If you were an architect in the capital of Zimbabwe and a potential client asked you to build an attractive, functioning office building ... without air conditioning, would you jump at the challenge or decline politely knowing that it's a crazy idea?
Mick Pearce is the architect who accepted the challenge and successfully developed Eastgate, a large commercial/retail complex which maintains a steady temperature of 73 to 77 degrees and uses less than 10 percent of the energy consumed by other buildings its size. The client saved $3.5 million immediately by not having to install an air-conditioning plant.
Why was Mick Pearce willing and able to create such a ground-breaking design? Because he had an edge. He didn't have to have a "new" idea ... he only had to apply understanding he had from a different field to the current problem. His interest in ecology led him to the study of termites which keep the internal temperature in their mounds at a constant temperature of 87 degrees (in a climate that ranges from over 100 degrees during the day to below 40 at night). Mick used this knowledge to design a self-regulating building.
Frans Johansson's book, "The Medici Effect," the Innovation Book Club selection for August, advocates the concept of deliberately using intersections as a prime method of generating exceptionally powerful new ideas. As Johansson states it, Mick Pearce "stepped into the Intersection, a place where he could combine architectural designs with processes in nature."
This is a powerful book that helps us think about generating new ideas ... not from a blank slate but rather from a process of combining things that already exist in a way that creates a new and better answer to an existing problem or opportunity.
Highly recommended reading. New book club groups can sign up at http://thinksmart.com/library/bookclub.html.
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