If you’re in London this weekend, don’t miss The Termite Pavilion at Pestival, a mobile arts festival examining insect-human interactivity in bioscience, through paradigms of contemporary art, cinema, music and comedy as well as direct scientific demonstration and educational projects.
Photography: Joseph Burns
The piece is in part based on the pioneering work of Dr Rupert Soar and the TERMES project, a team of international experts based in Namibia who have created the first ever 3D scans of termite mounds. Their findings have been a embraced by entomologists and architects alike, and have featured in Sir David Attenborough’s ‘Life in the Undergrowth’ series.
Photography: Joseph Burns
For the Termite Pavilion, a team of architects and engineers selected a central section a termite mound scan and scaled it up to a size which would allow humans to move through it. The structure arrived in kit form and was put together on site. It is made of cross laminated timber, sourced from Austrian spruce, for reasons of sustainability, durability and cost.
Photography: Joseph Burns
The Termite Pavilion is an art and science collaboration between Softroom Architects, Freeform Engineering, Atelier One, Chris Watson, Haberdasherylondon, KLH, and Pestival.
The pavilion opened at the Royal Festival Hall today and is open for visitors until Sunday, September 6. More information on visiting the Termite Pavilion is available here.
Photography: Joseph Burns
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