Pestival (Festival)

Our colleague (and my PhD supervisor) Dr. Rupert Soar, a true Renaissance man of our age, and an expert of termite structure, physiology and behaviour, is participating in the Pestival by London's Royal Festival Hall where he, along with a number of collaborators, have build a large scale model of a Namibian termites nest. I remember following his and Dr. Scott Turner's work, in the UK, US as well as Namibia, with fascination. The know-how that is resulting from this research has only touched upon the tip of the iceberg and will inevitably result, in conjunction with Dr. Soar's other research interest and expertise into large scale additive CAD-CAM fabrication, in something that will require us to adjust our paradigms regarding what construction of a habitat entails.

Well done Rupe..!

The press-release and images below provided by Dezeen. Photos by Joseph Burns.

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.