(Continuing the series on thinking competencies required for innovation.)
Imagine being an architect challenged to build an attractive, functioning office building that uses no air conditioning in the steamy climate of Zimbabwe. Mick Pearce accepted the challenge and designed his most seminal project: Eastgate, a mixed office complex and shopping mall covering half a city block in the business center of Harare, Zimbabwe. In 2003 Pearce was presented with the Prince Claus Award, which stated in part:
"What makes it unique is that it is not only ventilated, cooled and heated entirely through natural means, but it works. Its ventilation costs one-tenth that of a comparable air-conditioned building and it uses 35 percent less energy than six conventional buildings in Harare combined. In the first five years alone, the building saved its owner $3.5 million in energy costs.
"One needs a considerable leap of design imagination to model a building on a termite mound, or more precisely, on the termite mounds that dot the Zimbabwean savannah. In a rare case of architectural bionics ... bionics being the field in which principles from living organisms are transferred into engineering ... this is what Mick Pearce has done at Eastgate. Small wonder he became so fascinated with termites ... they , too, happen to be ingenious because they have to be. They can only survive if their environment has a constant temperature of exactly 30 to 31 degrees. As temperatures in Zimbabwe fluctuate from 35 degrees at night to 104 degrees during the day, termites dig a kind of breeze-catcher at the base of their mound which cools the air by means of chambers carved out of the wet mud below, and sends hot air out through a flue to the top. They constantly vary this construction by alternatively opening up new tunnels and blocking others to regulate the heat and humidity within the mound.
"Based on the termite mound analogy, Mick Pearce’s Eastgate building uses the mass of the building as insulation and the diurnal temperature swings outside to keep its interior uniformly cool. With Ove Arup & Partners, he devised an air-change schedule that is significantly more efficient than other climate-controlled buildings in the area. Fans suck fresh air from the atrium, blow it upstairs through hollow spaces under the floors and from there into each office through baseboard vents. As it rises and warms, it is drawn out through 48 round brick funnels. During cool summer nights, big fans send air through the building seven times an hour to chill the hollow floors. By day, smaller fans blow two changes of air an hour through the building. As a result, the air is fresh, much more so than from an air conditioner which recycles 30 percent of the air that passes through it." (more at http://www.architectsforpeace.org/mickprofile.html)
Pearce’s Eastgate is a perfect example of what happens when we Aspire to a dramatically different level of performance. It opens us up to looking at things like termites in order to build better buildings.
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Aspire: Imagine a bright future, possibly even an impossible one, and generate the winning concepts that make it a reality. Aspire is one of the "primary" thinking objectives of the new Innovation Igniter Thinking Wheel series of 13 innovative thinking competencies.
The 15-minute learning module for this competency is presented by Michael Bungay Stanier, Principal of Box of Crayons, creator of Get Unstuck & Get Going on the stuff that matters and The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun. These thinking skills are critical for innovation and for the creative work required for today’s world. A 15-minute video module on "Engage Energy" is available at http://innovationigniter.com.
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