I was reminded recently of an innovative house building design called a Hivehaus. I first came across this building on the Channel 4 programme “George Clarke’s Amazing Small Spaces” presented by George Clarke. The first time I saw the programme I remember thinking it was a brilliant design and how versatile yet simple it was. However, having now taught a couple of inputs on the Discovering Mathematics module it has occurred to me that not only is the Hivehaus design mathematically pleasing – well to me anyway, it is all based in the fundamental properties of mathematics as a result of its use of tessellation of shapes.

The pictures below are of the Hivehaus prototype and also the 3D plan view from the website planning tool, which you can use to design your own Hivehaus!

It is immediately obvious from picture above that the house is built by connecting (or tessellating) hexagonal units. What is not obvious from this particular picture is that you can add rhomboid or trapezoidal shaped rooms. These rooms are generally studies or bathrooms and fit into the gaps between the larger hexagonal rooms. I suspect that the gentleman who developed this innovative approach to house building used his vast experience of physically building things to ensure rooms of different shapes fit together well although it could be argued that without a fundamental understanding of shape and how shapes fit together, he would not have been able to make this work.

I will have to remember to use this example next time I teach on the Discovering Mathematics module.