The Hive: Futuristic Skyscraper Made Out of Drones

Drones are becoming one of the most versatile technologies we have to date. From surveillance and news reporting, to vlogging and delivery, they’re quickly becoming a modern day Swiss Army Knife. Today they might appear to be just another technology causing a huge headache to the legal system, but soon they’ll become something much more – something grander in scale.

Basing itself on a singular vision for the future of drones, architectural dreamers Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Yifeng Zhao, and Chengda Zhu might just be onto something. Dubbed “The Hive,” this futuristic skyscraper, with its outer shell made out of drones, could easily transform the way we look at these autonomous sky robots forever.

Photo Credit: Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Yifeng Zhao, Chengda Zhu

Photo Credit: Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Yifeng Zhao, Chengda Zhu

The Hive is a project aiming to create a central control terminal that hosts docking and charging stations for personal or commercial drones in the center of Manhattan. As per air-zoning regulations, the primary location of the building not only gathers the commercial power of Manhattan, but also stands away from the no-fly-zones set by the FAA.

The shell of the building would contain modules. In each module there’d house nine different drones categorized by the shape and scale of their landing fixtures. The configurations of each drone would be based on an algorithmic form of geometry and articulation. Here drones would be able to dock horizontally onto corresponding platforms as the building accommodates the frequent animation of drone movement. As a result, the transparency of the building will shift as the drones continue to navigate on and off the facade.

Photo Credit: Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Yifeng Zhao, Chengda Zhu

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

Aptly named “The Hive,” the skyscraper’s design takes on the biomimetic form of a bee’s nest. This not only provides a pleasurable aesthetic to look at, but subsequently invokes a more collective and, yes, grander vision for how future drones should operate. We’re not just talking about a decentralized, chaotic market of personalized drones, operating as each individual sees fit; we’re talking about a single power source – a hub, if you will – for drones to be organized, collectivized, and incentivized for operations that’ll benefit humanity as a whole.

We can already see the potential of drones – delivery services, data collecting, news reporting, etc. How to organize them in a way which gets the FAA off their robotic backs and out fulfilling this vision is a question we need to seriously contemplate and discuss. The Hive represents a possibility for how this could be achieved. Whether or not we take inspiration from it and pursue it is another question entirely. My hopes are to pursue and continue moving forward into the future. How about you?