Mash Up

Members of today’s technologically oriented societies have increasingly diminished contact with natural form. This is probably due to a combination of reduced contact with real nature and exposure to architectural settings devoid of reference to natural form (e.g. minimalist architecture). Humans however evolved in natural environments and among the most common criticisms of modern urban developments, one acknowledged even by architects, is the absence of a sense of place hence architecture should adopt the processes of natural morphogenesis, the process of evolutionary development and growth, which derive polymorphic systems that obtain their complex form, organisation and versatility from the interaction of system intrinsic material capacities and external environmental influences and forces. In doing so creating place, environments with a distinct sense of place, that cultivate a sense of place, thus embedding architecture more fully in the world as an experience that goes beyond buildings to articulate and resonate more intensively with wider human concerns and ideals. Alternative approach to design that entails unfolding morphological complexity and performative capacity without differentiating between form generation and materialisation processes, as one striking aspect of natural morphogenesis is that formation and materialisation processes are always inherently and inseparably related, should be embraced by architects in order to build architecture that result from the response to varied input and environmental influences. This consequently having positive implications for various aspects of human functioning and could provoke subtle shifts in certain areas of human thinking, so that such architecture can enrich the human relationship to the built environment.

References

Achim Menges, Computational Morphogenesis, Architectural Association AA School of Architecture, London, http://www.ascaad.org/conference/2007/057.PDF

Yannick Joye, Cognitive and Evolutionary Speculations for Biomorphic Architecture, Leonardo 39 no. 2, (Jan 2006): 45-152, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20206187 (accessed May 14, 2014).

Peter Buchanan Peter, The Big Rethink Place and Aliveness: Pattern, Play and the Planet, The Architectural Review 232 no.1386 (Aug 2012): 86-95,4, http://search.proquest.com/docview/1033636419?accountid=13902 (accessed May 14, 2014).

(White text is my own writing)