Form Follows Nature

Nature is in many different ways a pool for the productive human being, but also a counterpoint to his/her own work. This book offers a richly illustrated overview of the history of nature in architecture, civil engineering and art.

Applying Properties of Animals Skins to Inspire Architectural Envelopes Biology influences design projects in many ways; the related discipline is known as biomimetics or biomimicry. Using the animal kingdom as a source of inspiration, Ilaria Mazzoleni seeks to instill a shift in thinking about the application of biological principles to design and architecture. She focuses on the analysis of how organisms have adapted to different environments and translates the learned principles into the built environment. To illustrate the methodology, Mazzoleni draws inspiration from the diversity of animal coverings, referred to broadly as skin, and applies them to the design of building envelopes through a series of twelve case studies. Skin is a complex organ that performs a multitude of functions; namely, it serves as a link between the body and the environment. Similarly, building envelopes act as interfaces between their inhabitants and external elements. The resulting architectural designs illustrate an integrative methodology that allows architecture to follow nature. "Ilaria Mazzoleni, in collaboration with biologist Shauna Price, has developed a profound methodology for architectural and design incentives that anticipates and proposes novel ways to explore undiscovered biological inspirations for various audiences." —Yoseph Bar-Cohen

Architecture is energy. Lines drawn on paper to represent architectural intentions also imply decades and sometimes centuries of associated energy and material flows. Form Follows Energy is about the relationship between energy and the form of our built environment. It examines the optimisation of energy flows in building and urban design and the implications for form and configuration. It speaks to both architectural and engineering audiences and offers for the first time a truly interdisciplinary overview on the subject, explaining the complex relationships between energy and architecture in an easy to follow manner and using simple diagrams to show how energy design strategies can be used to maximize the energy performance of our built environment, while at the same time leading to new aesthetic qualities and radically new forms in architecture and urban design. Case studies are used to illustrate the theory. The books philosophy is based on the guiding principles underlying nearly 30 years work in practice, research and teaching. It is relatively easy to make something simple seem complicated. To make a complex topic seem simple and easily understandable is far more of a challenge and this is the aim of this book.

Kindergarten Chats and other writings by Louis H. Sullivan George Wittenborn. Originally published in 1917. Editorial Note: The printing of the unpublished revision of Kindergarten Chats in this volume carries out at last Louis Sullivans wish that his work be issued in book form his Foreword., written in July 1918, is our authority. That no publisher was found during the six remaining years of Ms life., and that a good deal of vagueness and misunderstanding arose concerning Sullivans attitude to this work as well as with regard to the existence and condition of a revised manuscript reflects the com monplace that human nature and scholarship are inextricably bound together. Sullivan believed that a building represented an act,, and that such an act re vealed the man behind it, the mind and ethics of the architect, more conclusively and unerringly than any statement. In this sense, the fifty-two consecutive essays entitled Kindergarten Chats are an act, requiring no officious introduction or inter pretation. Nevertheless, a few general remarks should be made to suggest the nature and significance of Sullivans editing of 1918, particularly since the first version published serially in 1901 is available only in a few obscure files, and that edited by Claude Bragdon in 1934 is out of print. From June to October 1918, Sullivan worked over the manuscript and produced the text which follows, and which therefore represents its definitive form. The actual manuscript gives the impression that Sullivan revised in the exact meaning of the word, that he gave attention to every sentence and paragraph, that his alterations of word and phrase, his cutting and rewriting, were the product of genuine reconsid eration and a desire for greater clarity. The redundant or unprecise adjective was discarded the specific term was substituted for the more general or the vague one repetitive passages were deleted. Throughout this revision and the text here pub lished was prepared directly from the original manuscript it may be said that the secondary has been sacrificed to the primary...

A richly illustrated retrospective of the life and work of noted furniture designer Geoge Nakashima examines the original furniture creations of the acclaimed artist, his influence on contemporary design, his work as an architect, and his remarkable craftsmanship and emphasis on the organic use of the natural lines and grain of wood.

A treatise on the laws governing proportional form in both nature and art, this well-illustrated volume features natural organisms and artistic creations in a mathematical study of their constructive principles.

New Organic Architecture is a manifesto for building in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing and kinder to the environment. It illuminates key themes of organic architects, their sources of inspiration, the roots and concepts behind the style, and the environmental challenges to be met. The organic approach to architecture has an illustrious history, from Celtic design, Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, to the work of Antoni Gaud� and Frank Lloyd Wright. Today there is a response to a new age of information and ecology; architects are seeking to change the relationship between buildings and the natural environment. In the first part of his book, David Pearson provides a history and assessment of organic architecture. The second part comprises statements from thirty architects from around the world whose work is based on natural or curvilinear forms rather than the straight-line geometrics of modernism. Each statement is accompanied by full-color illustrations of one or several of the architects' built projects.

Drawings by Marion Mahony Griffin with articles about the artist by Deborah Wood, David Van Zanten, Christopher Vernon, and Alison Fisher.