The home as a hive

New designs of homes in the United States are focusing on the home as a hive:

Home buyers still seek safe, secure havens. But they also seek homes that enhance connectedness with family, friends and the surrounding neighborhood, says consumer research specialist J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich Inc. ... The Yankelovich research suggests that hiving is a response to anxiety people feel as a result of a weak economy, the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq and a number of corporate and institutional scandals. It plays out in home design in many ways.

Oh, if Mr Smith only knew about the domestic violence that sometimes occurs in bee hives. And let's not even mention the fact that no sex ever takes place inside a hive.