Architecture and Biological Analogies

The study described in this paper evolves within the larger context of a research aimed at inquiring into analogies between architecture and nature, and more specifically between architecture and biology. Biology is a recursive source of architectural inspiration due to the tight relationship between form and function, the natural balance of forces and the corresponding geometric solutions found in living beings. Roughly, one can classify historical analogies between architecture and biology into two main categories. The first tries to mimic biological forms and the second biological processes. The specific goal of the described study is to find how new technologies can redefine and support the process of constructing such analogies. It uses as a case study a tower project designed by the architect Manuel Gausa (ACTAR, Barcelona) called Tornado Tower because of its complex shape inspired in the frozen form of a tornado. Due to the geometric irregularities of the tower, Gausais team had difficulties in designing it, especially because solving the structural problems required constant redrawing. This paper describes the first part of the study which primary goal was to conceive a parametric program that encoded the overall shape of the Tornado Tower. The idea was to use the program to simplify the drawing process. This required a mathematical study of spirals and helices which are at the conceptual basis of the external structure and shape of the tower. However, the program encodes not only the shape of Gausais tower, but also the shapes of other buildings with conceptual similarities. Such class of shapes is very recurrent in nature with different scales and with different utilities. Therefore, one can argue that the program makes a mathematical connection between a given natural class of shapes and architecture. The second part of the study will be devoted to extending the program with a genetic algorithm with the goal of guiding the generation of solutions taking into account their structural fitness. This way, the analogy with genetic procedures will be emphasized by the study of the evolution of forms and its limits of feasibility. In summary, the bionic shape analogy is made by the generation of mimetic natural forms and a genetic process analogy starts with the parametric treatment of shape based on code manipulations. At the end the program will establish an analogy between architecture and biology both terms of form and process