Of termitidae's Harmony and homo sapiens's Unending Dialectic

The last century of earth will see human species in sorry state of inculpativation. The intolerable nature of human is critically contradicting the rest of nature, making them the strangest animalia kingdom ever existed on this planet. The paradox of humans nature, which is much represented by some of their works like Energy-Mass-Speed relation, the exploitation of uranium or even their self-admit overly high energy consumption, can be easily seen through and proven by comparing the stark contradiction of humans' and inarguably, termites' architecture.
Ventilation vents in termites mount.

While the dialectic discourse of human on the agenda of finding a fresh new glamour Logos of architecture, the rest of the world (termites a preferable sample) do not seem finding it hard to have a eternal solution of producing a lasting excellent architecture. The theoretical progress of humans architecture, which has yet reach its ultimate harmony, would continue to stumblingly struggles, failing in each attempt to find the ultimate centre. A harmony termites mount would be far adrift the amalgamation of human architecture which is still within great uncertainty.

In the middle of our boast of how complicated our biomatic sustainable architectural terminology is, of how we blend our architecture with nature, nature scoff off a sigh of scorn on our naiveness. A sub-Sarahan African termites mount has all the reasons to proof the incompatibility of human's architecture compared to theirs. With the body size of not more than the size of a quarter of a tiny rice, termites has built comparatively 2743 feet high 'building' while the tallest human made structure now being the Burj al-Arab is only 1922 feet high. Inside the mount, they farm fungus which is their primary food source which must be kept at exactly 87 degrees F, while the temperatures outside fluctuate between 35 at night to 104 degrees F during day. A termites mount achieve this remarkable (LEED Platinum certified maybe..) feat by constantly regulating the opening and closing a series of heating and cooling vents. By using the principal of convection currents, air is sucked in at the lower part of the mound, down into enclosures with muddy walls, and up through a channel to the peak of the termite mound. The industrious termites constantly create new vents and plug up old ones to regulate the temperature. This 'architectural' wonder, existed approximately 251,000,000 years ago since termites evolved. Sadly, we human only learn this from nature in the year 1996 of the 20th century, approximately 250,999,987 year later!

Another page of humans strange architectural evolution.

The Eastgate building in Harare, Zimbabwe, which emulate the bioclimatic features of a termites mount, symbolize not just another page of human contradicting boundless theories in architecture, but also the contradicting humans nature with the other parts of nature. The Eastgate development, owned by corporation Old Main, is itself a mirror of the conflict of human which has until now failed to find the true harmony. Pre-industrial past, tradisional culture was the leading way of thought; industrial age with Modernism as the ultimate episteme; while in post-industrial time see humans' continued struggle for a proper representation, neither Pop, Neo-, Ethnic, Mass, Deconstruct nor parametric could speaks for the majority global dwellers. The establishment of a eternal representation of human architecture stumblingly continue. Old Main, along with the likes of Barclays and others are those who secretly funded the reign of Zimbabwe's president Mugabe, amidst the lasting civil war, hunger and severe corruption the failed nation is facing.
The ventilation holes at Eastgate as direct imitation of the system in termites mount. An architectural mutation it would seems.

A theoretically boundless, strange but avant-garde architecture, ironically found in the trouble-proned continent of Africa, with the most unlikely context of a failed community using it, Eastgate is in stark contradict with the highly organised community system of King-Queen-Worker-and-Soldier living inside a termites mount, those who found the true harmony...While nature cast off a scornful smile on us...the Human.