Charlottetown beehive project wins national design award

Charlottetown's Nine Yards Studio has won a National Urban Design Award from three groups of architects and planners.

The Urban Beehive Project, created by architects Shallyn Murray and Silva Stojak, won this year's Community Initiatives award. It is one of 12 projects from across the country that received awards, and the only one from the Atlantic provinces.

The demonstration beehives, which house thousands of bees, are next to an amphitheatre made out of hexagon blocks that include interpretive panels. It is located near Charlottetown's Legacy Garden along the Confederation Trail.

Micheal Cox, president of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, one of the groups involved in the awards, said the the Urban Beehive Project embodies "all of the good stuff about great architecture.

"It gets your attention, it makes you smile, it makes you feel better about your day," he said.

"It makes you curious, so it draws you in, and then uses this piece of architecture to inform, to provoke conversation about something that is vitally important and in this particular case, this notion of providing, protecting and restoring habitat for pollinators."

The awards will be presented on Jan. 7, 2019, at the Ottawa Art Gallery in Ottawa, in conjunction with the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism Forum Lecture Series.

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With files from Laura Chapin