Biomimicry: What architects can learn from termites and elephants

TERMITES are often vilified as pests, but they are, in fact, some of nature’s finest engineers.

Some species of termites build massive mounds that are self-cooling, almost like in-built air conditioning. These mounds – made of soil, saliva and dung – have an intricate network of tunnels linked to a central chimney. Warm air inside the mound rises and escapes through the chimneys, drawing in fresh waves of cool air.

“It’s quite a beautiful system, almost like a lung,” says Dr Anuj Jain, founding director of bioSEA, a company that specialises in the esoteric field of “biomimicry” design.