An advocate for Bio-mimicry in African Architecture: Mick Pearce

Mick Pearce is a Zimbabwean architect born in June 1938. He was born and raised in Zimbabwe, and currently lives there, but has spent some time living in Australia. He has undertaken projects in both countries, as well as Zambia, South Africa, UK, and China.

In most of his buildings, Mick follows a principle of biomimicry, which is taking inspiration from natural systems and incorporating them into his designs. He also advocates for sustainable architecture, while adhering to the local context, the social and natural environment. He has designed two buildings that have exhibited these design principles well, and these are; the Eastgate centre, in Harare, and the Council House 2 in Australia. The focus of this blog will be the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In the Eastgate Centre, locally sourced materials were used such as bricks. Precast concrete slabs and bricks formed most of the external façade of the building, and these were materials with high thermal mass. There were also small windows, with adjustable blinds attached, as well as deep overhangs, and all of these factors working in tandem improves heat loss of the building at night and minimises heat gain within during the day. The natural system mimicked for the Eastgate Centre were termite mounds. These mounds have the natural property of having their internal temperatures maintained using natural ventilation, and this system was the inspiration for Mick’s design. The building sought to reduce the buildings overall energy consumption and costs, as opposed to using conventional means of ventilation, like HVAC. The systems introduced to accomplish this include 48 brick funnels placed on the ceiling, that sat on top of internal stacks. Utilizing air pressure and natural ventilation, hot air from the seven floors of offices below are pulled out through these vents. Under the office floors, low and high volume fans draw air into the building through filters. The air is pushed through vertical ducts in the spinal core of each office wing. The air is then fed through hollow floors and then grilles positioned low, under windows. When warmed by human activity, it rises to the ceiling where it is then passed outside the building through the exhaust brick funnels in the exterior. This system of air circulation through the building reduced the overall cost of ventilation by 35%. There are water fountains installed on the ground floor, and they raise the overall humidity within the building and contribute to maintaining cool temperatures.

References;

Pearce, M., 2021. Mick Pearce Online Portfolio. [online] MickPearce.com. Available at: <http://www.mickpearce.com/> [Accessed 14 October 2021].

National Gegraphic, 2021. See How Termites Inspired a Building That Can Cool Itself. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=620omdSZzBs> [Accessed 14 October 2021].

World Architecture, 2021. Eastgate Building. [online] Worldarchitecture.org. Available at: <https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-projects/hznm/eastgate-building-project-pages.html> [Accessed 14 October 2021].