What happens when you give someone a way of looking, without telling them what to find?

Pia takes one small part of her octopus-inspired innovation method out of the office and sends it on holiday to Zimbabwe with her friend Jane.

The experiment starts at Eastgate Centre in Harare, the termite-inspired building from the previous episode. Jane gets one loose lens: How does this place feel? What can you hear? What do you notice? What surprises you?

Then Pia gets out of the way.

What begins as a visit to a biomimicry landmark somehow turns into termite-mound excursions, sunset drinks on top of one, an unofficial Zimbabwe branch of Feral. And a safari where termite mounds become surprisingly competitive with lions.

Underneath the fun is an experiment in attention: how a simple lens can change what we notice, what we follow and even what the people around us start seeing.

A story about biomimicry, octopus intelligence, distributed sensing, curiosity - and what can happen when you direct attention without prescribing the answer.

Partner episode: How Termites Taught a Building to Keep Cool (Eastgate Centre)
Original method episode: The Octopus Method: Octopus Intelligence When You're the Bottleneck

Nature owns the patent. We get to copy it.

S3E07

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feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, is one of biomimicry’s most famous buildings. Designed by architect Mick Pearce and inspired by termite mounds, its passive cooling system uses around 90% less energy for heating and cooling than comparable conventionally air-conditioned buildings.

Thirty years later, Feral went inside.

Our first roving correspondent, Jane, went into Eastgate to find out what this famous piece of termite-inspired architecture actually feels like today, how its passive cooling works, and whether the story we’ve been telling about Eastgate for 30 years still holds up.

She found cold air, 48 chimneys, cactus-inspired surfaces, a touch of The Matrix, some strangely empty upper floors... and a termite story that science has made considerably more interesting since Eastgate was built.

Eastgate engineering functionality still works as designed. But our understanding of the biology moved on.

A story about Eastgate Centre, termite-inspired architecture, passive cooling, biomimicry and a deceptively useful question: what’s already here that I could use instead of fight?

Next episode: Jane takes the Octopus Method into the wilds of Africa. Listen to S1E04, The Octopus Method, first if you can.

Sources
Mick Pearce — Eastgate Centre project page: https://www.mickpearce.com/Eastgate.html

Arup — The Arup Journal, 50th Anniversary Issue: https://www.arup.com/globalassets/downloads/arup-journal/the-arup-journal-50th-anniversary-issue.pdf

Hidden Architecture — Eastgate Centre: https://hiddenarchitecture.net/eastgate-centre/

Nautilus — "The Termite and the Architect": https://nautil.us/the-termite-and-the-architect-234706

ASME — "What Termites Can Teach Engineers" by Mark Wolverton: https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/what-termites-can-teach-engineers

King, H., Ocko, S. & Mahadevan, L. (2015), "Termite mounds harness diurnal temperature oscillations for ventilation," PNAS

Grist — cactus-inspired façade design (Jane C. Hu)

Knight Frank Zimbabwe — Harare CBD office vacancy data

S3E06

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feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Last week, we looked at the biology behind GLP-1 medicines like Ozempic and Wegovy. This revisited Season 1 episode looks at the other half of that moment: the needle itself.

Mosquito mouthparts have inspired researchers and designers working on less painful needle technology, microneedles and medical devices. Their six-part feeding system works very differently from a conventional needle, using multiple tiny structures together rather than one blunt puncture.

When you were a kid, did you ever get jabbed with a needle so big it felt like a medieval weapon? I did, the kind that left welts and trauma in equal measure.

Turns out, the real master of painless penetration was buzzing around my head the whole time.

This episode of Feral by Design explores how mosquito mouthparts inspired biomimicry researchers to rethink needle design, pain, precision and the way we deliver medicine.

It’s a classic biomimicry story: brute force versus elegance, one sharp object versus a coordinated six-part system, and why one of the world’s most annoying insects might deserve a tiny nod of respect before you swat it.

This is a revisited Season 1 episode with a new introduction pairing it with Ozempic’s Secret Weapon.

S3E05A

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.