3D print The Beehive
A free, printable model of the Beehive, a round stepped tower on a square base with a thin mast, and the roads, parks and buildings around it, generated from real map data in your browser.
Free, in your browser. Exports a slicer-ready 3MF.
About The Beehive
The Beehive, known in Māori as Te Whare Mīere, is the Executive Wing of New Zealand's Parliament Buildings, at the Molesworth Street and Lambton Quay corner in Wellington. Its common name comes from its resemblance to a skep, a traditional woven beehive. The building is ten stories high at 72 meters (236 ft), and it also has four floors below ground. It is registered by Heritage New Zealand in Category I.
Basil Spence, a Scottish architect, drew up the original concept in 1964: a round building that rises in steps, which he named "The Beehive". Fergus Sheppard, the New Zealand Government Architect, took on the detailed design. Old Government House made way for the project when it was demolished in November 1969, and building work ran from 1969 to 1981. The round footprint is generally seen as an elegant, distinctive feature, yet it leaves many rooms wedge-shaped, curved or asymmetrical.
Its weight rests on 417 Robinson bearings, which use steel shims and rubber layers as shock absorbers in an earthquake. The brown roof uses 20 metric tons (44,000 lb) of copper, hand-welded and seamed, that has weathered naturally. Ministers' offices have been in the building since 1979, and Cabinet meets on the top floor. People often use the name Beehive as shorthand for New Zealand's leadership, and the building has been on the twenty-dollar note since 1992.
How it prints
Make this print opens the generator on a 600 m square around the landmark. Buildings print at close to true scale, so the landmark grows with the print size.
| Print size | Landmark height | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 160 mm default | 20 mm | 1:3,750 |
| 200 mm | 25 mm | 1:3,000 |
| 256 mm | 31 mm | 1:2,344 |
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North
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East
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South
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West
- Thin mast on the roof
- A slim mast rises from the center of the stepped roof. Print friendly adapts it to the print scale; a larger print or Full detail keeps more of it. Print slowly with good cooling.
- Many fine ring bands
- The round tower is made of closely spaced horizontal bands. Layers of 0.12–0.16 mm keep them crisp, and a larger print size keeps the bands distinct.
- One piece with the ground
- The Beehive is joined to the ground in the exported file, and the four-side check found no floating parts, so nothing needs gluing.
- Pick the detail for your nozzle
- In the Buildings settings, set Landmark detail to Print friendly to adapt thin parts and small details to the print scale. Full detail keeps every modeled feature, for larger prints or a finer nozzle.
- Colors
- Buildings, roads, water and ground arrive as separate filament slots in the 3MF. The Beehive takes the building color.
- File format
- You get a 3MF for Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer or PrusaSlicer. Any of them can save it as STL if you need one.
About this model
The Beehive is one of more than 2,300 landmark models in Mini Skyline. They are made with AI, and each one is checked from four sides in its real surroundings before release. Everything around it is built from OpenStreetMap and Overture map data. If you would rather print the shape from map data, turn off Landmark models in the Buildings settings.
Common questions
Is there a The Beehive STL I can download?
Mini Skyline builds the file for you in your browser and exports 3MF, which every major slicer opens. If you need an STL, open the 3MF in your slicer and export it from there.
How big can I print it?
Any print size from 40 mm across. The Beehive grows with the print: about 20 mm tall on the default 160 mm print. For a model larger than your printer bed, Project Mode splits the area into tiles.
Is it free?
Yes. Generation runs in your browser, with no account and nothing behind a paywall.
