Nature’s Architects is a free, family-friendly trail to discover twenty micro-homes and structures. Each one is created by five leading architects and inspired by nature and biomimicry.
Look around the doorsteps, tree forks, railings and planters close to Sloane Square. See how many miniature homes you can find? Can you spot Coral, Kingfisher, Bear and Bat? Learn about the different ways these creatures build their homes and how their techniques can help us to be more sustainable and eco-friendly when building for humans.
The trail will be on display until the end of September. It is created by Museum of Architecture and supported by Cadogan.
Look around the doorsteps, tree forks, railings and planters close to Sloane Square. See how many miniature homes you can find? Can you spot Coral, Kingfisher, Bear and Bat? Learn about the different ways these creatures build their homes and how their techniques can help us to be more sustainable and eco-friendly when building for humans.
The trail will be on display until the end of September. It is created by Museum of Architecture and supported by Cadogan.
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Bear
Design by Gruff Architects
‘Bear’ is a sleepy, cavernous, underworld home. It makes us think of prehistoric cave dwellers and our ancestral origins. Caves offer a ‘found space’ - the most basic means of shelter, where the ancient humans lived and where bears still make their homes.
Natural caves are formed by weathering away the rock. Stalactites and stalagmites emerge from the ceiling and floor. This cavern is also made from carving away and adding form. It draws from places around the globe where man has excavated into rock to make dwellings, such as the Matmata homes of Tunisia, troglodyte villages in Iran or at Petra, Jordan.
'Bear’ is milled from solid cork block, with insertions of oak dowels and suspended within a clear acrylic capsule.
‘Bear’ is a sleepy, cavernous, underworld home. It makes us think of prehistoric cave dwellers and our ancestral origins. Caves offer a ‘found space’ - the most basic means of shelter, where the ancient humans lived and where bears still make their homes.
Natural caves are formed by weathering away the rock. Stalactites and stalagmites emerge from the ceiling and floor. This cavern is also made from carving away and adding form. It draws from places around the globe where man has excavated into rock to make dwellings, such as the Matmata homes of Tunisia, troglodyte villages in Iran or at Petra, Jordan.
'Bear’ is milled from solid cork block, with insertions of oak dowels and suspended within a clear acrylic capsule.
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Frog |
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‘Frog’ was designed for a dystopian future world. Imagine sea levels have risen, and human homes have adapted to this aquatic future. Notice the semi-submerged platform. It is inspired by lily pads, a habitat of the humble frog, and of futuristic floating star-cities.
The miniature building's form draws upon the incredible physical properties of liquid surface tension. The line where the water meets the air is crucial. This surface is punctuated by the diving structures, floating garden and main dwelling rotunda.
The structure is assembled from 3D-resin-prints bound together and supported within a case resembling a water-filled, museum-ready bell-jar.
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Weaver Bird
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‘Weaver Bird’ is a home suspended within the tree canopy. It forms a safe and secure, protective dwelling. High up, it is perfect for surveying the environment around it.
Inside, a triple-helix wraps and binds the outer edge of a series of stacked platforms. The design is reminiscent of the intricately woven nests of the weaver bird and the helical formations of DNA. How would it feel to live up here?
The model is the assembly of precision cut ply-wood layers, joined by thin wooden strips. These form an expanded spiral arranged in a triple-helix. It is hung within an inverted bell-jar enclosure, representative of the museum vitrines of its avian cousins.
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Humpback Whale
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‘Humpback Whale’ is inspired by tales of the high seas -- from riding the crest of a wave to adventuring into its murky depths. Look closely at this subterranean world. It reminds us of the mystery and majesty of the great animals of our oceans. Imagine living inside it - deep within the ‘belly of the beast’.
A set of angled slats filter light into the cavernous underworld. This mimics baleen inside the whale’s mouth, filtering food and nutrients from the ocean’s depths.
A set of angled slats filter light into the cavernous underworld. This mimics baleen inside the whale’s mouth, filtering food and nutrients from the ocean’s depths.
The model is constructed from an arrayed series of plywood planes which have each been individually computer numerically controlled to reveal the contours of the interior of the ‘whale mouth’. It is supported by clear acrylic supports which transfer light into the central void. It is wrapped in an acrylic capsule, not unlike a modern-day submersible boat.
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Cadogan supports bringing nature into our cities and is committed to making a positive contribution towards a sustainable environment
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Gruff Architects
Find out how Gruff Architects made their structures |
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Coral Heights
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‘Coral Heights’ is a tower block, inspired by the oscillating movement of coral.
It draws from coral colonies, where many individual creatures live collectively - yes! coral polyps are animals not plants. Notice how the blocks of ‘Coral Heights’ are structurally dependent on one another.
This is a building that could continue to grow vertically. Its repetitive stacking and twisting motion, reminding us of reefs.
Rigidity in nature, and in building, causes tension and breakage. Like the segmented, jointed tentacles of coral, notice how this structure is flexible, allowing it to sway freely.
This is a building that could continue to grow vertically. Its repetitive stacking and twisting motion, reminding us of reefs.
Rigidity in nature, and in building, causes tension and breakage. Like the segmented, jointed tentacles of coral, notice how this structure is flexible, allowing it to sway freely.
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Jellyfish Bells
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As jellyfish bob through water, they ‘look up to the sky’, journeying to reach the light.
Jellyfish shrink and expand to propel themselves through the water. This movement is mimicked in ‘Jellyfish Bells’ - a bulbous structure that stretches up and down.
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Imagine walking through this tower. The floor plates contract and expand, like the relaxing muscle movement of a jellyfish bell. Arches bridge the floor plates in tentacle forms. Its central skylight casts light from above. You might wander through the building like a jellyfish wandering the ocean.
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Owl Barbules
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'Owl Barbules' is a structure mimicking the anatomy of an owl’s feather. These are lightweight, flexible and tough. Off the central quill, barbs and smaller barbules branch off. These struts criss-cross each other to give the feathers extra strength. This helps the bird to move almost silently during the night.
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Stripy zigzag patterns decorate owls' feathers and help them to camouflage when hunting.
‘Owl Barbules’ is a dense, repetitive, lightweight construction, filled with air. It shows how a simple module can be repeated to create complex structures.
Imagine being inside it and experiencing the spectacle of patterns and shapes overlaid on one another.
The overall form shows one iteration of the repetition of structures but many others could be conceived by forming a new central point.
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Kingfisher's Nest
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'Kingfisher’s Nest' is a tower of burrows. It mimics how kingfishers dig their homes deep into dirt banks, tree cavities or old termite mounds. This tower gives its human inhabitants moments to experience the sky, light and wind, from the protective shelter of their burrow.
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Nestled in the landscape, plants are encouraged to climb and wild over the tower. This allows the ground to emerge upwards and over the structure. The tower form stands proud, like the beak of the kingfisher, and connects its residents with the nature around them.
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Caddis Cathedral
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'Caddis Cathedral' takes its inspiration from the homes of the caddisfly larvae. These small insects use objects they find in their surroundings to build their dwellings. We can get clues about where a caddisfly comes from by looking closely at its selection of materials.
Caddisflies often use gravel, sand, twigs and bitten-off pieces of plants to make their homes. What is this ‘Caddis Cathedral’ made of? It gathers its material from the area surrounding the site and the wider city of London, making it very specific to this place. Its form borrows from the tall thin structure of the larvae.
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Veil House
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Inspired by veiled lady mushrooms, the ‘Veil House’ is a mysterious house surrounded by a lacy veil.
Playing with the idea of layers of public and private, you can only glimpse what might be happening inside... At night, however, changing light levels make the veils transparent.
The holes are in the shape of a pattern called a Voronoi tessellation. It is made up of different irregular shapes fitting together. This pattern is common in nature and architecture.
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Termite City
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Termite mounds can be over 10 metres high and protect their underground nests. They are built by countless generations of insects who must cooperate to create a structure, without any direct communication.
Imagine what would happen if termites made our human cities or buildings - creating organic pathways that erode over time, without any masterplan. How might it feel to explore such a city? This structure helps us imagine.
Termites are always building or working, so their underground homes can easily overheat from all of the carbon dioxide produced. It is for this reason that they build their mounds, as they provide fresh air to cool down their nests.
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Exoshelters
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These delicate, yet strong structures are inspired by the skeletons of spiders. Exoskeletons, which surround a spider's soft tissue, provide shelter in a similar way to how we want our homes to protect us.
Hanging like droplets from a silken mesh, 'Exoshelters' reminds us of one of the most amazing natural materials: spider silk is five times stronger than steel and 1000 times thinner than human hair.
There are over 45,000 species of named spiders. While not all spiders create webs, those that do often create a wide range of designs and shapes that can be used to identify different species.
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Burdock Burr
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Seeds and burrs are scattered by the blowing wind, flowing water or moving animals. These small structures seem to travel aimlessly, at the mercy of other forces. But when they come to rest on fertile ground, they have the potential to grow into some of the largest structures seen in nature.
'Burdock Burr' is a construction that considers the burdock seed up close and the monumental scale of the structures that will spring from it.
A burdock burr encloses its seeds in a natural vault. Buttresses, like those supporting the walls of a Gothic cathedral, hold the seeds in place. These keep the seeds safe until the crucial moment of release.
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14
OctopusBy Built.Works |
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An octopus can conceal itself by altering the texture and colour of its skin to match its context. In architecture, there is also sometimes a need to blend into the surrounding context, whether that is a man made or natural environment.
This structure sits on the railings outside the Holy Trinity School. Can or should architecture truly blend into its context? Or should a building have a unique character that contributes more actively to the surroundings?
Like an octopus, can a building choose to hide when it needs to - for example with facades that can change colour or shape? Perhaps small hints will always reveal its unique presence in a scene.
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Cactus
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Like cacti on a desert cliff, villages and towns can seemingly grow out of the most unlikely places. Here a settlement has started to grow from the railings, out of nothing. The cactus clings to the stone face of the wall.
As in nature there are challenges that must be overcome to settle in such places. Where will the inhabitants find water? What do they eat? Do they need to communicate and trade with other settlements nearby? How will they survive?
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Clams
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Clams use the ground as a sanctuary, to shield themselves from the elements. Razor clams can burrow into the sand at the speed of one inch per second in order to escape predators or the incoming waves.
In this structure, clam shells provide a subterranean sanctuary, as well as an above ground lookout. Architecture should provide a safe shelter and sanctuary, but it should also be outward looking and open. Insular and defensive structures close down cities and reduce public space. There is a balance to be found between a shelter and a castle.
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Three Dimensional Shapes
Learn how to turn any flat object into a 3D one! |
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Built Works
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Mossy Mound
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And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed,
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head.
John Keats
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head.
John Keats
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Mosses have stems and leaves, but don’t have true roots. This means they can appear in places that are otherwise uninhabitable, such as rocky ledges on mountainsides. ‘Mossy Mound' takes inspiration from this. Look closely at this mossy world at human scale. Sit back and enjoy a moment of cushioned rest. Mosses are among the first plant colonisers of disturbed sites, such as when an area is deforested or affected by forest fires. They stabilise the soil surface and retain water, helping new plants to grow and are essential to a healthy forest floor ecosystem. |
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Hedgehog Hut
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What Twigs We held by--
Oh the View
When Life’s swift River striven through
We pause before a further plunge
To take Momentum--
As the Fringe
Emily Dickinson
Oh the View
When Life’s swift River striven through
We pause before a further plunge
To take Momentum--
As the Fringe
Emily Dickinson
Hedgehogs make nests from mosses, grass, leaves and other garden debris. This miniature home explores how humans can use foraged materials to create shelters.
An oversized timber-frame is clad with foraged materials. Beneath a platform nestles in a tree canopy. Imagine if you lived amongst these trees and plants.
An oversized timber-frame is clad with foraged materials. Beneath a platform nestles in a tree canopy. Imagine if you lived amongst these trees and plants.
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Bat Boardwalk
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The bat hanging upside down laughs at the topsy-turvy world.
Japanese proverb
Japanese proverb
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Bats spend a lot of their time hanging upside down, often sheltering in the undercrofts of buildings. They create homes from spaces that are otherwise unused.
'Bat Boardwalk' creates a new cyclical promenade around the rim of the plant pot. Take a seat. Crouch down. Discover hidden habitats underneath.
This structure was made from natural, foraged materials, gathered from a recently felled birch tree on common land.
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Baya Weaver Den
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-- Hark! how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane!
Look up, love! - Ah! cling close, and never move!
How can I have enough of life and love?
William Morris
Look up, love! - Ah! cling close, and never move!
How can I have enough of life and love?
William Morris
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The baya weaver is a sparrow-sized bird found across South and Southeast Asia. These birds weave elaborate hanging nests from long strips of paddy leaves, rough grasses and long strips torn from palm fronds. They use their beaks to strip and collect long strands, which they then weave and knot to build a shaped nest, with a central nesting chamber. 'Baya weaver den' explores weaving as a way to create a shelter for both animals and humans. Take a seat and look up from below.
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