TERMITES AND MIKE PEARCE

The Science

The picture shows a mud tube built by termites using saliva, sand, clay and organic matter. These tubes grow into huge mounds in areas like Africa. These structures inspired the formation of a sustainable building in Zimbabwe as described below: Mike Pearce, an architect faced with the task to design such an architecture for EastWest Centre in Zimbabwe that would maintain a stable, humid internal climate using no mechanical energy in the harsh Zimbabwe climate was inspired by the termite mounds. A comparison of Mike's sustainable structure and termite mounds is given below: •The mud tube is structured in such a way that it has high thermal mass (absorbs heat slowly during day and releases it slowly at night) keeping internal temperature cool.Mike used heavy concrete slabs and brickwork instead of steel and glass increased the thermal mass of building. •Termite moounds work on passive stack effect i.e. heat generated by millions of termites inside the mound warms the air causing it to expand and rise eventually moving it outside. Similarly at Eastgate Centre heat generated by human activity, computers and lights rises up and is removed by the chimneys present on the rooftop of the Centre. •Lastly, like a lung the mound exhales its heat outside at night time when external temperatures are low, resetting its thermal capacity for the next hot day. Likewise the porous concrete floor allows heat exhange at night with minimum power consumption.

Why I Chose It

I selected this lhot because termite tubes are quite common in houses yet very few know about the interesting science behind termite houses. Moreover, this shows how biomimicry has lead humans to invent many useful things.

Ayesha Ashraf Verified Volunteer

Volunteer · Explorer · Bahawalpur · Member since Jul 2026