Abstract:
Nature's ingenuity reveal infinite design potential, setting the benchmark for architects and designers. It’s expressive colours, exquisite material structure and ability to intelligently respond to the environments, provide insights ready to be integrated into the architecture design process. In Out of control, Kevin Kelly argues that technological innovation is becoming more biological. Technology and nature are becoming more alike, which will eventually lead to a point where the two become indistinguishable. This thesis creates an architecture based on this scenario. Placing nature as the starting point of design investigation,exposes a distinctive process that allows for an ambitious exploration of environmentally responsive architectural forms. The process focuses on the micro scale of nature’s materiality, and extracts and learns from nature through analysing its tapestry. This thesis looks at butterfly eggs as the research subject. Butterfly eggs are seen as a tiny speck on a leaf, but the microscope reveals unexpected structures and formations. Exploring the surface of the egg at a micro scale allows us to marvel on its complex beauty. The design practice begins by probing at the butterfly eggs to identify their qualities and the tapestry they reveal, then proceeds to generate a design language. The design proposes a biological research base set in a tropical forest scene. The design language is applied in three different typologies, showing the various possibilities of application. The proposal includes a sunscreen, a configurable sleeping pod, and a laboratory. Research question: How can the study of nature’s tapestry inspire an architectural design practice? The tapestry of nature is defined as geometry, pattern, composition, form and environmental responsiveness.
