Laugier’s Primitive Hut from 1755 depicts reason as a muse enthroned upon the ruins of the classical orders, pointing towards nature as a way forward. Similarly, in 1841 Joseph Paxton designed a glass conservatory at Chatsworth for the tropical Victoria regia water lily, which literally referenced the lily pad veins as structural system. This preoccupation with nature as a design generator continues in the 20th century with digital tools that derive architectural form using biomimicry, in the work of R & Sie. All these projects are based on a dialectic relationship between architecture and nature, where the particular model of nature is translated into form. This relationship in landscape architecture is discussed through the idea of the biomorphic. Applied as a guiding principle to investigate vegetation and plant form in the 17th Century Company’s Gardens arguing that the generation of the biomorphic can be adjusted to serve as a mechanism to understand plant form in terms of effect.
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School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics