Cohivetation (Cohabit + hive)

Design Research
Product Design
System Design
Circular Design
Design Strategy

This project explores the More-than-Human design approach, examining relationships between humans and natural living beings in co-living contexts. The concept addresses the lack of green space in urban residential areas, where people live in high-rise buildings.

The design focuses on pollinators as key agents of natural growth and expansion through pollination. As a designer, I posed the question: what if rewilding cities didn't require creating huge green spaces that are costly, but instead started by utilising small spaces like balconies and windows in apartment buildings?

Many people grow plants in their flats, but these are typically houseplants rather than native species.

While plant care isn't for everyone, popular houseplants like Monstera Deliciosa and Calathea have transformed us into 'plant parents.' However, these tropical plants offer no benefit to our local ecosystems—they're purely decorative and wouldn't survive outdoors in climates like the UK.

Moreover, in dense urban areas like London, where concrete dominates the landscape, natural areas have little opportunity to flourish. Hard surfaces prevent root systems from establishing, and insects struggle to find suitable habitats for nesting.

Exploring Multi-Intelligence Cohabitation: Designing for Harmonious Human-Nature-Machine Relationships

Through systematic mapping of interdependencies and tensions, this research identifies strategic design opportunities for creating mutually beneficial relationships across all three systems.

Pollinators play a big role in increasing biodiversity and rewilding urban areas. Unfortunately, there is a lot of challenges to bring the pollinators back into the urban area to start rewilding the area.

Gaps categorised based on, human > bees habitat related > pollinators and bees monitoring

Developed a design brief with stages to achieve the goal.

Research was conducted by visiting Imperial Silwood Park Campus to talk with biodiversity researchers & Bumblebee Conservation Trust to understand their challenges and current technology development to increase people's awareness and efforts to bring back pollinators to the urban area.

Diagram explaining the strategy, action, and metric for the intervention

Introducing
Co-hivetation kit

Co-hivetation kit is a product system that reimagines urban planters as ecological infrastructure. The device features a root-inspired structure with integrated cavities that provide nesting and resting spaces for solitary bees and bumblebees, while supporting pollinator-friendly plants above.

An embedded camera system monitors and documents visiting pollinators, creating a detailed record of species activity and behaviour. Users can access their individual data through a companion app, while aggregated data contributes to a public database mapping pollinator populations and distribution patterns across urban areas.

This citizen science approach transforms everyday gardening into active conservation, raising awareness about pollinator decline while generating valuable ecological data. By scaling across communities, BeeNest supports broader rewilding efforts and helps restore nature's presence in densely built environments.

New business model to support nature.

Through partnerships with organisations like the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme, and Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, the Co-hivetation kit creates a collaborative ecosystem where conservation groups, users, and nature all benefit.

A seasonal subscription model provides users with locally-appropriate seeds and growing materials, ensuring optimal pollinator support throughout the year. In return, the aggregated monitoring data helps conservation organisations understand pollinator behaviour patterns and population dynamics, enabling more targeted and effective preservation strategies for local ecosystems.

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