Architectural Forms by Abstracting Nature

The structures in nature are great lessons for human study. Having been in development for several billion years, only the most successful structural forms have survived. The resourcefulness of material use, the underlying structural systems and the profound capacity to respond to a variety of climatic and environmental forces make natural form tremendous exemplars to human architectures. The wholeness of natural form indicates that the form and forces are always in some sense of equilibrium. In most of natural forms, the quality of equilibrium may be difficult to recognize. However, seashells are one of the natural forms whose functions are simple enough to be approximated by a simple mathematical relationship. The focus of this study was to understand the seashell form as applicable to human architectures. Digital methods are the language to analyze, create, and simulate seashell forms, as well as, suggest a variety of possible architectural forms. 1. The Study of Natural Forms The study of seashells has a long history, starting with Henry Moseley in 1838 [1] and followed by many researchers such as Thompson [2], Raup [3, 4], Cortie [5], and Dawkins [6]. These researchers have outlined in a number of mathematical relationships that control the overall geometry of shells. Our interest centers on an investigation of natural forms as a starting point to generate architectural forms. As documented by prior researchers, the seashell geometry can be expressed by four basic parameters. Figure 1 indicates these parameters that influence the shell forms.