Architecture | Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects: Beekeeping Sanctuary, Tanzania

Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects is a New York City-based firm that usually designs high-end commercial buildings and residential spaces. They’re switching things up with a project to be completed in 2016 which will bring a beekeeping and honey extraction center to Dodoma, Tanzania. ArchDaily reports that the building was a grassroots-funded effort by Follow the Honey, National Beekeeping Supplies and the Nyuki Safari Company.

The Mizengo Pinda Asali & Nyuki Sanctuary will be a hub where locals can extract, process and sell honey. In the larger scale, the brick building is an educational project about sustainable farming and resource management.

The designers state:

“The design of the sanctuary fosters a sense of community, collaboration, and improvement through informal and formal spaces for interaction. The facilities are organized in a cellular-patterned structure around garden courts providing a framework for future expansion, as well as spaces for informal interaction and learning. Construction is being divided into three core phases; phase one will include spaces for education, honey – harvesting and a market.”

The brick structure will be built from local materials. ArchDaily states:

Mud-fired bricks will be made on site and laid in a manner redolent of local weaving traditions, described by the architects as ‘dimensional, textural, and interwoven’. Their arrangement will vary based on the ventilation requirements of internal programs. An elevated metal roof will rest atop the structure, allowing water catchment as well as passive ventilation and air circulation. The architects hope that the flexible building form can be altered over time to accommodate expansion of the sanctuary as needed.

More photographs of the project follow.

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