BLOOMINGVALE
Project background
The sugar industry is having a great impact on the planet- monoculture resulted from sugarcane farming has caused a great loss of biodiversity which leads to the habitat loss for various pollinators. Honey bee, one of the victims, pollinates nearly 80% of the flowering crops in the U.S. which is about 1/3 of everything Americans eat. The more pollinators die, the less food we can get, and the more land will be claimed as farmland, and more pollinators will die...
But we need sugar as our major calory source even though the addiction to sugar is believed to be the greatest cause of obesity and diabetes. Therefore, finding a healthy substitute, both physically and environmentally, is very urgent. Honey as a substitute for cane sugar can be used to raise the public’s awareness of the importance of living a healthier life and the symbiosis of human and non-human.
There are many dangers for pollinators on the ground level, for example, bees are sensitive to magnetic fields. Radiation from the cell phone influences honey bees’ behavior and physiology. Power stations and other electronic infrastructure, in this case, also confuse honey bees when they are seeking for food.
The concept of "Bloomingvale" is at the urban scale, trying to create a Human-Pollinator Co-living system, which employs the archetype of towers to establish a network for pollinators to nest in and navigate between each hub without getting lost and to avoid harm as much as possible. The verticality provides a new urban strategy that allows humans and pollinators to circulate without disturbance and encourages interactions as well.