The Hive in Kew Gardens will bring 17,000 aluminium bars with immersive sound to London

The Kew Gardens in London has a novel installation in place - The Hive. A 17 meter-high swarm of aluminium, the structure has been erected in the middle of a wildflower meadow to enable visitors hear a honeybee chorus beamed direct from a hive and see it transformed into a pulsating light display.

The Hive built out of aluminium bars started out as the British offering to last year’s world expo in Milan, where more than three million visitors experienced it before it was taken down and shipped back to the UK. From Saturday, June 18, it will be open to the public at Kew Gardens until the end of next year.

With the help of engineers Simmonds Studio and architects BDP, it has been constructed out of 169,300 aluminium bars joined at spherical nodes to form abstracted, honeycomb-like hexagons that spiral into the sky. Their rhythm follows the Fibonacci mathematical pattern found throughout nature, from shells to trees, and in the proportions of classical architecture.

To get to the Hive, a visitor has to climb the mound, cross a small bridge and walk inside a dome-like space defined by the aluminium. Its shape recalls a skep — the traditional wicker beehive. Small speakers and 1,000 LEDs are fixed to the structure and the amplified tooting, crunching and quacking of the bees (which communicate using vibrations) via a live feed from a nearby Hive fills the air.