Biological Architecture –
Hundertwasser - Waldspirale
Fruto Vivas - Venezuelan Pavilion
Friedensreich Hundertwasser is renowned for designing buildings that resembled vegetative growth in their appearance and their functioning. The Waldspirale, a residential building complex in Darmstadt, Germany that was built in the 1990s, for example, seems to have sprouted into existence without human intervention and capable of yielding to a passing breeze. This biological resemblance is not merely aesthetic or metaphorical. Hundertwasser’s buildings actually ‘breathe’ by absorbing streams of energy, ‘digest’ by cycling sewage and water, and ‘grow’ by incorporating photosynthetic processes.
Now, ‘propagation’ might be added to Hundertwasser’s list of architectural principles that mimic biology. This is because his goal of incorporating livingness into the built environment is being extended into remarkable new spheres of architectural exploration.
Consider, for example, the Venezuelan Pavilion in EXPO 2000 designed by the Venezuelan architect, Fruto Vivas.
It is not only shaped like a flower and includes thousands of tropical plants, its roof consists of huge ‘petals’ that actually open and close in response to changing weather conditions.
Furthermore, the entire mast on which the petals are suspended can rotate in pursuit of the sun if it is cool, or shade if it is warm.
No elaborate, energy-guzzling machinery or complex contraption with dials and nodes is needed to trigger the roof’s botanical actions. Movement is produced by a passive system that directs the inflow and drain of water counterweights.
The exquisite efficiency that prevails throughout the biological world is also present in this pavilion. Instead of mass and weight, its support is provided by a tensegrity system that is lightweight, can be constructed with no waste, and is completely re-usable. The pavilion was dismantled after the fair, stored for several years, and then remantled without a problem.
Even the facades of framed glass and perforated sheet metal incorporate life. They are interspersed with planters and small pools with fish. This enormous botanical installation is maintained by a simple, gravity-fed system. Water is sprayed along the bottom of the outside walls and cascades down the faces of the panes over the planted terraces from the ring-shaped arrangement of aquariums on the second floor. This water flows into a circular drainage canal, is cleaned in a series of purification phases, and then returns into circulation.
Biological models also provided the means to resist weathering. The building’s membranes are made of PVC-coated polyester structure. A protective film gives the surface of PVC-PES membranes anti-adhesive properties, which means that the material is dirt-resistant and easy to clean. Such self-cleaning materials are said to exhibit the “lotus effect” because lotus leaves, as well as insect bodies and wings and plant leaves, are covered with fine wax excretions which make the surface hydrophobic (sheds water) and adhesive (attracts dirt particles). As a result, water rolls off the building taking the particles of dirt with it. The façade stays dry and clean.
In sum, Fruto Vivas seems to have picked up the challenge of achieving complete architectural ecocentrism that Hundertwasser envisioned in his buildings decades before, and that he described so zealously in his manifestos. They are proving that as architecture becomes consistent with life, it will begin to exist harmlessly, even productively, within the community of species that occupy the same habitat.