32. Biomorphic Design Inspiration

When I look at various designs and architectural styles, the things I usually find most inspiring fall into a somewhat vague category called Biomorphic design.  When designing gardens, I first and foremost seek to complement the project context and the client’s aesthetic.  I don’t believe in imposing some pattern on a landscape that has nothing to do with the buildings and other things around it; or giving a homeowner something they don't love inhabiting.  But there is no doubt that there are some fascinating organic / nature-mimic-ing designs out there that I find inspiring!

I have already written a lot about patterns in nature and the possibility of using those patterns in human-made things.  Biomorphic design is similarly inspired by the forms of nature, looking to give things like a building column or a vehicle a shape like that of a naturally occurring object.  In the academic world, Biomorphism is actually a defined art movement that started in the 1930’s, with connections to the Art Nouveau style that was occurring around the same time.  A well-known early biomorphic designer was Antoni Gaudi, with some beautiful works in Barcelona including the Sagrada Familia cathedral and Parc Guell, with its tree-like columns, pictured here.

There are other closely related terms such as Organic Design and Biomimicry.  As you might guess, Biomimicry is about the copying of biological forms.   It includes the replication of not only the physical forms of nature, but also attempting to reproduce the systems and processes that organisms follow in human-made systems.  A simple example is the use of building shingles like reptile scales to cover an undulating surface and allow for movement of the surface.  This is something you may have seen on a building before, such as the sinuously shingled Price House by Bart Prince, one of my old favorites from architecture school days.

One of my recent favorites is the design of the Australian Garden at the Royal Botanic Garden in Cranbourne Australia by Taylor Cullity Lethlean Landscape Architects.  It has some amazing nature-inspired forms that are skillfully put together to create a gorgeous garden landscape.  The design gives just enough artistic edge to forms that might be found on a coastline or a river meander to make them quite pleasing to the eye.  The first image in this article is an aerial view of part of the garden, and here at the right is a view of the overall garden.  There are many great photos of this large garden, see the References at the bottom for links to the sources for all the images here.

A few local examples that come to mind are the roof of the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco (by architect Renzo Piano), the Tsui House in Berkeley and the Chapel at Sea Ranch.  The Tsui House, often called the fish house, was designed by Eugene Tsui for his parents and built in the mid 1990’s.  As the architect says, the design is “based upon the world’s most indestructible creature – the Tardigrade, with its oval plan and parabolic top it utilizes the same structural principles nature employs.”  It is a striking contrast to the average suburban houses that surround it.

The Sea Ranch Chapel was designed by James Hubbell in collaboration with several skilled craftsmen.  Its forms remind me of a bird taking flight, or some kind of bizarre snail.  The interior is especially nice with some amazing woodwork and stained glass.

In my own design work, I have often found it difficult to follow nature’s forms, mainly because the standard, least expensive building materials are manufactured in squares and rectangles.  There are some creative ways to get complex curves and other natural shapes from these materials, but they often require expert craftsman and lots of labor, something the typical project can’t afford.

However, in just the last decade, I feel like there have been some key advances in technology that are leading to easier ways to produce intricate, nature-inspired forms in the built environment.  Just recently I saw a very interesting curving, faceted wall called the Endograft, that was composed of many small pieces printed out with a 3-D printer, (Created by Smith Allen designers).  3-D printing really has some amazing potential and I can’t wait to see how that technology evolves.Here again I’m touching lightly on a big subject, but mainly excited to share some interesting design images and talk a bit about what inspires me.   I've even dreamed of the development of some kind of building 'seed' media that can be programmed to grow on its own into a functional, inhabitable shape, something like the process of forming a coral reef.  Who knows, maybe someone’s working on such things in a lab somewhere, it seems within the theoretical possibility of nanotechnology and modern materials science… this is the 21st century after all!

References:

Royal Botanic Garden, Cranbourne, Australia:http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/visit-cranbourne

Architect Bart Prince:  http://www.bartprince.com/

Tsui Design & Research:  http://www.tdrinc.com/tsuihs.html

The Sea Ranch Chapel:  http://www.thesearanchchapel.org/about.html