The Construction
How HIVE will be Built?
It Takes a Village to Raise a Village.
HIVE is projected to be developed and constructed from 2020 through 2025.Three HIVE building phases will occur during the time period. Each will be a successful autonomous part of a subsequent progression ensuring a gradual and evolving process of succession.
We remain open to input from members of the community, especially including educational and thought leaders, as we finalize our project. The means are as important as the finished or completed construction.
The final project will comprise 44 buildings and gardens surrounding the inner HIVE structure. Each building will have a square footprint and be made of 11 40-foot steel shipping containers raising three and four floors.
The outer perimeter buildings will be four stories tall, and interior buildings will be three stories. Ground-floor commercial spaces will each be 2,500 square feet with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. Above them will be 320-square-foot studios, and 800-square-foot two-bedroom apartments.
The architecture of the inner HIVE studios will be made from 20-foot shipping containers arrayed in a hemispheric geometry along a structurally integral ramp that reaches a height of 72 feet. The 198-foot-long ramp is sloped to the maximum critical angle of two degrees, creating an element of universal design, a gently spiraled floor conveying both handicapped and able-bodied individuals to the 148 studio spaces. Some of the units will serve as community property: rest rooms, showers, a security booth, workshop, laundry, and an office/museum, for interacting with visitors and prospective new members.
One may think of HIVE as an organism and a franchise. As we complete the Houston HIVE, it is our mission to expand to other areas. Using what we learn in the Houston process, other deployments or strains of HIVE could be realized in configurations suitable to different communities and locations, the common thread being creative service to humanity via pragmatic tailoring of containers to local needs, including sustainable environmental practices and other regional considerations.