Ant Nest Geopark

University of Science, Malaysia (USM), School Of Housing, Building And Planning (HBP), Architecture Department. Minden, Penang

Project idea

The concept was bring up from the cave Gua Kelam. Human living in cave was the fundamental of survival before the civilizations. Cave provide shelter from extreme weather which now we can achieve by building structure, but the natural thermal and living comfort is what we going to look into the site. When we bringing cave into a bigger concept to suit the big site we dealing with, ant nest are strongly related. We have a lot to learn from ants.

Project description

Ants are one of the few groups of animals which modify their immediate environment to suit their needs. They build often elaborate nests in a range of situations, sometimes expending huge amounts of energy in their construction. These nests are commonly occupied for years and some for decades. In addition, some ants use plant fibres or soil to construct protective coverings over nests and feeding areas. Only a handful of animals manufacture such elaborate and complex structures.

With the natural sense of ant in building their colony, we can learn alot from them. They usually find higher ground to avoid monsoon water when rain which closely relate back to our site which have a working river in the middle, the risk of flood are considered from the site analysis data. So that the proposed geopark building are being located on the highest ground in the site to minimize the impact of flood.

Technical information

Activities are part of the ant colony, mainly in searching of food. While bringing out the activities for the user of the geopark, the hierarchy of the main administrative building just like the mountain like ant nest held an important role in giving the sense of the ‘home’ which attract user to go back to it which make a drastic change in the geopark circulation.

Ants are expert in finding resource around their nest. Which remind me to look into the consideration of obtaining energy on site, this is where sustainable resources and energies are being harvest on site. The consideration was made base on the efficiency and the possibility of the particular sustainable energy which in the end identified the final types and locations of the technologies being located.