Trend Watch July 2025

Bees Are Checking In At Kew’s New Pollinator Hotel

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Millennium Seed Bank, the UK’s Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew Gardens Wakehurst) has combined art, conservation and science in a summer exhibit, ‘Seedscapes’. Artist Kristina Pulejkova designed four pollinator hotels to capture pollen and encourage bees to take refuge in times of extreme heat.

Titled ‘Seed Stories’, the four bee hotels are painted different colours to attract bees. Researchers are able to collect the pollen left behind in the hotels, facilitating the study of which species are attracted to specific tree types.

Visitors can interact with the installations via an augmented reality app to learn about a plant species from the seed bank. The artist hopes to facilitate ongoing scientific research and conservation while raising awareness of the importance of pollinators, biodiversity, conservation and the environment.

The Millenium Seedbank at Kew Wakehurst is the world’s largest underground seed bank and conservation resource for diverse wild plant species.

Read more about ‘Seed Stories’ in Wallpaper Magazine

Six artists have contributed to the Seedscapes exhibition including Australian James Tapscott, with an immersive installation inspired by the Silver Birch Seed, titled ‘Betula Loop’.

Find out more about the exhibit at Royal Botanical Gardens: Seedscapes Programme.

Regenerative Design as a Response to the Water Crisis in Mexico

Reserva Peñitas Credit: Emilio Espinosat

What was once an over exploited, compacted and water drained area now supplies 27% of Mexico City’s water – reports Francisco Brown for Metropolis Magazine.

Water is the central element of the Reserva Peñitas. Located in Valle de Bravo (State of Mexico), just a few hours from the nation’s capital, the Reserve is a cooperative community. Founded in 2009, its mission was to restore and develop 200 hectares of land severely degraded by overgrazing. Now, the Reserve combines conservation with low-density housing, sheltered behind living fences.

A team of landscape architects, architects, biologists, agronomists and forestry engineers restored 70 hectares of forest and 25 hectares of grassland. The project has employed dozens of families with the number of migratory birds visiting the Reserve quadrupling in the last decade.

Today 80 families live in the pristine, diverse landscape surrounded by meadows with flowers, fruit trees and orchards. Dense pine and oak forests are interspersed with lagoons and rivers.

Read the Metropolis Article – Regenerative Design as a Response to the Water Crisis in Mexico.