Yes and no, I have heard about similar approaches; in the 90ies I was quite interested in Passivhaus and zero-energy buildings (in the context of http://peter.wurmsdobler.org/smartcontrol/smartcontrol.html) . And as it happens, the TU-Wien has now one of the advanced positive-energy buildings (in German): https://www.big.at/projekte/tu-wien-institutsgebaeude-bt-ba/

Traditional English houses do however not lend themselves to the termite approach; nevertheless, there is plenty of scope to improve the thermal performance of existing buildings, and even more so for new builds. Unfortunately, the British are stuck in the old way of building houses (thermal mass outside, insulation inside).