Certainly one of the most intriguing urban project I've encountered lately: miel béton (which means "concrete honey" in french): the production of honey on urban roofs in the northern Parisian suburb of Saint Denis. According to new paris bohemian:
"A graphic designer and visual artist by trade, Olivier Darné began his investigation of bees in 2000, when he first placed a single beehive on his house in Saint Denis. Following that experiment with the installation of a dozen hives on the roof of city hall, Olivier was fascinated by the idea of sending bees out into the city as "prospectors" of the urban environment. What, exactly, could bees tell us about our city, about the relationships between wild and urban, between humans and their surroundings, between space and time? What Olivier found was more than gratifying: bees reproduce, in liquid form, the density, changes, and social organization of our city. If you consider that 3000 hectares (or 5000 acres) of city are concentrated into a single pot of honey, the resulting flavors are a gauge of how we urbanites live. (...) By consuming honey produced in and from their own city, urbanites connect themselves intimately to their land, even if it happens to be one that’s filled with concrete, high-rise housing blocks, and if they’re lucky, bees."
Why do I blog this? definitely not related to technology, I found this project amazingly curious as it shows how cities can be curious places for new forms of design. The intersection between nature and the urban environment is surely a relevant topic for design.