[Pollinator] Sausalito Team Wins Haagen-Dazs-UC Davis Honey Bee Haven Design Competition

Fri Feb 27 10:18:53 PST 2009

Sausalito Team Wins Häagen-Dazs-UC Davis Honey Bee Haven Design Competition

Feb. 26, 2009  

 <http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/images/sibbettgroupplan.jpg> Sibbett
Group plan

This is the award-winning design, from the Sibbett Group, Sausalito, in a
competition funded by the Häagen-Dazs® brand. It will come to life at the
Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis. Click to
enlarge. 

DAVIS—It’s a honey of a garden, the judges unanimously agreed.

The Sausalito-based Sibbett Group <http://www.sibbettgroup.com/>  created a
series of interconnected gardens with such names as “Honeycomb Hideout,”
“Nectar Nook” and “Pollinator Patch” to win the international bee-friendly
garden design competition, a gift to the University of California, Davis,
from the Häagen-Dazs® brand. 

The design, the work of landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F.
Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika
Kurotaki, will be brought to life this summer on a half-acre site at the
Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road on the
UC Davis campus. 

Last December Häagen-Dazs ice cream committed $125,000 to the UC Davis
Department of Entomology for the garden project. This encompasses site
planning, preparation and the design competition. 

The key goals of the garden are to provide bees with a year-around food
source, to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees and to
encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own.   

 <http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/images/honeybeeonsagehr.jpg> honey bee
on sage

Honey bee on sage. Click to enlarge. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) 

 “We’ll not only be providing a pollen and nectar source for the millions of
bees on Bee Biology Road, but we will also be demonstrating the beauty and
value of pollinator gardens,” said design competition coordinator Melissa
“Missy” Borel, program manager for the California Center for Urban
Horticulture <http://ccuh.ucdavis.edu/> . “My hope is that it will inspire
everyone to plant for pollinators!”

 “The winning design fits beautifully with the campus mission of education
and outreach, and it will tremendously benefit our honeybees at Bee
Biology,” said Lynn
<http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/faculty/facpage.cfm?id=kimsey>  Kimsey,
professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and director of
the Bohart Museum of Entomology. “The garden will be a campus destination.”

Kimsey served as one of eight judges who unanimously selected the design
from among 30 entries, submitted from as far away as England. The winning
team will be honored at the garden dedication in October, where they will be
presented with an engraved name plaque. They will also be given the sweet
reward of free Häagen-Dazs ice cream for a year.   

“We had so many wonderful garden concepts submitted that making the final
choice was really difficult,” Kimsey said. 

The Sibbett Group design zeroed in on sustainability and visitor experience.
The four interconnected gardens, “Honeycomb Hideout,” “Nectar Nook,”
“Pollinator Patch” and “My Backyard” form the “physical and interpretive
framework for our honey bee haven design,” the authors said. A series of
trails connect the gardens. Trellises define the entry ways and reinforce
the passage to the next space. 

“Incorporated into each of the four sections are gathering spaces that serve
as orientation points for guided tours, facilitated programs and ‘chat time’
with beekeepers and entomologists,” the team explained. Identification
labels will help visitors know more about the plants, or what they can plant
in their own yards.

The design also includes a “Learning Center” building and paths labeled
“Orchard Alley,” “Save the Bee Sanctuary,” “Round Dance Circle” and “Waggle
Dance Way.” 

Judges initially narrowed the 30 designs to six, and then focused on
diversity (the winning design has 40 different plants), bloom balance,
vision, generational learning, cost feasibility and attention to detail.
Judges also declared the Sibbett Group design “the most river or
environmentally-friendly.” 

 <http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/images/harrylaidlawsignhr.jpg> Harry H.
Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility

Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. Click to enlarge. (Photo
by Kathy Keatley Garvey) 

In addition to Borel and Kimsey, the panel of judges included: David Fujino,
executive director, California Center for Urban Horticulture at UC Davis;
Aaron Majors, construction department manager, Cagwin & Dorward Landscape
Contractors, based in Novato; Diane McIntyre, senior public relations
manager, Häagen-Dazs  ice cream; Heath Schenker, professor of environmental
design, UC Davis; Jacob Voit, sustainability manager and construction
project manager, Cagwin and Dorward Landscape Contractors; and Kathy Keatley
Garvey, communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology.

Schenker praised the Sibbett Group design as “beautiful and very
functional.” “The interpretive elements are imaginative,” said Schenker. “I
think this design team has a great range of expertise and has taken a very
well-rounded approach to the program.”

Majors said the cost estimate was well organized and the cost of materials
very realistic. “The introduction outlined how the design was scalable which
shows the collaborative approach of the four-person team and their
willingness to work with budget,” he said. 

Honey bees pollinate more than 100 different U.S. agricultural crops, valued
at $15 billion. However, in recent years, the nation’s beekeepers have
reported losing from one-third to all of their bees due to a mysterious
phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder. 

In response, the Häagen-Dazs brand launched the "Häagen-Dazs Loves Honey
Bees" campaign in February 2008, committing a total $250,000 donation for
bee research to UC Davis and Pennsylvania State University,  and redoubled
its efforts in 2009 with a second $250,000 donation, bringing the brand’s
total donation for honey bee research to a half million dollars.  It also
formed a scientific advisory Bee Board, created an educational Web site
<http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/>  and introduced the new Vanilla Honey Bee
ice cream flavor. Bees are crucial to nearly 50 percent of their all-natural
flavors.

During the last several months, the public has answered the Häagen-Dazs
brand's call to action by donating more than $30,000 to support additional
honey bee research at UC Davis. In addition, numerous companies have
launched programs to donate a portion of their proceeds to UC Davis honey
bee research. 

Winning design: 
Sibbett <http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/Sibbettgroupplan.pdf>  Group
Plan (PDF, 21 pages) 

The rules: 
Bee <http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/beegardendesignparameters.pdf>
garden design competition parameters (PDF, 5 pages) 

Contacts:
Diane McIntyre, Häagen-Dazs
(510)-601-4338, Diane.McIntyre at dreyers.com              

Rita Gorenberg, Ketchum 
(415) 984-6228, rita.gorenberg at ketchum.com 

Kathy Keatley Garvey, Department of Entomology, UC Davis
(530) 754-6894, kegarvey at ucdavis.edu

  _____  

Back to News <http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/index.html> 

--Kathy Keatley Garvey <mailto:kegarvey at ucdavis.edu> 
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology 
(530) 754-6894

Laurie Davies Adams

Executive Director

Pollinator Partnership

423 Washington St., 5th floor

San Francisco, CA 94111

415.362.1137 PHONE

415.362.3070 FAX

lda at pollinator.org

www.pollinator.org

Our future flies on the wings of pollinators.

National Pollinator Week  - June 22-28 - join the national campaign today at
www.pollinator.org!

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20090227/fd66c373/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 57050 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20090227/fd66c373/attachment-0003.jpe>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 36535 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20090227/fd66c373/attachment-0004.jpe>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 79810 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20090227/fd66c373/attachment-0005.jpe>