Australian designers have said this is the beginning of the biological age. A conference in Melbourne has heard that their professional attention needs to be diverted from creating items society really doesn’t need, such as stackable chairs that turn into a piece of sculpture, fancy sunglasses, and exotic cars. What they want to see is are designs that harness the forces of nature, through building carpeting covered in plants that can draw carbon dioxide out of the air, and floating cities that preserve fertile land for farming. /, Mick Pearce, the Zimbabwean architect living in Melbourne has been inspired by the humble termite. “Rather like blood circulating in our veins, inside the termite’s nest it’s air. It that’s moved by external temperature and pressures. The total nest or termite nest is a system like our bodiesy. It’s self-regulating, temperature-wise, and that,invades in a way, is an excellent model for a building. It’s an extension to under /our metabolism, if you like |