What makes it truly remarkable is that this "green" building is ventilated and cooled by
natural means, inspired by the self-cooling termite mounds of Africa!
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| Eastgate Centre, Harare, Zimbabwe - image by David Brazier, (CC BY-SA license) source: this Wikipedia article |
Opened
in1996 in central Harare, it is a mid-rise shopping centre and
office block which has over 5 000 m2 of retail space, 26 000 m2 of
office space and parking for over 400 cars.
Inside, a comfortable temperature is achieved without conventional air-conditioning and heating so it consumes less than 10% of the energy that other buildings of the same size require. Isn't that fantastic?
Inside, a comfortable temperature is achieved without conventional air-conditioning and heating so it consumes less than 10% of the energy that other buildings of the same size require. Isn't that fantastic?
The
architect, Mick Pearce, specialises in eco-friendly buildings that are
low cost and low maintenance, using resources that are available
locally. Unsurprisingly, he has won several awards for his designs.
It is amazing that Afric is considered behind...needing our help...what we need to do is support them through encouraging creative minds such as these...minds who look for solutions not profits
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely!
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by.
With so much bad news coming out of Africa it is lovely to find that great things happen there, too.
Beautiful Entry my friend :)
ReplyDeleteThat is WAY cool. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your visit and comment.
DeleteHi, in the Algarve there's a similar approach at AlmaVerde they have the Coolhouse Project (http://www.almaverde.com/villa-designs/coolhouse-project.html) and they also some particular building specifications (http://www.almaverde.com/villa-designs/building-specifications.html).
ReplyDeleteThank you for this information. I didn't know that. It's nice to see that ecological solutions are gradually being adopted around the world.
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