super starchitect at works[though they sometimes responsible for significant damage, these super starchitects can also come to our aid in realizing the reality of life].
we are sorely wrong to be self-acclaimed as starchitect while forgetting our fame and glamorous colleagues who never had to attend any specialized courses to be successful architect planners. our good friends Ar.Termites are the premier architects of the natural world.
in desert countries like australia and africa [arid tropical savannas areas], certain mound-building specialist Ar.Termites, construct extremely large and elaborate skyscrapers look-alike mounds [which house their colonies], that can stand up between 2 feet to 20 feet in height. Ar.Termites are no doubt the smart architect planners in planning their living quarters. Ar.Termites normally will mix their saliva and soil to build a single giraffe-size mound. if we are able to take a closer look at these mounds, we will see that they consist of miniature marvels of architectural and spatial organization. these mini-marvels of construction come complete with a sophisticated air-conditioning system comprising of a series of channels and ducts through which air circulates. porous corridors allow stale air out and fresh air in. this ventilation system thus provide a large thermal mass to keep the interior at a comfortable temperature. these mounds also serve to protect the colony from unwelcoming visitors and any possible damage by floods.
not just a marvelous achievement of ecological engineering in adapting to the climatic requirements, Ar.Termites skyscrapers [mounds] are masterpieces of social organisation, too. the internal spatial layout are brilliantly planned to fulfill their necessity space hierarchy. at the base of the mounds are normally will be the living and working quarters and the royal chamber in which the king and queen reside. other chambers serve as pantries for the storage of food and nurseries for the care of eggs and young. there are even sub-basement mushroom gardens in some colonies, diligently tended by worker-gardeners.
in our tropical malaysiana, though no specific 50 years post-merdeka Ar.Termites’s architectural records of high mounds skyscrapers as high of those in australia and africa or our own petronas’s twin tower ever been built, but the self-thought local Ar.Termites are mostly very specialize in constructing good networks of smart tunnels [termites’ passageways or shelter tubes] built interconnecting compact units of Ar.Termites’ busut [termite nests as they normally called].
the followings are some site conditions that are normally to be chosen by Ar.Termites in their design consideration to site their residential colonies:
1. untreated wood materials which are in contact with the ground such as timber stilts unsupported with proper stumps.
2. wood decking built on the soil surface or untreated wood members in contact with the soil.
3. excessive timber members exposed to moisture due to poor surface drainage system.
why don’t we without hesitating to humbly taking inspiration from these proven hardworking intelligent smart planet's master builders – the termites the animal architects?
