Composition concept

The Hive public sculpture created as the UK Pavilion for the Milan 2015 World Expo, reinterprets apiarian ecology as an immersive multi-sensory experience, leaving visitors with a lasting flavour of the British landscape. The sculpture has won 27 national and international awards to date and can currently be experienced at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, London. The Hive features a zoned, multi-channel soundscape experience, drive by live data - the concept of which is for the bee’s live activity to author the visitor’s light and sound experience.

Accelerometers (vibration sensors) are used to measure the activity of a real bee colony living at Kew, feeding live signals to 1000 LED luminaires which line the interior of the Hive. Algorithms are used to convert these vibrational signals into lighting effects, allowing the Hive to convey a visual representation of the state of the colony. This visual experience is complemented by a soundscape based upon pre-recorded bee sounds and harmonious stems crafted by an ensemble of musicians forming the BE collective.

The installed soundscape composition in Milan took on a life of it’s own, subsequently becoming a highly successful Album Release ‘ONE’ on Rivertones record label, which in turn led to a series of large-scale, live venue and festival performance of the album in 2016.

Images: Mark Hadden, Hufton+Crow

“A musical score, assembled in part from the beehive recordings that first inspired Buttress, further advances the meadow’s sensory potency. It blends a number of ‘sound stems’ – violins, mellotrons and pianos – with bee noises, using an algorithm that interprets a real-time feed of the activity level of a hive in the UK. Sound, in truth, is the main tool of the pavilion’s storytelling.”

-James Haldane, Architectural Review, May 2015