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BEE HIVES: A NEW METAPHOR IN ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION 1 line 2

lines Professor Khaled Mohamed Dewidar Vice Dean for Teaching and
Learning British University in Egypt

Presentation · June 2017

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1307.9287

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BEE HIVES: A NEW METAPHOR IN ARCHITECTURAL

COMPOSITION
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Professor Khaled Mohamed Dewidar
Vice Dean for Teaching and Learning
British University in Egypt
ABSTRACT:
The collision and the relationship between architecture and biology rely largely on the visual
comparison between animals and buildings. Freed from the constraints that favored rectilinear
modernists’ designs, architects are celebrating the eruption of wild forms that go beyond the
merely organic concepts. There are new materials and a new bravado among structural
engineers that allow forms imagined on a computer screen to be actually constructed. This new
architecture provides on emphatic answer to the recurrent question: “In what style shall we
build?” Labels have been proposed such as “biotechnical and techno-organic,” but these imply
a restrictive dependence of biological forms upon technological means. Biomorphism a term
coined during the Art Nouveau Period, remains more specific than organic, but suggests that it is
only the shape that matters, whereas it is also patterns and mechanism of buildings and
operations derived from biological matters that interact us. This research focuses on Bio-mimic
architecture or zoomorphic architecture. Animal or human forms are employed for symbolic and
metaphoric reasons, sometimes because nature inspires an idea for a structural skin or a
building function.

Fig. 1 Jacques Françoise Blondel Body and Building.

Fig. 2 Eye Lid Design for Valencia Sport Arena Santiago Calatrava.

There is a long-lived tradition of representing natural forms in human culture; we find that it is
not entirely by chance that animals and buildings share some of their most basic characteristics.
One trait that buildings and animals often share is bilateral symmetry. In the 16th century
Georges Vasari laid out his conceptual plan for an ideal palace on anthropomorphic lines. The
façade was analogous to the human face, the courtyard to the body and finally the stairways to
the human limbs. The only symmetry that such a design possesses is the bilateral symmetry. The
bases for such symmetry were laid by the 18th century architectural theorist Jean- Nicolas Louis
Durand’s concept of the principle and secondary axes proper to architectural compositions.
The fondness for bilateral symmetry has persisted from the classical period through the Gothic
and Renaissance and has even extended to a surprising degree in the villas of Le Corbusier. But
bilateral symmetry is just a start. Perhaps, as Greg Lynn suggests, it is merely the cheapest form
of beauty. There was a lull in organic forms interest following the demise of Art Nouveau that
was made possible by the developments in concrete construction as much as Art Nouveau was by
 the use of steel and glass. Engineers as Nervi, Gio Ponti as well as Oscar Niemeyer exploited
concrete’s structural potentials. The triumphant projects of this decade were Eero Saarinen’s
TWA terminal, and John Utzon’s Sydney Opera House.
Nature has never triumphed over machine either in architectural metaphor or in fact. But as
knowledge increases of biological form and function, so many analogies and metaphors from
living organisms commend themselves. At the same time, our comprehension of biological grows
more detail led and mechanistic. It is how becoming evident that a new strand of biomorphism is
emergency where the meaning derives not from any specific representation but from a more
general allusion to biological processes. A central Figure in the direction is the biologist D’Arcy
Thompson, who in 1884 published his seminal work showing that the shape of living items has a
physical and a mathematical bases and thus, form as a diagram of flowing forces.
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Conference theme: Philosophies, theories and concepts of biomimicry.
Keywords:
Biomorphic, symmetry, organic, biology, metaphors.
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Introduction:
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It is also obvious to state that one of the major differences between buildings and animals is that the
later are capable of movement, while the former are rooted to the ground. As buildings incorporate ever
more moving parts, used for environmental control and other purposes, it is clear that there are wider
lessons to be learnt, not only from the static structures of living organism but also from the mechanism
by which they and their parts are able to move. Beyond this lie buildings capable of movements.
It seems that digital technology is capable of unleashing this fluid and dynamic concepts in the
architectural domain, where architecture for these digital architects is considered a form of life that is
subjected, like the natural world to the principles of morphogenesis, replication and selection.

Architectural design that is the product of genetic algorithms is modeled on natural processes of
evolution. I think it will be the answer of a new trend of digitally built architecture on the basis of
natural and biological ideas. Generative techniques are based on the simplicity of the growth grammar
describing dynamic complex systems, that seem to be so easily built by nature. It’s quite interesting to
declare how a system looks like and have it modeled on an easy and fast way, obtaining pretty
interesting final results. But at the end, are we going to win something by using concepts found in
nature? These simple questions could confuse one, if not prepared for them. The architecture in classic
means is the result of four key factors: function, construction, aesthetics and economy. Each of these
rules determines what would be the value of an architectural creation. That means that:

Value = function * construction * aesthetics * economy

We could not create a building that only provides great function but lacks a construction, neither a
building which has only perfect construction but lacks function and is too expensive. Each of these 4
factors play important role and is inter-related with the rest. Having that in mind, let’s have a look at the
structures found in nature: they all are result of the evolution, they all have walked a long way of
adaptation and morphogenesis, resulting forms that respond the best way to the needs of the
corresponding organisms. During the process of evolution, the forms are optimized in an iterative way;
the structures mutate to fit the environment, because the only one to survive is the one which is the
most adaptive, the form which fulfills perfectly its function, has sustainable construction and achieve
this at the lowest price possible.

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 Fig.3 The Hexagonal Cofiguration for the Bee Hive

Let’s have a look at a very interesting natural phenomenon – a bee hive. A beehive is an
enclosed structure in which some honey bee species live and raise their young. Natural
beehives are naturally occurring structures occupied by honey bee colonies; the beehive's
internal structure is a densely-packed matrix of hexagonal cells made of beeswax, called a
honeycomb. The bees use the cells to store food (honey and pollen), Natural hives

The basic nest architecture for all honeybees is similar: honey is stored in the upper part of the
comb; beneath it are rows of pollen-storage cells. The beehive is a commonly used symbol
dating at least to Roman times. In modern times, it is used as symbol of industry and co-
operation, and as cautioning against intellectual laziness

 A bee hive is functional – The bee-hive form is based on axe-symmetry providing easy access
for each bee, each cell is connected to a reservoir where the honey is stored

 A bee hive is Economic – Do you know which the most economic shape in the plane is? It’s
the circle, which has the greatest area for the smallest perimeter. The same applies for the
sphere in the 3d space in terms of volume. Now…Which is the most economic tiling of the
plane done by a single regular polygon? There are 3 possible tiling: triangle, square and
hexagon tiling. As you could guess, the hexagon tiling is the most economic planar tiling of the
three given that the hexagon is the shape that is closest to a circle. In the past, billions of years
ago, probably there were bees that lived in square cells but they vanished making place for bees
with more economic hives
 A bee hive is Strong – the construction of the beehive is quite durable. Between each cell of a
bee-hive there is a small triangle, thus forming the hexagonal network of the cells. It’s proved
that all these little triangles create great strength in the whole construction, as we all know that
a triangle is an in deformable shape, widely used in engineer frames…
 A bee hive is Aesthetic – nature is beautiful…..complaints anyone? According to Kant, Hegel
and other philosophers coined the aesthetics discipline there are 4 main properties
characterizing beauty: Harmony, Wholeness, Expressiveness and Measure. Measure is a
property that states that everything should be such, as it should be… The nature and its
creations are always in Measure.

The bee-hive example was to illustrate, that the problem of creating a good architecture is solved
perfectly in many natural creations. Thus, by observation and experiment, we could try to use the same
morpho-genetic rules to create sustainable, functional, economical, and beautiful architecture and in the
same way insuring flexibility.

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Voronoi Algorithms (As an application on Beehives)

1. Definition.
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Voronoi diagram is the partitioning of a plane with points into convex polygons such that
each polygon contains exactly one generating point and every point in a given polygon is
closer to its generating point than to any other. A Voronoi diagram is sometimes also known as
a Dirichlet tessellation. The cells are called Dirichlet regions, Thiessen polytopes, or Voronoi
polygons.

Fig. 4 dividing a plane with a set of points (S) into a voronoi diagram, the left picture shows the main points
( voronoi points or cells) and the circled points are the generated voronoi nodes. The right figure shows the
voronoi diagram generated based on the voronoi points.

In the simplest case, we are given a set of points S in the plane, which are the Voronoi sites.
Each site s has a Voronoi cell, also called a Dirichlet cell, V(s) consisting of all points closer to
s than to any other site. The segments of the Voronoi diagram are all the points in the plane
that are equidistant to two sites. The Voronoi nodes are the points equidistant to three (or
more) sites. (Fig. 4)

Fig. 5 Main definitions concerning any Voronoi diagram.

The diagram created by connecting the voronoi points is called Delaunay Triangulation. (Fig.
5)

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2. Explanation.

2.1 A 2D lattice gives different tessellations depends on the voronoi nodes. The
tessellations vary according to the distribution of points. (Fig. 6)

Fig. 6 shows different voronoi diagrams due to variations in the voronoi cells.
2.2 A voronoi diagram is modified by modifying any point or set points in the voronoi
sites. ( Fig. 7)

Fig. 7 a simple Voronoi diagram with 5 points is modified by moving one point.

2.3 Voronoi diagram properties: A vertex of a Voronoi diagram is the centre of a circle
passing through three sites. Each point on an edge of the plane is the centre of a circle
passing through two sites. (Fig. 8)

Fig. 8 a vertex of a Voronoi diagram is the centre of a circle passing through three sites.

2.4 Naturally Occurring Voronoi (3d): The voronoi geometry is an organizational

phenomenon that is sometimes referred to as “nature’s rule.” It re-occurs at a variety of

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 scales, materials, and life forms. Different examples are found in biology, mineralogy of
formation principles geometry, and construction such as foams, sponges, bone structures
and crystals. (Fig. 9)

Fig. 9 Voronoi diagrams in biology and mineralogy of formation principles, geometry, spatial effect and
construction such as foams, sponges, and bone structures.
Voronoi diagram in 3d has the following characteristics:-
- Every 3d cell is defined by one point at its center.
- Every two points define a plane midpoint between them.
-All boulders share a face.
-They fit together perfectly.
- distributing points in a volume is enough to generate a 3d voronoi diagram. (Fig. 10)

Fig.10 Different voronoi diagrams due to the variations in points distribution.

3. Simple Voronoi Algorithm.

The following steps are the simplest form of a voronoi algorithm (in the form of a
natural language):-

a. Take a set of points.

b. Construct a bisector between one point and all the others.
c. The voronoi cell is bounded by the intersection of these bisectors.
d. Repeat for each point in the set.

4. Architectural Applications
Voronoi diagram lately are becoming useful in architectural design. There are a number of
reasons making voronoi diagrams useful in architectural design (Fig. 11):
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 4.1 Their structural properties, both in 2d and 3d.
4.2 As a way to subdivide/organize space, based on proximity/closest neighbor.
4.3 The fact that they can describe many natural formations, like soap bubbles, sponges or
bone cells, with their minimal enclosure system of bubbles.
4.4 Its expansion in three dimensions organizes a constructive expansion toward infinity in
all directions without any gaps.

Fig. 11 Methods of applying voronoi diagrams in architecture by starting with certain points.

The distribution of points is relative to the architectural program requirements. It would be

more interesting to use voronoi diagrams in relation to a growing process such as cellular
automata or l-systems. That could produce dynamic voronoi diagrams, and at the same time
would be closer to their mathematical/algorithmic nature.

Based on Voronoi algorithms as a beehive Hexagonal architectural metaphor, some examples

will be presented:

5. Examples.

5.1 Water Cube, National Swimming Center, Beijing, China. By PTW architects/John
Bilmon (Fig. 12):-

Fig.12 Right: the main building reflects the use of voronoi diagram, Left: using the envelope to .optimize
Wat er Cube, S wimming Cent er , Beij
the building ing, China.
performance.

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 Fig. 13 Interior picture show the surface constructed by a voronoi diagram.

This is a building all about water. Water becomes a profound ‘building material’ that
dematerializes the building in a meaningful way. That is the molecular structure of water in its
foam state is magnified into the structure of the building in the form of a voronoi diagram. The
structure of water softens and dissolves all the boundaries, and gives the sophisticated ‘micro’
details to the monolithic totality. The sophistication of the components and the simplicity and
monumentally of the whole gives the building an interesting duality. (Fig. 12, 13)

5.2 Generating a high rise building.

This tower is created using a certain algorithms based on Voronoi diagram. In the tower the
created 3d polygons represents the architectural spaces that will be used in the project.

The design is generated through the following steps:-

Stage one: Specifying Voronoi points in 3d based on the design program, and the context. A
series of studies were done to study the generated points relative to the site (entrance,
orientation, etc) and relative to the function. (Fig. 14)

Fig.14 specifying the points in space to generate the form based on Voronoi diagram. Studying the form
relative to the context.

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Stage two: Smoothing the outline of the tower created from the voronoi diagram. (Fig.15)

Fig.15 smoothing the outline of the tower.

Stage three: Studying the architecture spaces created and the generated voronoi diagram. (Fig.
16-17)

Fig.16-17 studying the generated spaces.

Fig.18 Clusters generated by voronoi cells resembles the relation of bones to organs.

The edges of the voronoi cells become the structure, while the voronoi cells are used (in a
'smoothed' version) as clusters of space in a configuration that resembles the relation of bones
to organs. (Fig. 18)

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Stage four: Depicting the final form. (Fig. 19-20)

Fig.20 final form for the building.

Today there is a wide spread interest in buildings that respond actively to their environment
which indicates a deeper relevance of biological similitude to their function and behaviour as
well as their appearance. While the environment may alter, buildings tend to stay the same
living organisms are both adapted to their environment over the long term by evolution and are
capable of responding in various ways to its change. Similar adaptation is one of the main
goals of those pioneering the emerging field of biomimetics. We would like the intelligent
buildings of the future to react to the surrounding environment. The zoologist Julian Vincent
defined biomimetics as the abstraction of good design from nature. It is not the slavish
imitation of nature at any cost, but the judicious selection of observed properties and their
subsequent development into sophisticated artificial technologies.

5.3 United Nations memorial by London-based architecture firm ACME

United Nations memorial is comprised of a 1,500 seating assembly, two conference halls, a
theater and exhibition spaces. The organization of the memorial is metaphorically
modeled similarly to the United Nations, where many parts make up the whole. (Fig. 21)

Fig.21 Elevations for the building.

Similar to how the UN is formed by individual nations; the memorial entails a cube comprised
of smaller “cells.” These cells, which are meant to represent the “collective nature of the UN’s
identity” fuse together to create the final shape. Each piece functions differently as some
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provide exhibition space and others function as offices and restaurants. ACME explained that
the “memorial should represent the nature of the United Nations, where many individual
nations come together to create one entity, but without losing their individual identities.”

Fig.21 generating the main form by Voronoi diagram.

Fig.22 Main space of the building.

Conclusion

Today there is a wide spread interest in buildings that respond actively to their environment
which indicates a deeper relevance of biological similitude to their function and behavior as
well as their appearance. While the environment may alter, buildings tend to stay the same
living organisms are both adapted to their environment over the long term by evolution and are
capable of responding in various ways to its change. Similar adaptation is one of the main
goals of those pioneering the emerging field of biomimetics. We would like the intelligent
buildings of the future to react to the surrounding environment. The zoologist Julian Vincent
defined biomimetics as the abstraction of good design from nature. It is not the slavish
imitation of nature at any cost, but the judicious selection of observed properties and their
subsequent development into sophisticated artificial technologies.

The attraction of biomimetics for architects is that it raises the prospect of closer integration
of form and function, in this light. Bio mimetic architecture is seen as an extension of
modernism. The urge to build in closer sympathy with nature is as Dr. George Jeronomodes of
the centre of biomimetics at the University of Readings, a genuinely biological and not merely
Romantic urge. These inspirations will undoubtedly lead to new materials and technologies.
The building as an organism is a seductive vision.

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 References
1. Benyus, J., (2002) Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, Harper perennial.
2. Kolarevic, B., (2002) Performative Architecture: Beyond Instrumentality, Routledge.
3. Maizels, J., (2002) Fantasy Worlds, Taschen.
4. Nostrand, V., (2002) Architecture: Form, Space, and Order, Routledge.
5. Pawley, M., (2008) Architecture & Biomomecry, MIT Press. Boston.
6. Pearson, D., (2001) New Organic, Taschen.
7. Phillip, C., (2003) the organic approach to architecture, Academy Press.
8. Portuguese, P., (2000) Nature and Architecture, Skira.
9. Richardson, P., (2004) the organic approach to architecture, Laurence King Publishing.
10. Steadman, P., (2001) the Evolution of Designs: Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts,
Routledge.
11. Thomson, D., (1971) On Growth and form, Harvard University Press. Cambridge.
12. Weintraub, a.., (2006) Organic Architecture: The Other Modernism, Gibbs Smith.
13. Williams, H., (1988) Zoomorphic: new animal architecture, Laurence King Publications. London.

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