Termites & Air Conditioning
When you think about air conditioning, you probably don’t think about “termites.” However, we’d argue you should. Years ago, Zimbabwe was experiencing record-level temperature highs. Around this time, Mick Pearce was being brought in to design a building. He was asked to address the heat issue, which resulted in the largest commercial building in Zimbabwe with a natural cooling system. After noticing termite mounds, Pearce mimicked the insect structure since termite mounds have natural ventilation through a complex system of air pockets. What is essentially a chimney on top of the mounts circulates hot air while cool air stays at the bottom. When he used this system for the building, it worked wonders. Now the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe only uses roughly 10% as much energy as a normal AC system.