Bug hotels: the City of London meets special guests

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Lev Bely, 30.01.2013 19:40

The very name “bug hotel” could make one itch together with unpleasant reminiscences of someone's horror nights in Thailand journey. These days instead bugs may have an exclusive night-stop in London “bug hotels” that made up a real trend as of late. Such “lodges” were started as a conservation project in the British capital and then were continued by many people elsewhere in Britain.

In 2010 the City of London Corporation announced a competition to create a habitat to nurture and protect insects of London. That was won by the architecture firm ARUP that designed a bug hotel.

The hotel is meant mainly for attracting different bugs, the more the better.

It looks like a beehive with well-arranged cells, where bees, stag-beetles, butterflies and moths passing by may have a comfortable stay. The interiors are thought-out as well: each compartment is filled with recycled stuff and bio-waste so that inhabitants could feed, reproduce and nest, whilst the roof-top is equipped with a rainwater collector.

There are already five bug hotels in the City, and the number is growing. Past November the project has been supported by the City of London Corporation’s charity, the City Bridge Trust’s ‘Growing Localities’ programme. The charity has given £1 million in horticultural grants to help vulnerable young people get skills and jobs in the horticulture industry, including maintenance work on insect hotels. This undertaking was as well carried by many British enthusiasts that make their own bug hotels and recycle various materials to fill them out.

In the course of the renovation the original bug hotels were refilled with natural waste and treated with organic paints to protect them from premature decay caused by weather. Well, six-legged Londoners have one more reason to be proud of their City!

The Time Out London blog, http://now-here-this.timeout.com

Photo (1), (2), (3): bug hotels, The Time Out London blog, http://now-here-this.timeout.com

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