RA20

Nature as Construction Material.

Full Paper at:
Nature as Construction Material

Considering structural systems, relational events, and temporal cycles as observed in living organisms has always been a source for human inspiration. Nature, seen as an open-ended system, offers the opportunity to learn from both its results and its proces-ses. The construction of new paradigms inspired on nature is the common thread that weaves together the article’s main argument: nature as construction material for new models of thought and organization within the fields of architecture and the city.

Two events marked important ruptures between mankind and nature: the development of agriculture 9000 years ago, and the Industrial Revolution of the Nineteenth Century.
Homo Sapiens grew up adapting to his environment until he knew how to master the techniques of agriculture. From the "Neolithic Revolution", Man’s relationship to nature shifted, and he began to modify the environment to his needs. In other words, due to increased cognitive capacities, our species’ evolution was no longer entirely biological, but became cultural.
The consideration of the structure of systems, relational events, and temporal cycles observed in living beings, have always been a source of inspiration for man. Nature, as an open system, offers us the opportunity to learn from both the results and its processes.
Through an examination of the ways in which nature is used as building material for new models of thought and organization within the field of architecture and the city, this article addresses the construction of new paradigms inspired by nature.
In order to defend this argument, we employ the concept of exaptation developed in Paleobiology. This concept refers to how in certain contexts organs experience a shift in function that is different from their original role in living organisms.
Mutation and adaptation are two issues that reveal the underlying concept of contingency. As such, the contingency amply illustrates the possibilities of a new paradigm shift in France between 1980 and 1995, which is clearly expressed in Gilles Clément's position. His work might demonstrate the founding role of contingency in architecture.
The urban demand for continuous boundless support negates time by those actors maneuvering in these spaces. For this reason, we want to defend the recognition of the agroforestry system: its physical presence in the urban environment and the architectural project as well as the value of different actors that participate in its existence and permanence. The gardener and agronomist engineers' roles allow us to defend a different relationship with nature. Their work might offer new paradigms based on a temporal and technical approach of the ecology.
The contingency present in the world of living beings is a strong symbol to reconsider in everyday life. Although the nature of wild appearance in the city requires regulation by the hand of man, thanks to the technique, its temporal cycles continue to transcend the psychophysical state of the citizen.
The forest, then, should be considered not only as natural but also as cultural equipment stimulates our way of relating individually and socially with nature.