Think Like a Tree
Jan Johnsen
Landscape Designer and Author, Gardentopia; Floratopia; The Spirit of Stone; Heaven is a Garden
'Biomicry' is the term we use for following nature's example. It is when we imitate nature’s best ideas in our design of materials and structures. In other words, think like a tree (or plant, or shell, or animal). I have always found this approach fascinating because it makes so much sense. You don't find many square or rectangular forms in nature but you sure find a lot of spirals or spheres. Why is this?
from the movie Seed- The Untold Story
It has to do with the way cells divide and multiply. And, without getting too technical, Nature bases many of its parts on the phi ratio, otherwise known as the golden ratio.
Phi is 1.618. It is the ratio that seeds in a sunflower are arranged. It is the ratio of the length of our body to our torso, it is the logarithmic basis of a Nautilus shell's spiral, the human ear follows the pattern of the logarithmic Phi spiral as well.
Biomimicry can help us solve challenging problems. Antoni Gaudi, an imaginative Catalan architect who lived from 1852– 1926, used biomimcry in the design of his organically shaped buildings. They were unlike anything else in that time period. This is because Gaudi, a diligent observer of nature, said, "There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners."
His most famous building, the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona, was conceived, in the words of Wikipedia “as if it were the structure of a forest, with a set of tree-like columns divided into various branches to support a structure of intertwined hyperboloid vaults.” The tall tree-like columns he created had an interior structure similar to a double helix, the phi spiral of DNA. Biomimicry at its finest!
So how do we use this understanding to prevent our buildings from being completely damaged during hurricanes like Hurricane Katrina? Look to the live oak trees of New Orleans:
This is Wired’s Think Like a Tree, a series that celebrates nature-inspired design, narrated by biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus. Smart problem solving: