Posts tagged ‘termites’
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The Termite Pavilion
Exciting news: the centre-piece of Pestival 2009 is due to arrive on site this Monday! The Termite Pavilion is a six square metre walk-in structure inspired by the inside of a Namibian termite mound, and will allow Pestival goers a unique insight into these extraordinary organic forms.
The piece is in part based on the pioneering work of Dr Rupert Soar and the TERMES project, a team of international experts based in Namibia who have created the first ever 3D scans of termite mounds. Their findings have been a embraced by entomologists and architects alike, and have featured in Sir David Attenborough’s ‘Life in the Undergrowth’ series.
For the Termite Pavilion, a team of architects and engineers selected a central section a termite mound scan and scaled it up to a size which would allow humans to move through it. The structure will arrive in kit form, to be put together on site. It is made of cross laminated timber, sourced from Austrain spruce, for reasons of sutainability, durability and cost.
The Termite Pavilion is an art and science collaboration between Softroom Architects, Freeform Engineering, Atelier One, Chris Watson, Haberdasherylondon, KLH and Pestival.
More information on visiting the Termite Pavilion is available here
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Resonance FM explores the world of termites
Resonance104.4fm’s impulsive Seth Pimlott flew to Namibia last month to help Dr Rupert Soar research the architecture of termite mounds. Rupert’s team made a cast of a mound, the upper section of which Seth was tasked with cleaning: painstaking and dirty work – but someone has to do it and who better than an 18 year old?Now back in London, Seth is editing the audio he gathered for a special radio programme about his time with the termites which will be broadcast on Resonance in late April.
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Day Trip
This photo is of the day Alistair and I went to meet Rupert Soar in Loughborough for the first time. We realised that we were working towards the same objectives but on parallel lines and therefore it would be perfect to collaborate.
In the photo, you will see it is the end of a long day – Rupert has been explaining to us (with lots of different slide shows and tools and methods, and for eight hours!) about rapid manufacturing, engineering and termites. Here we’re just having some down time with his family before we set off home on the train. A great partnership between TERMES and Pestival had begun. This is the start of our main collaborative piece – The Tower of Life, which is to be the focal point of the Pestival to be housed on the Southbank.
