Organic Architecture

Pleaching is the controlled growth and alteration of plants and trees to create human designs. Think hedges or those beautiful patios that use grape vines for shade. I love pleaching, its beautiful, natural and useful all at the same time. In recent years, however, architects and designers have taken this age old practice to an entirely new level in fact they've gone so far beyond the traditional utilization of pleaching that the concept has been given a new name, Organic Architecture. This is the use of living organisms, namely trees at this point, to create inhabitable structures. Most Organic designs use trees as the main structural supports while filling in the spaces with more common house material to create a comfortable yet semi-living abode. A google image search for Organic Architecture will bring up all sorts of fabulous designs, but some of my favorites are featured below.

Lets Start with Terreform's Fab Tree House. Terreform, by Designer and Architect Mitchell Joachim, uses a formula like system of growing and bending trees over to form the bases for their structures. After the initial structure is formed, in 5-7 years, the rest of the house is quickly woven together with a combination of more traditional western building techniques and fast growing vines. Of course the interiors of the houses utilize the latest in efficient appliances and the waste management system receives added value in that it now functions to increase the structural integrity of ones home through fertilization and watering.

Hopefully I will have more to write on this particular design as I will be attending the One Lab workshop at Terreform's headquarters in Brooklyn next week.

Watch Mitchell's TED Talk Below:

Visit www.terreform.org for more information of Mitchell's designs and other great concepts.

Ferdanand Ludwig, at the University of Stuttgart, built the Botany Buildings featured below. Like Terreform these structures use trees as the basis for their structural support. Ludwig generally uses willow trees as his organism of choice. Steel tubes and building materials are grown into the trees to form the rest of the needed support for what becomes the ultimate Organic tree house type design. Ludwig and his colleagues have utilized the ability of trees to adapt to heavy loads through what they call a trees "constructive intelligence." Unlike technical building materials, that have definable breaking points, trees thicken and grow larger in the places that require heavy loads. Ludwig has taken advantage of this evolutionary trait by putting his trees under added stress in certain areas that will need to bare more weight once the structure is completed. Another added advantage is the life cycle of a house built primarily out of trees. Eventually the tree will die. Most tree houses don't last more than a generation, but thats just fine because these houses aren't meant to last forever. Ludwig hopes to make the wrecking ball become obsolete because instead of a rundown structure with caution tape on the front, his houses will simply biodegrade back into the earth, as nature intended.

See http://www.bureau-baubotanik.de/bureau/galerie for more information. Unfortunately the website is in German, but the pictures are nice.

My last design is one by Dai Haifei termed the $1000 House on Wheels. Haifei, being fresh out of college, wasn't getting much pay at his first job. Housing costs and transportation where an issue so he killed to birds with one stone and made his own portable, egg, house. While there are many interesting design features that comprise this little house the one the most interests me are the seed sacks that Haifei covered the house in. These sacks provide the needed insulation and weatherproofing while turning the houses exterior in a living breathing organism. Once the sacks finally degrade the grass on the structure will have taken root and the curving egg design will make sure that water can't sit on the roof and start unwanted leaks.