When imagining a “high-rise office building”, most people think of an enclosed glass and steel box, stripped of detail, perfect in its photogenic, modernist simplicity. African architect Mick Pearce has tried to change that model, demonstrating his ideas in two signature buildings, the Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the Council House 2 Building in Melbourne, Australia. Both buildings employ common-sense passive systems for climate control based on gradients and inspired by the work of a tiny insect, the termite...more.