Harvard Graduate School of Design

2022 

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Agriculture is in a predicament. 80% of our food production depends on pollination; however, current farming practices are increasingly detrimental to the health of honeybees and native pollinators alike. “After the bogs” is born out of necessity; it envisions a future where abandoned cranberry parcels address broader issues of declining floral resources, pollinator productivity, and reduced yields in agriculture. “Native Pollination Services” confronts monoculture and a deficient apiary industry by leveraging existing infrastructure and fallow land to increase pollinator populations.

 

The design process explores pollination as a “fluid dance” and translates spatial patterns in pollinators’ foraging behavior to determine intervention sites. Interventions are paired with transmission lines within the electric grid, hosting the ideal conditions to function as pollinator magnets while increasing connectivity between ecosystems. The proposal also incorporates political frameworks and ecological factors that support an integrated system of native pollinator corridors while suggesting management strategies and cycles. Ultimately, the effects reverberate and expand beyond the borders of Massachusetts, manifesting as crucial not only to increasing demands in production but to agriculture and the food industry as a whole.

 

Model 1

The model works as an analog experiment moving water through capillary action and diluting the ink it comes in contact with to represent the movement of pollinators roaming freely but within a given set of parameters.

Scale 1:45,000

Acrylic, paper, ink, and water.

 

Model 2

The model represents the trapline foraging patterns of bumblebees and route optimization in a field of 250m and at a 1:1 scale.

Scale 1:200 and 1:1

Acrylic and string.

 

Drawings and model by: Mauricio Cohen Kalb,

 

Photos by Mauricio Cohen Kalb.

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Advisor: Mark Heller