Biomorphic Architecture
Anjasmoro Maroef
Intensive English Program
07/FA-ENGL-097-19
Professor: Sang Kim
October 31, 2007
1. Introduction
Observing the architecture design today, people will immediately catch the glimpse of confusion for the shape and space that is being formed in present architecture. Many people, feel the shape and space that are formed in today’s architecture are weird and alien that are resemble Star Trek space ship or form of bacteria in the biology class(here I gave the idea and examples of the weird and alien shape). What is going on with the architects? How they decide to design weird and alien form in their architecture? What makes the architect to alienated they’re buildings from the surroundings? What happened to the linier and straight geometry that could form a romantic background for our daily life? The intention of this paper is to reveal the background how the today’s architecture morphology derived from, and giving some explanation how the organic shape of a building could effecting the concepts and organization of architecture design. Through the discussion that I had with fellow architects and my personal observation of architecture studies in recent and past of my study, I conclude that like any cultural products such as language, clothes, the architecture design ideas is always derived from the human civilization cultural expression. (Anjas, without any citation, this is too big concept. You need to provide a citation in the next revision.) Here I explained how I comes up with this idea. As a concept, organic architecture or biomorphic architecture is a way of thinking of how man made space or buildings, should live side by side with natural existing surroundings and condition.
2. Body
The earliest movements of organic architecture was introduced by the first generation of modern architects such as Victor Horta of Belgium, Frank Lyod Wright (USA), Friedrich Hundretwasser an Austrian, and the famous Catalonian architect, Antonio Gaudi, they design aim is to try to give a new vocabulary of architecture in architecture world (Maggie Toy, 1993). The early stage of this movement, so to say were merely mimicking the shape of natural shape (living organism such as plants, animals), in this architecture buildings and the architectural details such as the door knobs, door and window frames, stairs, and even roofs. (Maggie Toy, 1993).This kind of approach was intended as a way to bring the beauty of nature to the interior space of a building. In this era, one can see that most of this organic shape was shaped and built by the hand of the carpenter or masonry, so we can see that there are limitations in mimicking the shape of the nature. The use of materials that was used, also limited to stones, woods, concrete, and glass.
Figure 1. Tree column structure inside of Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. Photo by Daditya Damansara
The development of the organic architecture in the 1900 can be seen in some particular shape of architecture style, one of the most famous styles that are taking the shape of nature is the art nouveau style. Art nouveau is characterized by the use of curves and liquid shape pattern that are derived from the plants components such as the flowers, vines, roots and leaves. This particular architecture was very popular in the Europe. One of the good examples of this kind of architecture is the design of the subway system gates in Paris, France.
At the second phase of the organic architecture development, the architects were trying to connecting the concept of the organic architecture as a way to adapting the natural condition and the shape of the natural environment (the building site).(Juan Jose Lahuerta, Pere Vivas,&PLA, Richard. 2003) The most successful case of this era was the Falling Water House in 1935 in rural southwestern Pennsylvania (Juan Jose Lahuerta, Pere Vivas,&PLA, Richard. 2003) that was designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. This house was considered the good example of the application of the organic architecture concept, because this design was able to maintain the harmony between the natural site resources and also to integrate with the striking natural surroundings. (www.joshcarr.com) The house is well-known for its connection to the site: it is built on top of an active waterfall which flows beneath the house. Here in this phase we can see that the architects are applying the concept and the shape of the nature in a very subtle way. The architect is giving the right proportion, between his creation and God creation the nature.
The latter development of the organic architecture movements, architects were taking more extreme approach to the relationship of nature and the design of the building. Here the scale of the project becomes much more broad and complex. The program and function of the buildings were derived from the natural condition of the site. Architect Eero Saarinen is known for designing grand bird-like buildings such as the TWA terminal at New York's Kennedy Airport and Dulles Airport near Washington D.C. in this phase the concrete as building materials give the architects chances to designing and mimicking the shape of nature in grander scale.( www.joshcarr.com)
Figure2. TWA Terminal, JFK, NY, by Eero Saarinen. (www.joshcarr.com)
The organic architecture design today is driven by the presence of computer. Computer as a tool have helped the designer to set up a new design parameter. The design is generated through sequence of rendering and animation of any kind of shape. This kind of approach through computer, have providing better knowledge for the designer of how the structural and organization of the living organism could be used as supporting structure for designing a frame structure. These new technologies also could give some suggestion and consideration to the designer of materials that could apply in the buildings. Today’s Architect that are endorsing the organic architecture movement: Zaha Hadid (England), Friedrich Hundretwasser (Austria), Toyo Ito (Japan), Santiago Calatrava (Spain) (Anjas, this is too much. Reduce the discussion of technology. Go back to your main focus, organic design.) I deleted some sentence about technology examples and discussion
Success and failure in the organic architecture movements throughout the years; Antonio Gaudis, a Spanish architect that was a really influential architect figure in the 1900 was having a controversial problems when h introduced his architectural style to the people of Barcelona in the 1900. (Kausel, Lewis and Jullian 2002) His style was considered derailed from the normative architecture in his time. The design decision, the architectural detail and how the materials were being put together was something that the people of Barcelona never seen before. The shape was really different and viewed as a form of freedom of expression. The organic architecture materials usually consist of friendly materials that are not harming the natural surroundings. These materials Form and shape of the materials in the organic architecture is actually not much different than other architecture style. The only differences in the organic architecture are the way the architects assign the materials to the building and how the materials being put together. (Kausel, Lewis and Jullian 2002). The materials origins in the concept of the green and sustainability design play important role. The origin of materials is affecting the cost to build the buildings and the energy waste that could sum up the total cost and the waste of the building energy and waste. As we can see the green movements is seeking the materials that are not only earth and ecological friendly, but it also have to have the proximity to the building site. In the sense that the proximity could avoid additional cost for the transportation, and having the proximity from where the origin materials are coming from to the building site, it is mean that the transportation is also not using much gasoline or any other form of energy.
Figure3. Tsunami Monument Competition entry, by David Ruy. (www.ruy+klein.com)
3. Conclusion and Interpretation of the research and the analysis of the paper: (You need to provide some part of a summary of the paper. This conclusion is too short for this paper.)
The shape, color and characteristic of each living organism in this planet are reflection of how the nature really copes with its immediate environment. These unique features that every living organism possessed are often awed by designers, including architects. These unique features also give architects inspiration and ideas of how to cope with nature’s extreme condition such as extreme climate, harsh seasons by mimicking the nature concepts of feature, form and color. In this sense we could observe that the organic architecture or biomorphic architecture style movements in its developments through the years shows the interrelation between human and nature. The era of weird and alien form (that resembles Star Trek space ship or any scientific movies objects) of new architecture that we seen nowadays through our daily observation in the newspaper, magazines or television are coming towards our culture and daily life. To cope with this phenomenon we need to keep up our level of acceptance that design and architecture are always change according to the time and the advancement of technology, ready or not we have to accept that there will be no longer straight geometry that could form a romantic background for our daily life.
This is brief summary of the conclusion paragraph
References: (Check APA style guidelines.)
Kausel, Cecilia Lewis and Jullian, Ann P. (2002). Santiago Calatrava: Conversation with Students. New York: Princeton Arhitecture Press. (pp. 23-25).
Lahuerta, Juan Jose., Vivas, Pere.,&PLA, Richard. (2003). Casa Batlo: Gaudi. Madrid: Triangle Postals. (pp. 33-35).
Sowa, Axel. (2005). Espace de l’Art Concret Mouans-Sartoux. Stuttgart: Edition Axel Menges. (pp. 47-48).
Toy, Maggie (1993 November- December). Organic Architecture: Subtlety and Power. Architectural Design, 7-13. (pp. 7-13).
