wanted to incorporate a diamond shape and I really liked the look of the single one I drew in the images shown, and it gives the whole hotel both straight and curved lines. I like the whole dynamic part of this hotel, and I am really excited to begin building and constructing it. My idea for process is to make the circle base first by cutting the wood as close to a circle, then sanding the rest down in order to get my shape. I am then going to build the walls accordingly and glue them unto the circle. For the diamond, I am going to cut 4 same sized pieces of wood, and then glue and tack them into place, same with the interior walls of the hotel.