BIORNAMETICS

Architecture Defined by Natural Patterns

2010 – 2013
Research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in frame of PEEK 2009

This arts-based research project sought to discover the New Ornament (a concept derived from Adolf Loos’s seminal text Ornament and Crime) through means of emerging design practices based on digital techniques and Biomimetics [Bionik].

In the project, Biomimetics is strategically used to probe models, systems, processes and elements that exist in nature to inform new design principles. Research investigated static and dynamic patterns (growth principles, movement patterns, adaptation and differentiation as key for the emergence of patterns, etc.) found in nature and interconnects the scientific evidence with creative design in the field of architecture. Processes for designing and producing architecture in the New Ornament style are developed using algorithmic programming and code.

Research Institution  University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria, Prof. Greg Lynn

LIQUIFER team   Barbara Imhof, Waltraut Hoheneder

Core Team  Petra Gruber, transarch, Vienna, Clemens Grünberger, Vienna

Collaborators  Centre for Biomimetics, Reading – United Kingdom / Institute of Microengineering and Nanoelectronics, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia) – Malaysia / Institute of Applied Physics, University of Technology – Vienna

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