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AD.76.1 covers 1/6/06 4:19 pm Page 2

Techniques and Technologies in

Morphogenetic
Design
AD.76.1 covers 1/6/06 4:21 pm Page 4

4 Architectural Design
Backlist Titles

Volume 74 No. 5 Volume 74 No. 6 Volume 75 No. 1

ISBN 0470870753 ISBN 0470090944 ISBN 0470870753

Volume 75 No. 2 Volume 75 No. 3 Volume 75 No. 4

ISBN 047001136X ISBN 0470093285 ISBN 0470090936

Volume 75 No. 5 Volume 75 No. 6 Volume 76 No. 1

ISBN 0470014679 ISBN 0470024186 ISBN 047001623X

Individual backlist issues of 4 are available for purchase

at £22.50. To order and subscribe for 2006 see page 128.
AD.76.1 covers 1/6/06 4:21 pm Page 5

4 Architectural Design
Forthcoming Titles 2006

May/June 2006, Profile No 181

The New Europe

Guest-edited by Valentina Croci

In May 2004, Europe was redefined. Ten countries – Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia,

4 Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia – joined the
European Union. The full impact of the forces that this historical event unleashed has
yet to be understood. For not only will Europe’s enlargement have
an unequivocal bearing on ‘old’ Europe, but also on the countries of ‘new Europe’. As the
economic and political balance of the enlarged European Union is being redrawn, the
identities of the newly joined countries is in flux – the majority of the joining states
were under communist rule less than two decades ago.
Contemporary architecture in these 10 countries necessarily presents itself as a
process that is anything but linear. It has to deal with the hybridisation, with new glob-
al trends, as well as with the permanence of structures and national heritage.
Architects, mostly practising in the private rather than public sphere, are contending
The New with the various political inconsistencies of administrations undergoing change.
Europe The very different panorama in each new member state avoids generalisation. As a
broken mirror, this issue of 2 provides a partial view of the very crucial issues that
contemporary architecture has to cope with. Local contributors look at the trans-forma-
tion of the city and national heritage, while also spotting a new generational fringe of
local architects. The cultural richness and ethnic diversity drawn by this publication
also raise the looming question of what the identity of the new Europe might be in the
future.

July/August 2006, Profile No 182

Programming Cultures: Art and Architecture in the Age of Software

Guest-edited by Mike Silver

In May 2004, Europe was redefined. Ten countries – Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia,

4 Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia – joined the
European Union. The full impact of the forces that this historical event unleashed has
yet to be understood. For not only will Europe’s enlargement have an unequivocal bear-
ing on ‘old’ Europe, but also on the countries of ‘new Europe’. As the economic and
political balance of the enlarged European Union is being redrawn, the identities of the
newly joined countries is in flux – the majority of the joining states were under commu-
nist rule less than two decades ago.
Contemporary architecture in these 10 countries necessarily presents itself as a
process that is anything but linear. It has to deal with the hybridisation, with new glob-
al trends, as well as with the permanence of structures and national heritage.
Programming Cultures: Architects, mostly practising in the private rather than public sphere, are contending
Art + Architecture in the Age of Software
with the various political inconsistencies of administrations undergoing change.
The very different panorama in each new member state avoids generalisation. As a
broken mirror, this issue of 2 provides a partial view of the very crucial issues that
contemporary architecture has to cope with. Local contributors look at the trans-forma-
tion of the city and national heritage, while also spotting a new generational fringe of
local architects. The cultural richness and ethnic diversity drawn by this publication
also raise the looming question of what the identity of the new Europe might be in the
future.
AD Morph. 001-002 1/6/06 2:49 pm Page 1

Architectural Design
March/April 2006
Techniques and Technologies
in Morphogenetic Design
4 Guest-edited by
Michael Hensel, Achim Menges + Michael Weinstock
AD Morph. 001-002 1/6/06 2:49 pm Page 2

ISBN-13 9780470015292
ISBN-10 0470015292
Profile No 180
Vol 76 No 2

4 12

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2
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Contents

54

70

Editorial Instrumental Geometry

+
4

Interior Eye
Helen Castle Achim Menges Plus, Plus Ça Change at

4 42 the Museum of Modern Art

in New York
Jayne Merkel
Introduction Advanced Simulation in Design
Towards Self-Organisational and Michael Weinstock +
Nikolaos Stathopoulos
98+
Multiple-Performance Capacity in
Architecture
Michael Hensel 54 Building Profile
Dirk Cove

5 Differentiation and Performance:

Jeremy Melvin

Computing Self-Organisation:
Multi-Performance Architectures
and Modulated Environments
102+
Environmentally Sensitive Michael Hensel + Achim Menges Home Run
Growth Modelling
Michael Hensel 60 Clarion Quay
Robert Payne
12 Manufacturing Diversity
Achim Menges
106+
(Synthetic) Life Architectures:
Ramifications and Potentials of a 70 Practice Profile
Metrogramma
Literal Biological Paradigm for Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi
Polymorphism
Architectural Design
Michael Hensel Achim Menges 112+
18 78 McLean’s Nuggets
Will McLean
Self-Organisation and the Material and Digital Design
Structural Dynamics of Plants Synthesis
Michael Hensel + Achim Menges
122+
Michael Weinstock

26 88 Site Lines
Australian Wildlife Health Centre,
Healesville Sanctuary, Melbourne
Self-Organisation and Material Leon van Schaik
Constructions
Michael Weinstock 124+
34

3
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Editorial

The cover title of this issue, Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design, provides it with a very wide
frame: morphogenesis pertains not only to the development of form and structure in an organism, but also
to an organism’s evolutionary development over time. It is, in effect, a substantial signpost that in a broad
brushstroke takes in the whole gamut of natural systems, both current and in evolution. It is indicative of
the not inconsiderable, some might say infinite, project that guest-editors Michael Hensel, Achim Menges
and Michael Weinstock have taken on through their activities in the Emergence and Design Group and
their teaching and research at the Architectural Association (aa) in London. By studying the complex and
dynamic exchange between organisms and their environment, they have sought out a new model for
architecture – one that through the application of biochemical processes and the functionality of life is in
empathy rather than at odds with natural ecology. By keeping their eye on this higher goal, the group is
providing a prescient new ecological paradigm for architecture that seeks, through new scientific advances
in the visualisation and understanding of natural processes and systems, to leave behind the known
structural and material building blocks of architecture.
What the generic quality of the ‘morphogenetic design’ tag belies is the specificity and focus that Hensel,
Menges and Weinstock have brought to their subject in this volume. This issue is the sequel to
4 Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies, published two years ago. It is, however, no Emergence II.
Whereas in the first issue, the potential of the project was broadly being asserted through an
understanding of what emergence could bring to architecture (emergence insinuating the complexity that
is acquired through the evolution of organisms over time, where the sum is more than the parts), the stress
on self-organisation in this issue isolates a particular aspect. The content spirals outwards, as outlined by
Hensel in his introduction opposite, clarifying first what self-organisation can mean in the natural world
and then discussing its application for material sciences and engineering. There is also further
investigation of morphogenetic techniques and technologies, as illustrated by the group’s own research
and the network they have built up among fellow-minded practitioners in aligning disciplines. While the
group’s approach is becoming more established and they are boring down effectively into it, their influence
is also widening. All three proponents are regularly invited to teach in venerable institutions abroad, with
Menges having recently been awarded a professorship of form generation and materialisation in Germany.
In 2004, the focus of the group’s activities was largely concentrated in the recent establishment of the
Masters programme at the aa, but two years later its first few years of graduates are working and spreading
the word as practitioners in key firms and other international institutions are buying into this approach
and recognising its inherent potential. 4
Helen Castle

4
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Introduction

Towards Self-Organisational
and Multiple-Performance
Capacity in Architecture
Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design expands and develops the themes of
the previous, highly successful Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies issue of 4 (Vol
74, No 3, 2004), which was also guest-edited by Michael Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael
Weinstock of the Emergence and Design Group. While the first volume elucidated the
concepts of emergence and self-organisation in relation to the discipline of architecture, this
issue augments its theoretical and methodological foundation within a biological paradigm
for architectural design, while also discussing promising, related, instrumental techniques for
design, manufacturing and construction. Michael Hensel introduces the issue and explains
how it addresses a much broader range of scales, from the molecular to that of macro-
structure and, beyond, to ecological relations.

Coloured X-ray of hyacinth flowers at different stages of growth.

Environmentally sensitive growth can deliver a paradigm for architectural
design, as discussed in ‘Computing Self-Organisation’ (see page 12).

5
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Complex adaptive systems entail processes of self-

organisation and emergence. However, both concepts express
very different characteristics of a system’s behaviour.1 Self-
organisation can be described as a dynamic and adaptive
process through which systems achieve and maintain
structure without external control. The latter does not
preclude extrinsic forces, since all physcial systems exist
within the context of physics, for as long as these do not
assert control over intrinsic processes from outside.
Common form-finding methods, for example, deploy the self-
organisation of material systems exposed to physics to
achieve optimisation of performance capacity. Self-
organisational systems often display emergent properties or
behaviours that arise out of the coherent interaction between
lower-level entities, and the aim is to utilise and
instrumentalise behaviour as a response to stimuli towards
performance-oriented designs.
Both issues of 3 guest-edited by the Emergence and Design
Group seek to outline processes of self-organisation and
emergence, and to integrate them within a theoretical,
methodological and practice-oriented agenda for architectural
design. This issue investigates how self-organisation promotes
functions and properties of systems through an increase of
order, how behaviour and performance capacity arises from
these processes, how materials and material systems can be
Robotic timber-manufacturing employed for the 2005 Serpentine
Pavilion, as discussed in ‘Manufacturing Diversity’ (see page 70).
conditioned accordingly, which manufacturing and assembly
approaches can facilitate this, and how these processes and
approaches can be harnessed for architectural design to
achieve a higher level of performativity and, thus, ultimately a
higher level of sustainability.

Self-Organisation
The first section focuses on the introduction and discussion of
processes of self-organisation based on a biological paradigm,
and examines their uses in architectural design.
How do plants grow in relation to multiple extrinsic
influences? How can environmentally sensitive growth be
instrumentalised in architectural design? What are the
available methods and tools, and how can they serve
architectural design? Such questions are pursued by Michael
Hensel in ‘Computing Self-Organisation: Environmentally
Sensitive Growth Modelling’. The article examines the work
of Professor Prusinkiewicz’s team at the Department of
Computer Science at the University of Calgary in Alberta,
Canada, and explicates its potential value for architectural
design.
In ‘(Synthetic) Life Architectures: Ramifications and
Potentials of a Literal Biological Paradigm for Architectural
Design’, the currently prevailing biological paradigm is taken
to its most literal extreme in an inquiry into the
consequences of understanding architectures as living entities
and the potential benefits of applying life criteria to
architecture. Here, Hensel examines recent advances in

6
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Laser-cut model scale 1/75 of the Jyväskylä Music and Art Centre by OCEAN
NORTH,as discussed in ‘Differentiation and Performance’ (see page 60).

7
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Polymorphism is the
state of being made
of many different
elements, forms,
kinds or individuals.
In biology it refers to
the occurrence of
different forms,
stages or types in
individual organisms
or in organisms of the
same species.
Typogenesis refers to
the occurrence of a
new type.

Proliferation and differentiation of a digital

parametric component, as discussed in
‘Polymorphism ’ (see page 78).

8
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Double curvature resulting from differential surface

actuation, as discussed in ‘Polymorphism’ (see page 78).

synthetic life research and their potential implications for, natural structures, and suggests the abstraction of these
and applications within, architecture. principles for application in architectural engineering.
The engineering principles of biological systems, the high Recent advances in material science and related
degree of redundancy and complexity in the material innovative methods of producing synthetic materials have
hierarchies of many natural structures, and the means by had a radical impact on advanced industries, and new
which biological systems respond and adapt to composite materials are being ‘grown’ that have increasingly
environmental stresses and dynamic loadings, is discussed complex internal structures based on biological models. In
by Michael Weinstock in ‘Self-Organisation and the ‘Self-Organisation and Material Constructions’, Weinstock
Structural Dynamics of Plants’. Analysis and case studies examines the manufacturing of advanced cellular materials
reveal that the robust design of natural living systems is not informed by concepts of self-organisational processes in
produced by optimisation and standardisation, but by biological structures. New cellular materials, such as foamed
redundancy and differentiation. In this article, Weinstock metals, ceramics, polymers and glass, are indications of a
gives an account of the experimental use of engineering significant change in the design of materials, where the
analysis (finite element analysis/FEA) on two plant systems, boundaries between the ‘natural’ and the ‘manufactured’
presents an explanation of the nonlinear dynamics of begin to be eradicated.

9
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Behaviour
Self-organising systems display capacity for adaptation in the
presence of change, an ability to respond to stimuli from the
dynamic environment. Irritability facilitates systems with
the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.
Adapting geometry to changing circumstances throughout
the design process can be a time-consuming and costly ordeal
or, on the other hand, can be anticipated and tools designed
that facilitate the possibility of significant changes right up
to the manufacturing stage. Whenever the design
requirements and constraints and performance profiles of a
design change, it is important that the design can absorb
such changes through a modifiable geometric modelling
setup capable of retaining geometric relations while being
substantially modified.
Over the last two decades, the members of the
SmartGeometry Group have worked on the conception of
such tools, and pioneering new techniques and technologies
in the field of computer-aided design (CAD). They are now in
key positions in international companies and involved in the
development of a new generation of parametric design
software. In ‘Instrumental Geometry’, Achim Menges
discusses with SmartGeometry Group members Robert Aish
(Director of Research at Bentley Systems), Lars Hesselgren
(Director of Research and Development, KPF London), J
Parrish (Director of ArupSport) and Hugh Whitehead (Project
Director of the Specialist Modelling Group, Foster and
Partners, London) the group’s instrumental approach to
geometry and their unique collaboration based on the
careful integration of architectural practice and interrelated
software development.
In technology, simulation is the mathematical
representation of the interaction of real-world objects. It is
essential for designing complex material systems with
respect to analysing their behaviour over time. In ‘Advanced
Simulation in Design’, Michael Weinstock and Nikolaos
Stathopoulos present a survey of concepts and techniques of
advanced simulations within physics and engineering.
Simulation is examined as a method for analysing behaviour,
including the advanced physics of nonlinear behaviour, and
the dynamic changes structures and materials undergo in
response to changing conditions. In aerospace and maritime
design, as well as automotive engineering, physical behaviour
– including wear and fatigue throughout the life of a vehicle
– is simulated during the design phase. In numerous
industries, manufacturing processes are also simulated
digitally during the design phase to facilitate ‘virtual’
manufacturing, prototyping and construction processes. In
Digital structural analysis of the Jyväskylä Music and Art Centre by OCEAN NORTH, this article, a series of examples is used to demonstrate the
as discussed in ‘Differentiation and Performance’ (see page 60). From top:
incorporation of simulation methods and techniques within
Vertical displacement contours for deformation produced by gravity loading;
vertical displacement vector plots for deformation produced by gravity loading; architectural design.
plot showing the deformed shape of the structure produced by gravity loading. In biology, differentiation entails the process by which
(Red indicates highest deformation, blue indicates lowest deformation.) cells or tissues undergo a change towards a more specialised

10
AD Morph. 005-011 1/6/06 2:54 pm Page 11

form or function, to become increasingly oriented towards experiments, undertaken by himself along with Andrew
fulfilling specific tasks, to acquire specific performance Kudless, David Newton and Joseph Kellner et al, Menges
capacity. In ‘Differentiation and Performance: Multiple- explains an understanding of form, materials and structure
Performance Architectures and Modulated Environments’, as complex interrelations in polymorphic systems that result
Hensel and Menges argue for an ecological model for from the response to extrinsic influences and are
architecture that promotes an active modulation of materialised by deploying the logics of advanced
environmental conditions across ranges and over time manufacturing processes as strategic constraints upon the
through morphological differentiation. This approach design processes.
promises both a new spatial paradigm for architectural In ‘Material and Digital Design Synthesis’, Michael Hensel
design and advanced sustainability that links the and Achim Menges discuss the ramifications of integrating
performance capacity of material systems with material self-organisation, digital morphogenesis,
environmental modulation and the resulting provisions and associative parametric modelling and computer-aided
opportunities for inhabitation. Projects by OCEAN NORTH, Neri manufacturing into a seamless design process. They
Oxman and Daniel Coll I Capdevila illustrate different describe how the advanced material and morphogenetic
approaches to designing differentiated and multi- digital design techniques and technologies presented call
performance architectures. for a higher-level methodological integration, which poses a
major challenge for the next generation of multidisciplinary
Material Conditioning architectural research and projects. This collaborative task
Conditioning refers to a learning process in which an encompasses the striving for an integrated set of design
organism’s behaviour becomes dependent on the occurrence methods, generative and analytical tools and enabling
of a stimulus in its environment. In turn, this implies a technologies that facilitate and instrumentalise
careful calibration between behavioural and, by extension, evolutionary design and evaluation of differentiated
performative scope in relation to specific ranges of material systems towards a highly performative and
environmental conditions. The capacity for this can be sustainable built environment. The article includes works
embedded in the makeup of materials and in the logic of produced within the context of the Emergent Technologies
material assemblies. Self-organisational and behavioural and Design Masters programme at the Architectural
capacity of the built environment can thus be facilitated by a Association (AA) in London, and a recent competition entry
related material, manufacturing and assembly approach. This by Scheffler + Partner Architects and Achim Menges.
must be based on a related understanding and utilising Throughout the issue, the authors have listed further
material characteristics, behaviours and capacities, and references and recommended literature to provide further
ranges from using existing materials in different ways, to avenues of enquiry for interested readers. Unfortunately,
using computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) technologies due to space constraints, many relevant and important
strategically and, finally, to designing materials with greater references have been omitted. However, since this
performance capacities. publication introduces only the beginning of a new approach
Recent developments in digital fabrication and CAM in the to multiple-performance-driven and sustainable
building sector have a profound impact on architecture as a architectural design, it is hoped that the key spectrum of
material practice by facilitating a much greater and much concepts, methods, techniques and technologies has been
more differentiated formal and material repertoire for design. presented, and that readers have been inspired to join in the
In ‘Manufacturing Diversity’, Achim Menges describes quest to innovate and continue to develop such a
advanced digital manufacturing techniques and technologies morphogenetic design approach. Frei Otto stated that ‘it is
for steel, timber and membrane fabrication and construction, only of importance that we recognise our future tasks’.2 It is
and introduces the pioneering work of selected in this spirit, and with great enthusiasm, that we hope to
manufacturing companies, including Covertex, Finnforest meet you as collaborators to work together on solving the
Merk, Octatube Space Structures, Seele and Skyspan. complex tasks that today’s and tomorrow’s human
Polymorphism is the state of being made of many different environment and state of our biosphere present. 4
elements, forms, kinds or individuals. In biology it refers to
the occurrence of different forms, stages or types in
individual organisms or in organisms of the same species. Notes
Typogenesis refers to the occurrence of a new type. In 1. For further elaboration see Tom De Proceedings of the International
‘Polymorphism’, Menges instrumentalises the two concepts Wolf and Tom Holvoet, ‘Emergence and Workshop on Engineering Self-
Self-Organisation: A Statement of Organising Applications 2004.
and presents morphogenetic design techniques and Similarities and Differences’, in S www.cs.kuleuven.be/~tomdw/.
technologies that synthesise processes of formation and Brueckner, G Di Marzo Serugendo, A 2. Frei Otto in conversation with the
materialisation. Along a series of designs and design Karageorgos and R Nagpal (eds), Emgergence and Design Group.

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Computing Self-Organisation:
Environmentally Sensitive
Growth Modelling
The self-organisation processes underlying the growth of living organisms can provide
important lessons for architects. Natural systems display higher-level integration and
functionality evolving from a dynamic feedback relation with a specific host environment.
Biologists, biomimetic engineers and computer scientists have begun to tackle research in
this field and there is much to learn from their work. Here, Michael Hensel examines the
work undertaken by Professor Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz and his collaborators at the
Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada,1 outlining
its potential application for architectural design.

Coloured scanning electron micrograph of the underside of a leaf of the herb

lemon balm (Melissa officinalis). Numerous hairs, so-called trichomes, cover the
undersurface of the leaf. These hairs may have both a protective function against
predators and serve to reduce evaporation from the leaf. Stomata, or pores,
appear as small, green rounded structures and exchange gases and water from
the leaf surface. Magnification: x 900 at 6 x 7 centimetres.

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Over the last few decades, visualisation of our environment at the University of Calgary, and through their collaborations
has profoundly shaped our understanding of it and has with other leading experts and institutions, and outlines some
yielded entirely new sensibilities. Photos of the earth from of the opportunities for applications in the field of
outer space enhanced the awareness of climatic and tectonic architectural design.
dynamics and a feel for the planet’s fragile balance of flows. In 1968, the Hungarian biologist Aristid Lindenmayer
Microphotography revealed the most exquisite details of even researched the growth patterns of different, simple
the smallest organisms and the fine calibration of their size- multicellular organisms. The same year he began to develop a
dependent performance capacities in relation to a specific formal description of the development of such simple
environmental context. Now there are new visualisation and organisms, called the Lindenmayer system or L-system.2 An L-
simulation techniques that focus on self-organisational system is what in computer science is called a formal
processes such as environmentally sensitive plant growth. grammar, an abstract structure that describes a formal
What can be learned from these new methods is not only new language through sequences of various simple objects known
sensibilities relative to the visualised processes, but also the as strings. For L-system-based plant modelling, these might
specific configurations and features of the tools and their describe specific modules. There are two categories of formal
potential contribution in rethinking approaches to design that grammars: analytical and generative. An analytical grammar
aim for instrumentalising self-organisation. determines whether a string is a member of the language
Self-organisation is a process in which the internal described by the grammar. A generative grammar formalises
organisation of a system adapts to the environment to
promote a specific function without being guided or managed
from outside. In biology this includes the processes that
Modelling plant growth and
concern developmental biology, which is the study of growth development is predominantly
and development of organisms and comprises the genetic
control of cell growth, differentiation and morphogenesis. Cell
based on mathematical, spatial
growth encompasses increases both in cell numbers and in models that treat plant geometry
cell size. Cellular differentiation describes the process by
which cells acquire a ‘type’. The morphology of a cell may
as a continuum or as discrete
change dramatically during differentiation. Morphogenesis components in space.
involves the shapes of tissues, organs and entire organisms
and the position of specialised cell types.
Components might include the
When attempting to set forth a paradigm for differentiated local scale of individual plant
and multi-performance architectures, it is interesting to
examine available methods for modelling biological growth
cells, the regional system scale of
informed by a hosting environment. Through this modules such as nodes, buds,
investigation it is possible to derive architectural strategies
and methods that are informed by environmentally specific
apices, leaves and so on, or the
conditions and, thus, to achieve advanced levels of plant taken as a whole for
functionality and performativity.
Biologists and computational scientists have collaborated
ecological models.
on this task with very interesting results. It is possible to
evolve plants digitally that are ‘grown’ according to an algorithm that generates strings in the defined language
environmental input. Every change in the input yields a and consists of a set of rewriting rules for transforming
different growth result. In other words, a different strings, beginning from a single start symbol and applying
articulation of the modelled species. This is called modelling iteratively the rules to rewrite the string. The specific feature
environmentally sensitive growth and could be of interest for of L-system grammars that allows them to faithfully capture
architects, in that it could deliver a method and toolset in the dynamics of plant growth is that the rewriting rules are
which design preferences are embedded within a parametric applied in parallel to all the symbols in the string at each
setup, and that is simultaneously informed by a specific iteration. For L-system-based plant modelling, the rewriting
environmental and material context. Overall, such an rules capture, for example, the behaviour of individual
approach would promise an advanced take on sustainability. modules over predetermined time intervals. The respective
The following section introduces the research that has been language consists of all the strings that can be generated by
undertaken in the field of computational modelling of plant the given set of rules. This recursive process, which defines L-
growth and development, specifically by Professor Przemyslaw systems, facilitates the modelling of growth processes of
Prusinkiewicz’s team at the Department of Computer Science organismal development, such as plant modelling.

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Modelling plant growth and development is predominantly ‘provide quantitative understanding of developmental
based on mathematical, spatial models that treat plant mechanisms; secondly, models might lead to a synthetic
geometry as a continuum or as discrete components in space. understanding of the interplay between various aspects of
Components might include the local scale of individual plant development’.3 In doing so, such models might also provide a
cells, the regional system scale of modules such as nodes, new analytical and generative sensibility to architectural
buds, apices, leaves and so on, or the plant taken as a whole design, as they may facilitate a much better understanding of
for ecological models. Developmental models that describe synergies between systems and environments, or subsystem
form as a result of growth are very interesting, as growth- interaction, in terms of their behavioural characteristics and
influencing variables can be altered and the resulting changes capacities with respect to the purpose they serve locally and
compared with previous stages. Such models can involve a within the behavioural economy of a larger system.
large number of parameters in calibrated descriptive models Professor Prusinkiewicz speaks of ‘models of plant
of specific plants. Simulations produce numerical output, architecture based on the ecological concept of a plant as a
which can be complemented by rendered images and population of semi-autonomous modules … describing a
animations for the purpose of easily comprehensible growing plant as an integration of the activities of these
visualisation. modules’. He identifies the specifically useful feature of L-
According to Professor Prusinkiewicz, the use of systems as the capacity to ‘give rise to a class of programming
computational models has several benefits. Firstly, they can languages for specifying the models [which] makes it possible to
construct generic simulation software that is capable of
modelling a large variety of plants at the architectural level,
given their specifications in an L-system-based language. Entire
model specifications, as well as model parameters, can easily be
manipulated in simulation experiments.’4 Such architectural
models can be used for the modelling of entire plants, or
groups of plants, potentially embedded within a given ecology,
or of various parts and subscales of a single plant.
With respect to the modelling of individual plants, one of
the most striking features is the integration of biomechanics
into plant development, which allows informing the plant
growth with extrinsic physical, biological and environmental
input. Advanced models incorporate the combined impact of
gravity, tropism, contact between the various elements of a
plant structure and contact with obstacles.5 The methodological
setup, the toolset and the choice of determining variables are
equally interesting for architectural design. Entire building
systems and envelopes could thus be informed by multivariable
input and optimised to satisfy multi-performance objectives.
The gravity input can inform structural behaviour that is then
negotiated with exposure to environmental input, for example
to collect sun energy, rainwater and so on. Instead of a step-by-
step, objective-by-objective optimisation at the end of the
design process, undertaken by specialists who are not central to
the design process, response to extrinsic stimuli can now be a
part of the generative process of architecture. What might
require some work is the way in which physics are integrated
in the toolset beyond the purpose of visualisation, and how the
output of each stage might tie into necessary analytical
methods and processes.
The software developed by the Calgary team enables
Coloured scanning electron micrograph of the differentiated leaf surface various plant characteristics to be modelled. These include
and leaf hairs of the rock (or sun) rose (Cistus longifolius). These spiral phyllotaxis, which serves to optimise the packing of
trichomes guard the leaf against attack by pests, the glandular hairs,
seeds or scales, or the orientation and exposure of leaves
shown in yellow, producing defensive chemicals, while the other hairs
shown in grey provide mechanical protection. Magnification: x 125 at towards environmental input such as sunlight.6 This is of
6 x 6 centimetres. particular interest for architecture as it enables an informed

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distribution of specific performative architectural features – severe weather conditions, such as coastal climates affected
for example, energy-generating photovoltaic or by gale-force winds.
photosynthetic elements – over a building envelope that is at It is remarkable how such tiny features on plants manage
the same time optimised towards multiple objectives, to modulate very strong forces in such a way that the plant
including the way the elements populate the building can survive rather extreme conditions. The lesson here for
envelope relative to its overall orientation to multiple input architects is that these features and their functions do not
sources, such as sun path, prevailing wind directions, and so scale. However, there are two ways in which one can utilise
on. Plants are capable of doing precisely this. Hair on plants, the lesson learned from living nature: first by producing
often organised in phyllotactic distribution like thorns or same-size features to achieve the performance observed in
other such features, fulfils various functions, such as nature, and second to determine appropriate sizes for other
repelling water from plant stems that would otherwise rot, features to modulate chosen conditions over required ranges.
or repelling feeding animals through toxins contained With respect to the methodological approach, very small
within the hair. A very interesting function is that provided features such as hair on plants can be mapped onto plant
by hair around the stomata of leaves. In this case, hair models. The Calgary team achieves this by generating plant
modulates airflow so that leaves and plants do not lose too skeletons using L-systems and then graphically interpreting
much water through the combination of evaporation and these as generalised cylinders. Hair properties are then
transpiration. This often occurs in locations that experience specified and the hair mapped onto the surface and adjusted
according to positional information.7 Interestingly, standard
software such as 3D studio and Cinema 4D have recently
incorporated hair simulation in relation to airflow, in such a
way that specific properties of hair and airflow can be
determined. While this was initially important for the film
industry – for example, to produce effective hair simulation
for films like King Kong – these tools can now be of great
value in architectural design. Analysis and design generation
can thus again be synthesised.
Modelling growth processes that are sensitive to system-
extrinsic influences and negotiated with system-intrinsic
organisational information and related features hold great
potential for architecture with respect to evolving buildings
from similar processes. This suggests an expansion of the
endeavour to incorporate ecological organisation and
relations. Ecology is the study of the relation of organism to
their hosting environment, which can be studied at various
levels ranging from the individual organism to populations,
communities of species, ecosystems and, finally, the
biosphere.
At the level of the individual organism or species, there is
the study of behavioural ecology. Behaviour is an observable
action or response of an organism or species to environmental
factors. Behavioural ecology entails, therefore, the ecological
and evolutionary basis for behaviour and the roles of
behaviour in enabling organisms to adapt to their ecological
niches. It concerns individual organisms and how these
organisms are affected by (and how they can affect) their
biotic and abiotic environment. This involves: firstly, a
stimulus, in other words an internal or external agent that

Phyllotaxis (Greek phyllo: leaf + taxis: arrangement) is the study of the increasing at a constant rate and with a constant (divergence) angle between
arrangement of repeated plant units and the pattern of their repetition within the successive points. The photo shows a Menzies Banksia (Banksia Menziesii) seed
same alignment. These include leaves arranged around a stem, scales on a cone cone. Menzies Banksia is a shrub that produces large red flower spikes. After
or pineapple, florets in the head of a daisy, and seeds in a sunflower. pollination, the seeds are produced in this cone-like structure. The cone shows a
Spiral phyllotaxis is a phyllotactic pattern where the elements are arranged as a finely detailed spiral phyllotactic pattern of its unit arrangement, modified, yet not
spiral lattice, an arrangement of points on concentric circles with a radius disrupted, by the larger features of the openings for seed release.

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produces a reaction or change in an organism; secondly,

sensibility, which is the capacity to perceive a stimulus; and
thirdly, sensitivity which is the capacity of an organism to
respond to stimuli. The last is regarded as a property common
to all life forms and is also called ‘irritability’. The related
processes of sensing, growth and actuation are often
embedded capacities within the material make-up of living
nature. The modelling of context-sensitive growth processes
described above is based on this understanding and
incorporates it in its methodological setup.
The next level concerns populations or, in other words, all
organisms that constitute a specific group and occur in a
specific habitat. Population ecology involves the dynamic of
populations within species, and the interaction of these
populations with environmental factors. The level concerning
communities, which are species that interact with one
another in a specific region under relatively similar
environmental conditions, is called community ecology, and
encompasses the interaction between species within an
ecological community and their shared environment.
For population- and community-level ecologies, the
Calgary team developed interesting simulation tools that
generate spatial distributions for plant communities. There
is a considerable level of complexity involved in the
modelling of ecosystems, including the geometric
articulation of individuals and their particular features,
which needs to be consistent with their position within the
ecosystem and the related environmental input, as well as
the interaction between species and with a specific
environment. For this purpose, the team combined two types
of models into a bidirectional one that incorporates, first, a
local-to-global direction comprising an ecosystem simulation
based on individual plants and their proliferation and
distribution and, second, a global-to-local direction, which
infers positions of individual plants from a given
distribution of plant densities. This is then further informed
by a specific pattern of clustering and succession of plants.
However, rather than the integration of all data into one
single and very complex detailed model, a multilevel
approach was developed. A higher-level model determines
the distribution of plants, while a lower-level model
determines the plants’ shapes and features.8
While this type of modelling might have obvious
theoretical and practical applications for biologists, it holds
similar potential for architects and urban designers. One
application might involve the distribution of buildings specific
to a given environment. Depending on their particular
interaction with the environment, buildings can be
distributed and clustered in appropriate ways, so as to
accumulate or disperse the effects of their interaction and its
impact on the evolution of their further relationship. A
Model of rose campion (Lychnis coronaria) expressed using a context-free
further application might concern the distribution of building L-system generated with L-Studio, a software package developed at the
elements or features across a larger building envelope. This Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary.

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ties in an obvious way into the modelling described above.

While these two approaches operate on a discreet and
divided relationship between buildings, and buildings and
their environment, or interior and exterior space, a third
approach introduces a different proliferation mode that
challenges and disentangles this artificial dichotomy. As many
plants grow wherever conditions are beneficial, irrespective of
seams that divide entities or surfaces they grow on, so could
elements of the built environment be distributed according to
performance-based criteria, instead of adhering to the
potentially disadvantageous constraint of ownership or
exterior/interior thresholds. A fairly trivial example would be
a distribution of photovoltaic elements that is informed by
required performance-based orientation and density into a
local mat or patchwork irrespective of ownership boundaries.
With systems overlapping ownership boundaries, several
questions arise as to who owns what, who pays for what and
who is liable for what. Some answers to these questions
already exist with respect to the status and supply of current
building infrastructure and energy, and one could easily start
building on the existing rules and regulations. By and large,
this approach delivers a very different understanding of
entities and conditions of the built environment, away from
Model of Indian paintbrush field generated with L-Studio. L-studio is Windows
the discreetness of elements towards the synergetic
software for creating simulation models and performing virtual experiments
interrelation between environmentally sensitive and using L-systems. The software consists of L-system-based simulators,
performance-oriented growth processes and their time- and editors and other modelling tools for creating and modifying objects, and
context-specific output. environmental programs that simulate environmental processes that affect
plant development.
Our human biosphere could only benefit from an approach
towards multi-performance systems distributed according to a
related logic and facilitated by rigorous performance-oriented
modelling tools. 4

Thanks to Martin Hemberg for expert advice.

Notes ‘Integrating biomechanics into

1. Information on Professor developmental plant models expressed Further Reading
Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz’s team at using L-systems’, in H Ch Spatz and T Aristid Lindenmayer, ‘Mathematical models for cellular interaction in development’,
the Department of Computer Science Speck (eds), Plant Biomechanics 2000, Journal of Theoretical Biology 18, 1968.
at the University of Calgary, including Proceedings of the 3rd Plant Aristid Lindenmayer and Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, The Algorithmic Beauty
articles and software downloads Biomechanics Conference 2000, Georg of Plants, Springer Verlag (London, New York), 1990.
(Virtual Laboratory for Unix or L- Thieme Verlag (Stuttgart), 2000. Oliver Deussen, Pat Hanrahan, Bernd Lintermann, Mech Radomir, Matt Pharr and
Studio for Windows) can be found at: 6. See Deborah Fowler, Przemyslaw Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, ‘Realistic modelling and rendering of plant
http://algorithmicbotany.org. Prusinkiewicz and Johannes Battjes, ‘A ecosystems’, from the proceedings of SIGGRAPH ’98, Orlando, Florida, 1998.
2. See Aristid Lindenmayer, collision-based model of spiral Una-May O’Reilly, Martin Hemberg and Achim Menges, ‘Evolutionary computation
‘Mathematical models for cellular phyllotaxis’, from the proceedings of and artificial life in architecture: Exploring the potentials of generative and genetic
interaction in development’, Journal SIGGRAPH ’92, in Computer Graphics, algorithms as operative design tools, 4 Emergence: Morphogenetic Design
of Theoretical Biology 18, 1968. 26 (2), July 1992. Strategies, Vol 74, No 3, 2004, pp 48–53.
3. See Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, 7. See Martin Fuhrer, Henrik Jensen and
‘Modelling plant growth and Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, ‘Modelling
development’, in Vivian Irish and Philip hairy plants’, Proceedings of Pacific
Benfey (eds), Current Opinions in Graphics, 2004.
Plant Biology 2004, Special Issue: 8. See Brendan Lane and Przemyslaw
Growth and Development, Elsevier, 2004. Prusinkiewicz, ‘Generating spatial
4. ibid. distributions for multi-level models of
5. See Catherine Jirasek, Przemyslaw plant communities’, Proceedings of
Prusinkiewicz and Bruno Moulina, Graphics Interface, Calgary, 2002.

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(Synthetic) Life Architectures:

Ramifications and Potentials
of a Literal Biological Paradigm
for Architectural Design
Biology is the science of life. It concerns itself with the living. The long-proclaimed biological
paradigm for architectural design must for this reason go beyond using shallow biological
metaphors or a superficial biomorphic formal repertoire. The consequence is a literal
understanding of the design product as a synthetic life-form embedded within dynamic and
generative ecological relations. Michael Hensel examines the repercussions of this proposition
and surveys current developments in biology and biochemistry with respect to synthetic-life
research, gathering insights into their potential application in architectural design.

Molecular graphic of the phospholipid bilayer that forms the membrane shown here in blue. The molecules line up in two sheets, with the fatty-acid
around all living cells. The cell membrane is made of phospholipid molecules, chains forming a hydrophobic layer in the middle. The hydrophilic surface on
each of which has a hydrophilic (soluble in water) and hydrophobic (insoluble both sides of the membrane, shown here in yellow and white, is the point of
in water) end. The hydrophobic part of the phospholipid is a fatty-acid chain, contact for molecules leaving or entering the cell.

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To pursue seriously the proposition of synthetic-life

architectures it is important to take a close look at biological
While some of the PACE research
processes and materials, all the way down to the molecular teams attempt to create synthetic
scale, involving biochemistry in the understanding of the life from existing biochemical
advanced functionality and performance capacity of biological
organisms. The composite material organisation of biological
structures that can be found in
structures is typically morphologically and functionally defined biological organisms, others try to
across a minimum of eight scales of magnitude, ranging from create synthetic life from
the nano- to the macro-scale. While inherent functionality is
scale dependent, it is nevertheless interrelated and
compounds that do not occur in
interdependent across scales of magnitude. It is, in effect, living nature. However, whatever
nonlinear: the whole is more than the sum of the parts. A their approach, it must be based
central role is played by processes of self-organisation and the
functional properties that emerge from them.
on fulfilling criteria on the basis of
Self-organisation is a process in which the internal which it can be established
organisation of a system increases automatically without being whether something is alive or not.
guided or managed by an external source. It is central to the
description of biological systems, from subcellular to
ecosystems. Self-organising systems typically display emergent also based in Venice, is dedicated to the development of
properties, which arise when a number of simple entities or ‘evolutionary chemistry with the long-range goal of creating
agents cooperate in an environment, forming more complex artificial cells from nonliving raw material, and
behaviours as a collective. Emergent properties arise when a programming them with desired chemical functionality’.3
complex system reaches a combined threshold of diversity, Protocell Assembly, a project sponsored by the Los Alamos
organisation and connectivity. National Laboratory, ‘seeks to assemble a minimal self-
Thanks to biomimetic engineering, the strategic replicating molecular machine’, and focuses on the conditions
consideration of the interrelated make-up and functionality of under which simple synthetic life-forms can be assembled.
biological materials is slowly beginning to make its way into According to its mission statement: ‘The project seeks to
architectural design. However, in relation to architecture, develop the underpinning science for the assembly of
thus far this concerns, at best, the arrangement and functional proto-cells, ie simple self-reproducing nano-systems
properties of fibres and matrix in anisotropic composite that can perform useful tasks.’4 The Los Alamos team is
materials. It would seem logical and necessary to also include currently attempting to achieve a synthetic life-form nick-
the molecular scale, which promises to yield a functionality of named the ‘Los Alamos Bug’.
an as yet unrealised extent and to make possible advanced While some of the PACE research teams attempt to create
performativity and sustainability. Such an approach would synthetic life from existing biochemical structures that can be
involve biochemistry, the discipline concerned with the study found in biological organisms, others try to create synthetic
of molecules and their chemistry in reactions that facilitate life from compounds that do not occur in living nature.
the processes that make living systems possible. However, whatever their approach, it must be based on
An inquiry into synthetic-life research reveals a broad fulfilling criteria on the basis of which it can be established
range of activities and involved institutions. The whether something is alive or not.
Programmable Artificial Cell Evolution (PACE) project, for In 1971, the Hungarian chemical engineer and biologist
example, is an integrated project funded by the European Tibor Gánti provided a ground-breaking elaboration of life
Commission and is made up of 14 European and US criteria in his seminal work The Principles of Life,5 in which he
universities and businesses. Together these organisations distinguished between real or absolute life criteria and
pursue research related to the development of artificial cells potential life criteria. According to Gánti, the former are
and methods to programme their chemical functions. The necessary for an organism to be in a living state, while the
PACE project aims at creating the foundation for an latter are necessary for the organism’s survival in the living
embedded information technology using programmable, world. Real-life criteria are: 1) inherent unity – a system must
self-assembling artificial cells.1 One of its members, the be inherently an individual unit; 2) metabolism – a living
European Center for Living Technology (ECLT), based in system has to perform metabolism; 3) inherent stability – a
Venice, conducts research and training for scientists and living system must be inherently stable; 4) an information-
engineers with the aim of utilising programmable artificial- carrying subsystem – a living system must have a subsystem
cell evolution, and hosts public debates on the social, ethical carrying information that is useful for the whole system; 5)
and safety issues related to living technology.2 And ProtoLife, programme control – processes in living systems must be

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Coloured scanning electron micrograph of a section through the leaf of the small organelles that are the site of photosynthesis within the leaf.
Christmas rose (Helleborus niger). In the body of the leaf in the centre of Photosynthesis is the process by which plants use sunlight to turn carbon
the image are numerous cells containing chloroplasts (green). These are dioxide into sugars. Magnification: x 750 at 4 x 5 inch.

regulated and controlled. Potential life criteria are: 1) growth foundation of all biological membranes, and is a
and reproduction; 2) the capability of hereditary change and precondition of cell-based life. A lipid is an organic
evolution; 3) mortality. Synthetic-life research embraces a compound that is insoluble in nonpolar organic solvent.
similar, if abbreviated, list of criteria, including containment Lipids, together with carbohydrates and proteins, constitute
(inherent unity), metabolism, heredity and evolution.6 Synthetic the principal structural materials of living cells. The basic
life must fulfil these criteria, driven by deep self-organisational functions of cell membranes are to provide for integrity of
capacity that reaches across the involved scales of magnitude of the cell: that is, in general, to separate the outside from the
articulation of biological materials. These criteria are further inside, as well as carrying out intelligent filtration of
examined below, and their current or potential application material through the membrane. While water and a few
discussed in relation to their prospective use for architecture. other substances, such as carbon and oxygen, can diffuse
across the membrane, most molecules necessary for cellular
Containment functions traverse the membrane by means of transport
Containment implies that a system must be inherently an mechanisms. Information can also be transmitted across the
individual unit, a function provided by biological membrane: specific membrane proteins, so-called receptors,
membranes. These are structures composed mostly of lipid bind hormones or other such informational molecules and
and protein that form the external boundary of cells and of subsequently transmit a signal to the interior of the cell.
major structures within cells. A lipid bilayer membrane is a As membranes form the boundary between cytoplasm and
membrane composed only of lipid. Lipid bilayer is the the surrounding environment, they are affected by

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Algal bloom turning waves green on the Gulf of Tadjoura, Djibouti, near the to increased levels of sunlight. Algae are available in great abundance and can
Red Sea. The green colour of the water is due to millions of marine algae, be grown and used in artificial photosynthesis technologies to provide the
microscopic plants that increase in number between spring and autumn due built environment with energy and the means to improve the environment.

environmental stresses from the exterior as well as the

pathogenic processes from the interior of the cell. The
continuous control of chemical processes in membranes
typically involves three components: first, a sensor that will
provide a response to the chemical whose concentration is to
be controlled; second, a controller that translates the
response provided by a sensor into a signal that is then
transmitted to an actuator; and third, an actuator that will
drive the controlling mechanism. Systems combining all
three components exist in living cells. Ligan-gated ion
channels, for example, are protein molecules that are
embedded in the plasma membrane of the cells, and respond
to the presence of a biological molecule by opening a
channel in the cell membrane that allows a selective passage
of ions through the hydrophobic membrane.
Bioreactor using algae (green) to produce hydrogen gas for use as a fuel.
Scientists at a number of universities are currently
The light source fuels the growth of the algae. Burning hydrogen produces
water vapour and is a cleaner source of energy than burning fossil fuels like conducting research into membrane materials that
coal, gas and oil. Photographed in 2003, at the University of Nantes, France. incorporate biological molecules capable of selective

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Coloured scanning electron micrograph of microcapsules (blue) that contain the wearer’s temperature then falls, the PCM refreezes, releasing its absorbed
a phase-change material (PCM) coating fabric fibres. The PCM can absorb and heat and warming the garment. The PCM can undergo this melting/refreezing
release heat generated by a person wearing the fabric, warming or cooling it cycle almost indefinitely. PCMs are being developed by Outlast Technologies,
as required. If the wearer’s body temperature rises after exercise, the PCM US. Magnification unknown.
absorbs the heat and melts, preventing heat reflecting back onto the body. If

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recognition of a specific signal in such a manner that the the burning of which yields only water and energy – and
membrane will respond by changing its porosity. This the conversion of carbon dioxide into organic material and
change enables other molecules to permeate the membrane. oxygen. On an industrial scale, this possibility might have a
In so doing, the flux through the membrane will be dramatic effect upon sustainability and climatic
controlled at a local level without the need for central phenomena, for example global warming.
control. While biomembranes are currently not available on Harnessing artificial photosynthesis might eventually
a scale relevant to the building industry, the current lead to self-sufficient and zero-pollution buildings that are
research is nevertheless promising and includes smart independent from centralised energy-grids and improve
biological membranes that can interact with their their hosting environment. Future applications for artificial
environment based on self-assembling biological structures photosynthesis are within the solar-energy field (silicone-
and polymers.7 Current scales of applications encompass based technologies require a highly energy-intensive
mainly micro-filtration and gaseous diffusion. Medical production process and are less efficient in energy output),
research focuses on coating for therapeutic agents that can the production of enzymes and pharmaceuticals,
release drugs in response to the condition of the patients, or bioremediation, which entails the clean-up of
self-repairing coating in replacement joints. environmental pollutants, and the production of clean-
With research progressing at such a fast pace, biological burning fuels such as hydrogen.
membranes could deliver a completely new level of Several lines of research currently under way seek to
interaction and exchange between exterior and interior deliver feasible technologies. The main goals are to
environments through programmable intelligent filtration overcome the energy-consuming production and use of
and distribution on a molecular scale. In combination with silicon-based photovoltaic cells and the mechanics needed
metabolic processes, this might entail the removal of to orient them in an optimal way to the sun path over
pollutants and improvement of the quality of air and water in time. Light photosynthesis-capable membranes are a
both the exterior and interior environments. promising direction for further development. Others
include the use of living organisms, such as algae and
Metabolism bacteria.8 Thus synthetic metabolism has the potential to
Metabolism encompasses the physical and biochemical provide the energy needed for all significant synthetic-life
processes that occur within a living organism that are processes. Synthetic-life architectures, fuelled by artificial
necessary for the maintenance of life. The biological purpose
of metabolism is the production and storing of usable energy.
Metabolism entails that organic molecules necessary for life
are synthesised from simpler precursors in a process called
anabolism, while other complex substances are broken down
into simpler molecules in a process called catabolism, so as to
yield energy for vital processes. Photosynthesis is the
qualitatively and quantitatively most important biochemical
process on the planet. The entire energy-dependent process
called ‘life’ is enabled through photosynthesis. The process
entails the conversion of energy in sunlight to chemical forms
of energy that can be used in biological systems. More
specifically it is a biochemical process in which plants, algae
and some bacteria harness energy from light to produce food.
Carbohydrates are synthesised from carbon dioxide and water
using light as an energy source. Most forms of photosynthesis
release oxygen as a by-product. Nearly all living beings depend
on the oxygen and energy production from photosynthesis for
their survival.
The process has been studied in great detail and Frozen vials containing fragments of DNA known as BioBricks. Each BioBrick
photosynthetic systems are frequently used for the performs a specific function and is combined with others to produce novel
development and application of advanced technologies. forms of genetically altered cells. These cells are designed in the same
manner as electronic circuits. This new field of genetic engineering is known
Artificial photosynthesis attempts to replicate the natural
as synthetic biology and is a simpler method of producing genetically
process of photosynthesis, converting sunlight and carbon modified cells. In the future, synthetic biology may be used to create new
dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen. One of its potential drugs, biosensors and biological computers, or diagnose diseases.
applications is clean fuel production, such as hydrogen – Photographed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US.

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a desired response? Second, how to develop technologies that

Control Centre operate more on biochemical principles than mechanical
ones, so that the required functionality can be embedded into
the material make-up of a synthetic-life architecture? In
addition, it might be useful for architectural design to
Effector consider negative as well as positive feedback, beyond the
Receptor
criterion of homeostasis, to include responsiveness that can
both stabilise or yield change in conditions and behaviours.

Stress
Homeostasis
Homeostasis Heredity + Evolution
restored
disrupted In biology, heredity entails the conveyance of biological
characteristics from a parent organism to offspring through
Afferent Efferent
genes. Evolution entails change in the genetic composition of
Pathway Pathway a population across successive generations. This is posited as
the result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation
among individuals, which, over time, results in the
Homeostasis – Negative Feedback System
development of new species. The research team that is
Biological organisms rely on controlling and stabilising internal conditions building the Los Alamos Bug posits that if containment,
through homeostasis, a process controlled by negative feedback. When a metabolism and genome (heredity) fit together, they should
state of disruption or stress is registered by receptors, the information is sent provide the basis for evolution. Evolution is thus seen as an
to the control centre, which evaluates it and sends a signal to an effector that
emergent process, the capacity for which may be provided by
restores homeostasis.
the correct functional relation and calibration between
containment, metabolism and heredity, together with the
necessary capability of reproduction.
photosynthesis, might generate their entire energy- Growth and reproduction, so argues the Los Alamos team,
requirement from this process, provide a whole series of will yield natural selection, favouring, for example, the
useful by-products and contribute to cleaning individuals that can perform metabolic processes most
environmental pollutants. effectively. This argument suggests that evolution can be
understood in some way as a process of optimisation of
Homeostasis functionality and performance capacity. Biological systems
Homeostasis is a property of open systems, especially living are, however, so complex that it is often still too difficult to
organisms, which regulates their internal environment so as deduce optimisation criteria and constraints in such a way
to maintain required stable conditions: for example, stable that optimisation goals could be defined. Moreover, biological
body temperature. The technical equivalents are thermostats. systems are characterised by multiple-performance capacities
This commonly involves negative feedback, by which positive across ranges facilitated by the interaction of subsystems
and negative control is exerted over the values of a variable or across a minimum of eight scales of magnitude. Disentangling
set of variables, and without which control of the system this into single-objective optimisation goals is not only
would cease to function. Like the previous criteria, difficult, but also simply the wrong approach. Interdependent
homeostatic systems require sensors to measure the subsystem functionality results in higher-level integration and
parameters being regulated: signal transmission to a local or functionality. Again, the whole is more than the sum of its
global control centre where the deviations from desired values parts. Learning this from living nature is already a major
are measured; control centres – if the measured values are achievement for architectural design that will yield new
different from the set points then signals are sent to effectors methods of analysis and design generation. However, above
to bring the values back to the needed levels; and effectors and beyond the methodological retooling is the question of
capable of responding to a stimulus. how to embed this capacity within, or yield it from, materials
The range of biological and available technical sensors, and for which purpose.
detectors, transducers and actuators is impressively broad.9 This brings us back to the criterion of heredity. The
Furthermore, technological setups that can facilitate challenge is how to embed information within a material so
conditions of homeostasis in a simple negative feedback are that it can be both passed on and evolve, and to achieve
often so ubiquitous that one no longer takes notice of them, reproduction in order to yield evolution. Particularly
for as long as they work well. Overall, there are two main interesting here is the Los Alamos team’s approach to this
questions. First, which stimulus or range of stimuli needs to problem. Its ‘bug’ features short strands of peptide nucleic
be registered and transmitted to effectors or actuators to yield acid (PNA) that carries the genetic information. Like DNA, PNA is

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It is precisely the complex and organisation of biological organisms across a vast range of
dynamic exchange between an scales of magnitude must be seen in relation to a specific
context: in other words, to the numerous scalar interrelations
organism and its environment, within and between ecological systems. Ecology is the branch
and the functionality that evolves of biological science that studies the distribution and
from it, that makes synthetic life abundance of living organisms, as well as the interactions
between organisms and their environment. Environment is a
interesting for architecture. collective term for the conditions in which an organism lives.
Understandably, the very notion It encompasses the complex physical, chemical and biological
of architecture that is alive may surroundings that make up the habitat of an organism at any
given time.
sound scary to some and It is precisely the complex and dynamic exchange between
blasphemous to others. However, an organism and its environment, and the functionality that
what is proposed here is not a evolves from it, that makes synthetic life interesting for
architecture. Understandably, the very notion of architecture
version of Mary Shelley’s Modern that is alive may sound scary to some and blasphemous to
Prometheus. Instead, it involves others. However, what is proposed here is not a version of
embedding into buildings the Mary Shelley’s Modern Prometheus. Instead, it involves
embedding into buildings the biochemical processes and
biochemical processes and functionality of life for the advantage of humans, other
functionality of life for the species and the environment. One might think of it as a
advantage of humans, other highly performative synthesis between house and garden
embedded within its specific micro-environments and niches
species and the environment. and embedded within macro-ecological systems. This
promises a powerful, if partial, solution to increasing
made of two strands. Due to their chemical characteristics and environmental problems at a time when governments
specific ‘environmental’ conditions, these strands can continue to place economic development over environmental
combine or separate into single strands. Single strands have concerns, in the face of a world climate that might have begun
the ability to attract fragments of matching PNA from their to go bonkers. 4
‘environment’. Doubling, splitting and attracting new
fragments is a very simple form of reproduction and heredity.
Returning to the question of evolution towards higher Notes Biomedical Engineering Research
1. For PACE see http://134.147.93.66/ Group at Bath University
levels of performance capacity, it is interesting to consider
bmcmyp/Data/PACE/Public. http://www.bath.ac.uk/chemeng/resea
the field of smart material research. One definition is that 2. For ECLT see http://bruckner.biomip. rch/groups/babe.shtml.
‘smart materials and structures are those objects that sense rub.de/bmcmyp/Data/ECLT/Public/. 8. For a detailed elaboration, see
environmental events, process that sensory information, and 3. For ProtoLife see Werner Nachtigall, Bionik: Grundlagen
http://www.protolife.net. See also Bob und Beispiele für Ingenieure und
then act on the environment’.10 In stable environments this Holmes, ‘Alive! The race to create life Naturwissenschafter, 2nd edn, Springer
capacity would neither be of use, nor would it depend on from scratch’, New Scientist, Issue Verlag (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York),
evolution to adjust to changing stimuli. Life and its evolution 2486, 12 February 2005. 2002, pp 318–36.
depend on the exchange between organisms and a dynamic 4. See http://www.protocell.org. 9. See Michelle Addington and Daniel
5. Tibor Gánti, The Principles of Life, Schodek, Smart Materials and
environment. To make any sense, smart materials would also Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2003, Technologies for the Architecture and
need the capacity to evolve, in order not to be immediately first published in Hungarian as Az élet Design Professions: Elements and
redundant if there was an environmental change beyond princípiuma, Gondolat (Budapest), Control Systems, Architectural Press
1971. (London, New York), 2005, pp 109–37.
their capacity to respond in a manner that is in some way
6. Bob Holmes, op cit, pp 28–33. 10. John J Kroschwitz (ed),
beneficial for the overall system. Material research and 7. For further information see, for Encyclopaedia of Chemical Technology,
biochemistry need to cross-inform one another to deliver example, the Biochemical and John Wiley & Sons (London), 1992.
smart materials that deserve this label. Obviously there is a
lot of work to be done in this field before specific industrial
Further Reading:
applications can be delivered. Tibor Gánti, The Principles of Life, Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2003.
In general, there is, of course, the added difficulty of not Werner Nachtigall, Bionik: Grundlagen und Beispiele für Ingenieure und
only fulfilling the above-introduced life criteria, but also of Naturwissenschafter, 2nd edn, Springer Verlag (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York), 2002.
linking them into an interdependent process that amounts to Philip L Yeagle (ed), The Structure of Biological Membranes, 2nd edn, CRC Press
(London), 2005.
synthetic life. Moreover, the hierarchical functional

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Self-Organisation and
the Structural
Dynamics of Plants
Classical engineering is driven by efficiency, with a precise economy of materials and
structures for specific conditions. Michael Weinstock explains how, conversely, biology has
evolved redundancy as a deep strategy, with hierarchical arrangements of cells and tissues
producing sufficient excess capacity for adaptation to changing environmental stresses. He
explains how, with the assistance of George Jeronimidis and Nikolaos Stathopoulos, the
Emtech masters programme at the Architectural Association (AA) has explored the integrated
morphologies of plants, an analysis that reveals new models for engineered structures.

Detailed model section of an internal bamboo structure showing the long

cylindrical cells (parenchyma), fibres and xylem (hollow fluid-conducting
tubes) that make up the stem. The sectional model is reconstructed from
electron-microscope information.

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The study of the organisation of materials in biological materials, simplicity of structural organisation, and the
structures has, until recently, proceeded from the widely standardisation of components and members.
accepted view that evolution develops – over very long time On the long timescale of evolution, the complexity of living
periods – optimised, efficient and strong structures. systems, and the diversity of those systems, developed as
Evolutionary theory has been co-opted to support a view of responses to environmental pressures and instabilities. Those
biological systems that does not contest traditional organisms that have excess capacities or redundancy survive
engineering concepts, particularly the concepts of efficiency environmental instability; those that are too completely
and optimisation. This way of thinking is very limited, and matched to an environment – the ‘efficient’ design – do not
ignores both the high degree of redundancy and complexity in survive if the environment develops instabilities. The most
the material hierarchies of many natural structures, and the important principle of adaptation, unregarded by classical
means by which biological systems respond and adapt to engineering, is small random variation in the ‘design’,
environmental stresses and dynamic loadings.1 repeated over time. It is this stochastic process that produces
The engineering principles of biological systems can be robust systems that persist through time. In mathematical
abstracted and applied to the design of artefacts and terms, ‘stochastic’ is often used in opposition to the
buildings, a process known as biomimetics. To do so requires ‘deterministic’. Deterministic processes always produce the
a deeper engagement with evolutionary development and a same output from a given starting condition; stochastic
more systematic analysis of the material organisation2 and processes will never repeat an identical output. It follows that
behaviour of individual species. Biological systems are self- developing processes that include small random mutations
assembled, using mainly quite weak materials to make over many iterations is a significant ‘evolutionary’ strategy for
strong structures, and their dynamic responses and design, architecture and engineering, and one that will
properties are very different to the classical engineering of preclude the standardisation of components and members.
manmade structures. The behaviour of all natural systems is
complex and adaptive, and plants in particular manage their During the self-assembly process of
structural behaviour in a way that provides new models for morphogenesis of an individual, the
engineered structures. Plants resist gravity and wind loads mutual interdependence of hierarchical
through variation of their stem sections and the organisation levels of cellular organisation ensures
of their material in successive hierarchies, using small that there is redundancy within each
quantities of ‘soft’ materials in each organisational level to
achieve their structural goals. Plants are hierarchical
individual. The robust design of natural
structures, made of materials with subtle properties that are living systems is not produced by
capable of being changed by the plant in response to local or optimisation and standardisation, but by
global stresses. redundacy and differentiation.
In classical engineering redundancy is opposed to
efficiency, but it is an essential strategy for biology, without In the sciences, the term ‘robustness’ is used to describe a
which adaptation and response to changing environmental system that can survive extreme external variations, and it is
pressures would not be possible. In biological systems, characteristic of a ‘robust’ system that it is not fatally sensitive
redundancy is the primary evolutionary strategy, therefore to the variation of the inputs. Robustness 5 in living systems is
multicellular organisations developed from the seemingly produced at the genetic level. The genetic code can be described
very efficient unicellularity of primitive organisms. Cellular as canonical, persistent over enormous periods of time, but
differentiation and multiple hierarchical arrangements of each time the code is transcribed to produce the amino acids
cells in which an aggregation of cells becomes a basic that, in turn, self-organise into higher levels of assembly and
component in a higher organisational level add further differentiation, small copying errors produce sufficient
complexity and increased functionality. Redundancy 3 in a mutation to ensure variation in the population. Each individual
biological structure means not only that the system has more in the population will correspond to the main ‘design
cells available in each tissue than any single task would parameters’, being topologically identical, but individually
require, but also that the hierarchical organisation of cells is varied. Furthermore, during the self-assembly process of
arranged so that tissue has sufficient excess capacity for morphogenesis of an individual, the mutual interdependence of
adaptation to changing environmental stresses. hierarchical levels of cellular organisation ensures that there is
Evolutionary biology has utilised redundancy 4 as a deep redundancy within each individual. The robust design of
strategy implemented at many levels, in multiple and natural living systems is not produced by optimisation and
complex hierarchical material arrangements and standardisation, but by redundancy and differentiation.
differentiation to achieve robust and stable structures, All biological forms assemble themselves, and do so under
whereas engineering has traditionally sought the minimum of the load of gravity, when it is necessary to gather their

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Three-dimensional models of the global morphology and internal fibre the internodal transition of the stem cross-section. The model of the internal
architecture of a bamboo stem. The global morphology model aims at fibre structure aims at reproducing the nonuniform fibre density across the
accurately reproducing the geometry of the stem around the diaphragms and stem’s cross-section and the differentiation in the size and shape of the fibres.

materials and energy from their environments. Biological self- emergent properties and behaviour. An emergent property of
organisation takes place under stress. If growth under stress human tissue, for example, is the mechanical behaviour of
is universal, it follows that geometrical morphologies and skin. Pinch an area of skin and pull, and the skin resists the
cellular organisations that allow plants to respond to stress force by becoming stiffer; let go and it relaxes. When skin is
loadings are also very common. Patterns appear in all natural being stretched its resistance increases as the stress increases
systems, and the frequency and occurrence of certain because more and more of the skin’s components lie in the
geometrical patterns (in particular triangles, pentagons and direction of the stress – a response to stress known as linear
spirals) in many different organisations and across hugely stiffening. Biological forms are systems within systems,
divergent scales is remarkable. These patterns are generic, and hierarchical arrangements of semi-autonomous
so it can be said that biological self-organisation is essentially organisations,6 each achieving its own functions, but also
geometrical, but it is also significant that the same small set having sufficient excess capacity so that it contributes to the
of materials is common. responsiveness of the global organisation. Each lower level of
The critical characteristics of biological self-organisation organisation requires differentiation and redundancy to
are: small, simple components assembled together in three- achieve this.
dimensional patterns to form larger organisations that, in The case for the evolutionary advantages conferred by
turn, self-assemble into more complex structures that have differentiation and redundancy is convincing. However, there

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Isosurfaces of the deformations occurring during tension loading of the generated surfaces that cut through the stressed body so that they join the
bamboo stem, used for the study of the deformation patterns and stress material points where equal deformations, strains or displacements develop.
trajectories around the internal diaphragms. Isosurfaces are algorithmically

has yet to be any indepth study of the advantages to Emtech Masters programme at the Architectural Association
individuals as biological structures. The Emtech studies began (AA), with the assistance of George Jeronimidis and Nikolaos
with an examination of the integrated morphologies of Stathopoulos. It immediately became evident that there are
plants, in search of potential systems from which innovative strategic decisions to be made in developing digital models for
building systems can be developed. Quantitative descriptions analysis. Models are needed in order to explore the
and digital models are of value in understanding the relationship of global morphology to tissue mechanics, but if
structural performance of plants, and the construction of every cell in a plant system is modelled, the computational
appropriate digital models enables analysis and simulations resources that would be required would be immense.7 Digital
by experiment. The modelling and analysis of plant systems modelling of plant systems also introduces many other
permits a new understanding of the emergent behaviour, complications. Not only are the geometry, boundary and
component hierarchies and adaptive strategies of biological loading conditions difficult to define accurately, but it is also
structures, and permits the exploration of the mechanical necessary to define the characteristics of ‘biological’ materials.
performance of growth under stress. Therefore, in order to analyse the mechanical behaviour and
The investigation of plant systems commenced with a to reveal how cell tissues, leaves and stems respond to
preliminary phase of case studies of bamboos and palms. The externally applied loads and localised stresses, we developed
digital modelling and analysis was conducted within the digital models in a hierarchical manner.

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Numerical methods and, particularly, the finite element glass-fibre-reinforced materials are commonly produced in
approach, are now increasingly common in the study of this way). Thus differentiation offers the potential for variable
biological systems. Finite element analysis (FEA) is now a well- stiffness and elasticity within the same material.
known technique for the analysis of manufactured We employed associative modelling software 9 (the beta
engineering structures, familiar to engineers and to many GenerativeComponents) 10 to establish a relation between the
architects. The finite element method is a numerical analysis various ‘components’ of the bamboo, a relation controlled by
technique used to obtain solutions to the differential a global variable in the digital model. When the height of the
equations that are used to describe a wide variety of physical stem was increased in the model, the width of the stem
problems. A geometrical model consisting of multiple, linked, reduced, simulating the natural growth pattern. This
simplified representations of discrete components – the finite relationship was then extrapolated to the model of the whole
elements – represents the material system. Data transfer bamboo, and used to simulate its structural response to a
between typical 3-D modelling software programs and variety of dynamic load conditions.
analytical software creates particular difficulties, and requires The aim was to construct a digital model that linked the
the development of specific protocols. plant’s global morphology (its general form) and anatomy (its
The inherent problem in breaking down a complex natural internal structure), so that geometric studies such as
system into hierarchies and components is that emergent curvature analysis, and structural studies such as deflection
behaviour produced by the interdependence of different analysis, could be carried out. The structural behaviour at
hierarchical levels can only be described in a simplistic various scales was tested, from the stem and root of the
manner. Associative modelling, such as that offered by the bamboo down to its microscopic fibrous structure. The initial
GenerativeComponents software (Bentley Systems), is an research focused on establishing scale relations between these
effective way to link material systems in layered hierarchies, ‘components’, and the digital model was developed according
and coupling that, in turn, to analytical software for to this logic. The relative densities and strengths of materials
behavioural analysis will be the focus of subsequent inquiries. (the fibres and surrounding matrix) were established, so that
simulations of the response to various stresses and loadings
Bamboo could be carried out using the FEA software Ansys.
Bamboo occurs in natural environments with varying stem Bamboo can grow to heights of up to 30 metres (98 feet).
diameters and a range of heights. Unlike trees, the anatomical Though it has a very thin section, it does not buckle as it
features and mechanical behaviour of bamboo exhibit no
really significant differences across the 1200 or so different
species. Growth conditions and the age of individual plants do
not appear to have a significant effect on the anatomy or on
the material composition of the tissue in the stem.
Again unlike trees, the growth is mainly longitudinal, with
proportionally little radial growth. The stem (or ‘culm’) is
made up of approximately 50 per cent long cylindrical cells
(parenchyma), 40 per cent fibres and 10 per cent xylem, or
hollow fluid-conducting tubes, which have fibres arranged in
sheaths and bundles around them.8 All bamboos show a
marked differentiation in the distribution of cells within the
stem, both horizontally and vertically. The percentage of
fibres is much higher in the outer third of the wall than in the
inner, and in the upper part of the stem compared to the
lower part. The distribution of fibres and bundles is
differentiated according to height and slenderness, so that the
upper parts of the stem consist mainly of many smaller
vascular bundles with a higher portion of fibres, ensuring
that, as the slenderness increases, so too does the material
strength increase appropriately to the increased loading
stresses of wind and water on the higher parts of the plant.
This fibre and bundle differentiation offers a very
Isosurfaces of stresses along the main direction of the fibres when a sector
interesting model for the production of fibre-composite
of the bamboo stem is subjected to tension. The visualisation facilitates a
materials systems, which currently tend towards a uniform quick reading of the interaction between the stiff fibres and the much softer
distribution of fibres and matrix (carbon-fibre materials and surrounding material matrix.

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sways in the wind. The simulations and analysis demonstrated Palms

that bamboo negotiates stresses far more efficiently than Palm trees show a comparable strategy to bamboo in the
manmade structures, and does so with a minimum of density and distribution of materials in the stem, and the
material. Bamboo is an extremely strong fibre, with twice the anatomy of palms 11 is quite different again from that of trees.
compressive strength of concrete and roughly the same The palm stem is strongly differentiated, with more marked
strength-to-weight ratio of steel in tension. The tests internal differences. Within the stem, density of fibrous
demonstrated that the hollow-cylinder configuration gives a bundles is highest towards the outer part of the stem and
strength factor of 1.9 over an equivalent solid when used as a lower at the centre, and much higher at the base than at the
beam, as in a beam only the top (compression) and bottom crown. A single palm can demonstrate the full range of
(tension) are doing any work – the material in the centre does densities found in all trees – the density of the peripheral
no work and only adds weight. The internal diaphragms stem tissues at the base of a palm is greater than that of most
reduce the effective length of the bamboo relative to the woods, while the less dense core tissue near the crown is
section, so that each internodal length of stem is quite stiff lower. The material differentiation and changing stem
(short length in relation to diameter), yet the global geometry diameter (or allometry) along the length are responsible for
produces flexibility (very long in relation to stem diameter). the very high capacity of the palm to respond to exceptional
The variation, or differentiation, of the internode dimensions dynamic loading.
along the length of the stem produces a graduated response The folded structure and overall contoured shape of the
to dynamic loadings and the ability to tolerate bending palm leaf assist in maximising collection of both water and
deflections. sunlight, and contribute to the strength and stability of the
If these naturally occurring material strategies are leaf. Study and analysis here focused on the global
described in engineering terms, there is an agenda for new morphology of the leaf and the structural articulations of
strategies for design, including differentiated distribution of the folds, and the morphology of the stem. In the
cells, bundles and fibres in a bamboo section to produce simulations of loadings and subsequent analysis, the stresses
anisotropic and emergent structural properties, shape on the lower edges of the folds were highest, precisely
adaptation at nodes, variable sections and differentiated corresponding with distribution of the veins that provide
component dimensions (diaphragms) along the length of additional stiffening as well as fulfilling their primary role in
the member. the management of fluids.

Study of the structural performance of a folded-plate palm leaf structure by

means of comparing the stress patterns developing over the leaf due to
wind pressures with the stresses that would develop over a leaf with similar
global geometry but no folds.

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The joint between the leaf and the stem of the palm ability to accept large stresses and deformations and return
raised a problem common in all our studies. Unlike to their previous state, is far higher than is the case with
engineered structures, in natural biological systems there is engineered structures. Plants can accept very high
no single boundary or contour where one component ends temporary loadings, and even in high gusting winds and
and the other begins; fibrous material is continuous right severe storms it is more common for palms and bamboo to
through the joint. In fact, in plants there do not seem to be be uprooted than it is for their stems to snap. Of particular
any joints at all, thus the zone where the palm leaf joins its interest is the way in which these plant systems deal with
stem has to be defined as a morphological change rather resonance, a phenomena that is critical to the design of tall
than a mechanical change. The main leaf stem has a structures, and perhaps more familiarly, to spanning
particular moon-shaped cross-section that continuously structures and bridges.
changes along the length from the lower stem to the base of All structures vibrate at a frequency that is unique to the
the leaf. structure, and resonance can be thought of as a vibration that
The stem allotropy (stem diameter in relation to tree is caused by the tendency of the system to absorb energy from
height) demonstrates another variation on a similar strategy an external force that is in harmony with the natural
found in the bamboo, in that a variable section produces frequency of the structure itself. Musical instruments are
anisotropic properties, and a gradation of values between designed and built on this principle, so that the acoustic
stiffness and elasticity along the length of the stem that is resonances of the instrument produce musical harmonies. All
particularly useful for resisting dynamic and unpredictable natural structures, and most engineered structures, have
loadings. All the stems come together towards the base of the more than one resonant frequency, and will vibrate more
plant, and this collective grouping acts as a bundle to assist in easily in some frequencies than in others. Resonance is
strength stability and bending stiffness of the whole plant. nonlinear, but in certain circumstances the resonant
frequency will emerge from a complex ‘excitation’, such as
Nonlinear Dynamics wind. If it is not dampened, this can lead to catastrophic
The preliminary studies of plant morphologies and anatomy failure, perhaps the most famous example of which is the
described above focus on linear dynamics, even though it is oscillations that destroyed the Tacoma Narrows Suspension
evident that most biological materials have marked stiffness Bridge in 1940. The wind was not severe, perhaps just 68
nonlinearities. The range of their elastic behaviour, their kilometres (42 miles) per hour, but was at the precise speed

Successive generations of NURBS-Surface models of the 3-D folded-plate Analysis of the bending stresses developing at different sections of the palm
geometry of the palm leaf. The models explore different strategies for the stem. The cross-section is continuously changing along the stem’s length,
geometric modelling of the folded structure and their repercussions for the leading to different local bending stress distributions at different sections
subsequent transfer of geometrical data to engineering finite element and contributing to a global relationship between bending and torsional
analysis software. stiffness that is not possible with a constant cross-section.

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and the correct angle to start the bridge vibrating. The Variations in the section and material properties of
vibrations continued to accelerate, the energy being supplied biological ‘structural members’ offer very considerable
by the wind, until the waves travelling through the structure advantages over the constant section usually adopted in
broke the bridge apart. There was no significant damping in conventional engineered structures. The differentiated
the structural design to prevent the torsional fluttering that distribution of cells, fibres and bundles, according to height
caused the destruction. and slenderness, offers a very interesting model for the
A related example is the Millennium Bridge (AKA the production of fibre-composite materials systems. Sectional
‘wobbly bridge’ across the Thames, the ‘blade of light’ design variations produce anisotropy, a gradation of values
by Arup and Foster and Partners). Here, the suspension cables between stiffness and elasticity along the length of the stem
are below the pedestrian deck level, giving a very shallow that is particularly useful for resisting dynamic and
profile, but analysis has shown that it was not the unpredictable loadings. 4
shallowness of the profile, but rather the movement of
pedestrians walking in synchronisation, that caused the Notes
unexpected lateral vibration or resonance. This resonance 1. An introduction to some aspects of of the National Academy of Science
was not anticipated in the computational analysis at the dynamics in biological systems is USA, Vol 95, Issue 15, 8420–8427, 1998.
presented by Professor George 5. David C Krakauer, ‘Robustness in
design stage, and was ‘cured’ only later on by the fitting of 37
Jeronimidis in ‘Biodynamics’, 4 biological systems: a provisional
fluid-viscous dampers to control the horizontal movements Emergence: Morphogenetic Design taxonomy’, Sante Fe Institute Paper 03-
and 52 tuned mass dampers to control the vertical Strategies, Vol 74, No 3, 2004. 02-008, USA, 2003; and Andreas
movements. 2. M Elices (ed), Structural Biological Wagner, Robustness and Evolvability in
Materials, Pergamon Press Living Systems, Princeton University
The variable stiffness of plants means they behave very
(Amsterdam), 2000. An excellent study Press (Princeton, NJ), 2005.
differently in resonance than linear models of conventional of the structure and properties of 6. HA Simon, ‘The architecture of
structural dynamics. Although yet to be confirmed by more biological materials, including hard and complexity’, Proceedings of the
detailed analysis and simulation, it is clear that the ways in soft tissue engineering, and fibrous American Philosophical Society 106, in
materials. The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edn,
which bamboos and palms cope with resonance is by 3. In many biological systems, the MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1996.
‘torsional softness’, a way of transferring bending energy into ability of elements that are structurally 7. David M Bruce, ‘Mathematical
twisting energy. The shape variation of the stem section different but can perform the same modelling of the cellular mechanics of
means that mass distribution along the stem is asymmetrical, function is known as ‘degeneracy’, and plants’, Philosophical Transactions of
it is argued that this property is a the Royal Society of London, Vol 358,
and as the fibre density is also varied the elastic modulus of significant characteristic of systems No 1437, September 2003.
the stem has a gradation of values rather than a uniform such as genes, neural networks and ‘The complex mechanical behaviour of
condition. This means that twisting and bending are coupled, evolution itself. Degeneracy is plant tissues reflects the complexity of
distinguished from ‘redundancy’, which their structure and material properties.
a significant engineering advantage for the resonant
occurs when the same function is This paper reviews approaches that
behaviour of the plant. Plant stems can thus behave performed by identical elements. have been taken to modelling and
somewhat like springs of variable ‘softness’, so that their See Guilo Tononi, Olaf Sporns and simulation of cell wall, cell and tissue
response is tuned to the strain imposed on them. Gerald M Edelman, ‘Measures of mechanics, and to what extent models
degeneracy and redundancy in have been successful in predicting
biological networks’, Proceedings of the mechanical behaviour.’
Conclusion: Redundancy and Differentiation National Academy of Science USA, Vol 8. Christina Sanchis Gritch and Richard
The structural dynamics of all natural systems are complex 98, Issue 6, 3257–3262, 1999. J Murphy, ‘Ultrastructure of fibre and
and adaptive, and plants in particular manage their structural See also Gerald M Edelman and parenchyma cell walls during culm
Joseph A Gally, ‘Degeneracy and development in Dendrocalamus asper’,
behaviour in a way that provides new models for engineered
complexity in biological systems’, Annals of Botany 2005, 95: 619–29.
structures. It is clear that plant systems offer a model of Proceedings of the National Academy 9. Associative modelling allows the
structure and material organisation that presents of Science USA, Vol 98, Issue 6, linking of geometrically defined objects
considerable challenges to traditional engineering concepts. 13763–13768, 2001. to each other and in cascading
4. Evolvability is an organism’s capacity multiple hierarchies. Any local changes
‘Efficiency’ and ‘optimisation’ have very different meanings in to generate heritable phenotypic to the geometry of a single object will
biological structures, which feature a high degree of variation, and it is argued that the then be automatically implemented to
redundancy and complexity in their material hierarchies. The various controlling processes of all linked objects and assemblies.
means by which biological systems respond and adapt to evolutionary change include 10. Bentley Systems’
redundancy. This contributes to GenerativeComponents is a parametric
environmental stresses and dynamic loadings are complex, so robustness and flexibility of processes and associative design system. It gives
that responses are nonlinear, arising out of the interactions of during individual embryonic designers and engineers new ways to
multiple material hierarchies. The high performance that development, and also confers efficiently explore alternative building
evolvability on the organism by forms without manually building the
shape-adaptation at nodes and continuity of materials in
reducing constraints on change and detail design model for each scenario.
biological structures produces suggests that the mechanical allowing the accumulation of beneficial 11. Rodolfo Salm, ‘Stem density,
joint in engineered structures needs to be rethought and, if variations. See Marc Kirschner and growth and the distribution of palm
possible, eliminated. John Gerhart, ‘Evolvability’, Proceedings trees’, Biota Neotropica, Vol 4, 2004.

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Self-Organisation and
Material Constructions
Cellular biological materials have intricate interior structures, self-organised in hierarchies to
produce modularity, redundancy and differentiation. As Michael Weinstock explains, the
foam geometries of cellular materials offer open and ductile structural systems that are
strong and permeable, making them an attractive paradigm for developments in material
science and for new structural systems in architecture and engineering.

Spongy bone tissue

Scanning electron micrograph of cancellous (spongy) bone tissue. Bone can cellular structure is highly differentiated, formed by an irregular network of
be either cortical (compact solid) or cancellous, with cortical usually forming trabeculae, or rod-shaped fibrous tissue. The open spaces within the tissue
the exterior of the bone and cancellous tissue forming the interior. The are filled with bone marrow.

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In recent years, new strategies for design and new techniques are organised in parallel rows and tend to have more regular,
for making materials and large constructions have emerged, prism-like cells. In all cellular materials, the cells may be
based on biological models of the processes by which natural either regular or irregular shapes, and may vary in
material forms are produced. Biological organisms have distribution.
evolved multiple variations of form that should not be D’Arcy Thompson5 discussed the mathematical expressions
thought of as separate from their structure and materials. for the shapes of growing cells in 1917, arguing that new
Such a distinction is artificial, in view of the complex biological structures arise because of the mathematical and
hierarchies within natural structures and the emergent physical properties of living matter. His chapter on ‘The Forms
properties of assemblies. Form, structure and material act of Cells’, when read in conjunction with the ‘Theory of
upon each other, and this behaviour of all three cannot be Transformations’, has been extended today to patterning and
predicted by analysis of any one of them separately. differentiation in plant morphogenesis. The problem of
The self-organisation of biological material systems is a mathematical descriptions of foam has a long history ,6 but it
process that occurs over time, a dynamic that produces the can be observed that foam will comprise a randomised array
capacity for changes to the order and structure of a system, of hexagon and pentagon structures.7 Diatoms and radiolara
and for those changes to modify the behaviour of that are among the smallest of sea creatures, and the intricate
system.1 The characteristics of self-organisation include a 3-D structures of their skeletons have fascinated, among others,
spatial structure, redundancy and differentiation, hierarchy Frei Otto and his biologist collaborator JG Helmke. It has been
and modularity.2 Studies of biological systemic development argued that the formation of these tiny intricate structures is
suggest that the critical factor is the spontaneous emergence a process of mineralised deposits on the intersection surfaces
of several distinct organisational scales and the interrelations of aggregations of pneus or bubbles.
between lower or local levels of organisation, the molecular
and cellular level, and higher or global levels of the structure The Construction of Materials
or organism as a whole. The evolution and development of In the industrial world, polymer cellular foams 8 are widely
biological self-organisation of systems proceeds from small, used for insulation and packaging, but the high structural
simple components that are assembled together to form efficiency of cellular materials in other, stiffer materials has
larger structures that have emergent properties and only recently begun to be explored. Comparatively few
behaviour, which, in turn, self-assemble into more complex engineers and architects are familiar with the engineering
structures.3 The geometry of soap foams is a model for the design of cellular materials, and this has contributed to the
cellular arrangements at all scales in natural physical systems. slow development of cellular structures in architecture.
Industrial and economic techniques do exist for producing
Natural Constructions foams in metals, ceramics and glass. Foamed cellular
Natural materials develop under load, and the intricate materials take advantage of the unique combination of
interior structure of biological materials is an evolutionary properties offered by cellular solids, analogous properties to
response. At the level of the individual, there is also an those of biological materials, but they do not share their
adaptive response as, for example, bone tissue gets denser in origin. They are structured and manufactured in ways that are
response to repeated loads in athletic activities such as derived from biological materials, but are made from
weightlifting. Bone is a cellular solid,4 a porous material that inorganic matter. The production processes for metal foams
has the appearance of mineralised foam, and its interior is a and cellular ceramics have been developed for the
network of very small and intricately connected structures. simultaneous optimisation of stiffness and permeability,
When bone becomes less dense, due to age or prolonged strength and low overall weight. This is the logic of
inactivity, it is the very small connective material that biomimesis, abstracting principles from the way in which
vanishes, so that the spaces or cells within the bone become biological processes develop a natural material system,
larger. The loss of strength in the material is disproportionate, applying analogous methods in an industrial context, and
demonstrating the importance of the microstructure: larger using stronger materials to manufacture a material that has
cells make a weaker material. no natural analogue.
Cellular materials are common at many scales in the The ability of some materials to self-organise into a stable
natural world, for example in the structure of tiny sea arrangement under stress has been the founding principle of
creatures, in wood and in bones. What they have in common structural form-finding in the physical experiments of Gaudí,
is an internal structure of ‘cells’, voids or spaces filled with Eisler and Otto. ‘Organisation’ here refers to the reordering of
air or fluids, each of which has edges and faces of liquid or the material, or the components of the material system, in
solid material. The cells are polyhedral, and pack all the order to produce structural stability.
available arranged space in a 3-D pattern. Foam has cells that Biomimetics is essentially interdisciplinary, a series of
are differentially organised in space, whereas honeycombs collaborations and exchanges between mathematicians,

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Soap bubbles Polyurethane foam wound dressing

A naturally produced foam of soap bubbles, demonstrating the differentiation Scanning electron micrograph of polyurethane foam, showing the porous
of polyhedral cells in an intricate geometry of foam architecture, including the structure of differentiated open and partially closed cells. Magnification x 20
basic Plateau rules for the intersection of three films. when printed at 10 centimetres wide.

physicists, engineers, botanists, doctors and zoologists. The Other ‘designed’ materials, such as polymers and foamed
rigid boundaries between the inherited taxonomy of ‘pure’ metals, are already being used in many aerospace, maritime
disciplines make little sense in this new territory. Similarly, and medical applications. Polymers also have unique
the traditional architectural and engineering ways of thinking combinations of properties not found in ‘natural’ materials,
about materials as something independent of form and being lightweight, very flexible and mechanically strong. In
structure are obsolete. tandem with their electrical and optical properties, this makes
New research into the molecular assembly of structures them highly suited to military applications. In aircraft
and materials in what were previously thought to be fuselages and body armour they offer high strength for low
homogenous natural materials has led to ‘biomimetic’ weight, providing structural stability and flexibility.
manufacturing techniques for producing synthetic materials, Simple polymers, such as the ubiquitous plastics like
and new composite materials are being ‘grown’ that have DuPont’s Corian, are homogenous materials, similar in density
increasingly complex internal structures based on biological and strength in all directions. Complex polymers need not be
models. The fabrication of composites relies on controlling homogenous, and can be produced with surfaces that have
structure internal to the material itself, at molecular levels. different properties from the polymer interior. Complex
Here, processing is the controlling parameter and growth is polymers are useful for films and surfaces with multiple layers,
more than a metaphor. ‘Grown’ materials are layered, each with distinct and differentiated functions. Manufactured
molecule by molecule, to create distinctive micro-structures in by mimicking and adapting the self-organising behaviour and
thin films, making new combinations of metal and ceramic complex functions of natural polymers, very strong transparent
that are produced by design rather than ‘nature’. New or translucent films can be produced with a water-repellent and
composites such as flaw-tolerant ceramics and directionally self-cleaning surface for facade systems. The process, known as
solidified metals might seem to be a long way from the ‘free living radical polymerisation’, can produce honeycomb
materials available to architects, but they are already in use in structures at a molecular level, although the controlled
many other fields. formation of the honeycomb morphology at larger scales is still

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Thomas Von Girsewald and Juan Subercaseaux, centroidal Voronoi

tessellation and boundary optimisation in close-packing systems,
Emergent Technologies and Design programme, AA Graduate School
of Architecture, 2005
Geometric logics were identified from a physical soap-film model and,
based on the geometric fundamentals of Plateau’s laws extended into
three dimensions (three relaxed soap bubbles can only meet at an angle
of exactly 109° 28’ 16”), a four-segment tetrahedral dihedral angle
component was digitally designed. The component was nested inside a
layered triangular organisation generating a parametrically deformable
triangular tile with regular pentagonal dodecahedra (12-sided) interior
cellular partitions. This tile was aperiodically distributed into a larger
equilateral configuration with a total population of 152 nested
component features. The parametric system permits the manipulation of
one single input point to produce an automatic reconfiguration of 114
primary components, maintaining the coherence of the cellular partitions
while relocating the respected individual centroid.

Sponge spicule
Scanning electron micrograph of the endoskeletal component of a sponge
made of calcium carbonate. When assembled, the skeleton forms either a
mesh or honeycomb structure. Magnification x 210 when printed at 10
centimetres wide.

The process, known as

‘free living radical
polymerisation’, can
produce honeycomb
structures at a molecular
level, although the
controlled formation of
the honeycomb
morphology at larger
scales is still in the
research, rather than
production, phase.

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in the research, rather than production, phase.

Kevlar is perhaps the best-known manufactured organic
fibre and, because of its unique combination of material
properties, it is now widely used in many industrial
applications. It has high tensile strength (five times that of
steel), low weight and excellent dimensional stability, and so
has been adopted for lightweight cables and ropes in many
marine and naval applications. Kevlar has high impact
resistance, so it is the major fibre constituent in composite
panels in military and civil aircraft, and in sporting
equipment such as canoes, skis, racquets and helmets.
However, it has yet to be used widely in architectural
construction.
Liquid crystals have the flow properties of a conventional
liquid, and the molecular structure of a solid crystal. This is a
phase change occurring between the crystalline and isotropic
liquid states. Kevlar is produced, in part, by manipulating the
liquid-crystalline state in polymers. Spiders use the low
viscosity in the liquid crystalline regime for the spinning of
their silk. Spider silk is as strong as Kevlar, which means that
it has superior mechanical properties to most synthetic fibres
and can stretch up to 40 per cent under load. This gives it an
unusual advantage, in that the amount of strain required to
cause failure actually increases as deformation increases, an
energy-absorbing ability that allows the web to absorb the
impact of flying prey.
Self-organising materials, such as liquid crystals, natural
polymers and copolymers, found their first applications in
biotechnology, sensor development and smart medical
surfaces, and more recently in maritime, automotive and
aerospace applications, but they have the potential to produce
new structures and systems for advanced architectural
engineering.
There is new interest within the material sciences and
industry in the use of ceramics as a structural material.
Ceramics are very light, but their compressive strength
matches, or exceeds, that of metals. They are hard and
durable, resistant to abrasion and noncorroding as they are
chemically inert. Ceramics are good insulators (both electric
and thermal) and can resist high temperatures. However, they
have one major disadvantage: their lack of tensile strength.
The solution to this problem is being sought in biological
SMO Architektur and Arup, Bubble Highrise, Berlin, 2002
Experimental design from which the design approach to the Watercube was models – the forming of complex structures internal to the
evolved. The structure is produced by running a packing algorithm to fill a material – and as new production facilities come online
notional high-rise volume with differentiated spheres, which are then cut at ceramics may become the most ubiquitous of new materials
the surface intersection.
for built structures. Cellular ceramics are porous and can now
be manufactured in various morphologies and topologies,
ranging from honeycombs and foams to structures woven
from fibres, rods and hollow spheres. Substitutes for human
bone and the coating of orthopaedic prostheses are produced
by similar methods.
Injecting a stream of gas bubbles into liquid metals is the
basic technique for producing foamed metals, but preventing

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PTW Architects, CSCEG Design and Arup, ‘Watercube’ National Swimming

Centre, Beijing, due for completion 2007
Competition model showing overall scale: 177 x 177 metres (581 x 581
feet) and more than 30 metres (98 feet) high, with an entirely column-free
interior space.

Watercube digital structural model. The mathematics of foam geometries are

used to produce the structural array, ensuring a rational optimised and
buildable structural geometry.

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the bubbles from collapsing is difficult. Adding a small can be used for biological ‘scaffolding’. Reticulated vitreous
quantity of insoluble particles to slow the flow of the liquid carbon has a large surface area combined with a very high
metal stabilises the bubbles in the production of aluminium percentage of void spaces, is sufficiently rigid to be self-
foam sheets, produced with open or closed cells on the supporting, and is biologically and chemically inert. Cellular
surface. Aluminium foams can be cast in complex 3-D forms, glass structures are used in medical applications for bone
are stronger and more rigid than polymer foams, can tolerate regeneration. The bioactive glass acts as a scaffold to guide
relatively high temperatures, and are recyclable and stable the growth and differentiation of new cells, and this requires
over time. They are very light, nominally about 10 per cent of an open-cell structure that is highly interconnected at the
the density of the metal, and are currently used as a nanometre scale. The cells must be large enough to allow the
structural reinforcement material, particularly in aerospace bone tissue to grow between the cells, yet fine enough so that
applications, though they have not yet reached their full the ‘bioglass’ material can be absorbed into the bone as it is
potential in lightweight architectural structures. replaced by living tissue.
Closed-cell aluminium honeycomb is widely used as the
core material of panel structures, conventionally with other Material Constructions
materials as a surface. This is no longer strictly necessary, as Design and construction strategies based on space-filling
new advanced processes produce ‘self-finished’ surfaces of polyhedra and foam geometries offer open structural systems
high quality. Cellular metals including, but not exclusively, that are robust and ductile. Control of the cell size, the
aluminium, are being deployed for applications such as distribution and differentiation of sizes within the global
acoustic absorption, vibration damping and innovative structure and the degree and number of connections are
thermal regulation. As the frequency and range of variables that can be explored to produce strength and
applications increases, data accumulates for the relationship permeability. SMO Architektur and Arup designed the Bubble
between the topology of cells in the foam and the subsequent Highrise by packing a notional structural volume with bubbles of
performance of the cellular material, so that improved and various sizes, then used the intersection of the bubbles and the
optimised cell topologies can be produced. exterior planes of the notional volume to generate a structure
Another new open-cell foamed material, made of a glass-like that gives entirely column-free interior spaces. The ‘Watercube’
carbon combining properties of glass and industrial carbons, National Swimming Centre, Beijing, to be finished in 2007, was

Watercube resin model. Watercube digital model of cell cluster.

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designed by PTW Architects and Arup using a structural design and the interior area, with daylight maximised throughout
developed from Weaire and Phelan’s soap bubbles arrays. Despite the interior spaces.
the appearance of randomness, the elements of the structure are
highly rational and so economically buildable. The Watercube is Conclusion
an enormous building, 177 metres (581 feet) on each side and A systematic change is on the horizon, whereby the boundary
more than 30 metres (98 feet) high. The network of steel tubular between the ‘natural’ and the ‘manufactured’ will no longer
members is clad with translucent ETFE pillows. Over such a wide exist. The complex interaction between form, material and
span of column-free space, the need to minimise the self-weight structure of natural material systems has informed new
of the structure is paramount, as most of the structural work ‘biomimetic’ industrial processes, generating new high-
involves ensuring the roof can hold itself up. performance materials. New processes are having a
The steel tubes are welded to round steel nodes that vary compelling impact on many industries, and new materials
according to the loads placed upon them. There is a are radically transforming aerospace and maritime design
substantial variation in size, with a total of around 22,000 and medicine. Cellular materials, especially metals and
steel members and 12,000 nodes. ceramics, offer an entirely new set of performance and
There is a total of 4000 ‘bubbles’ in the Watercube, the roof material values, and have the potential to reinform and
being made of only 7 variant types (of bubbles) and the walls revitalise the material strategies of architectural engineering
of only 16 variations, which are repeated throughout. The and construction.
geometry was developed by extensive scripting, using the At the scale of very large architectural projects, the
Weaire and Phelan mathematics, with a further script emphasis on process becomes not only the significant design
required for a final analytical and geometrical correct 3-D strategy, but also the only economic means of reducing design
model. Scripts that run in minutes can deal with the tens of data for manufacturing. Biomimetic strategies that integrate
thousands of nodes and beam elements, and scripting was form, material and structure into a single process are being
also used to develop structural analysis models and models adopted from the nanoscale right up to the design and
from which drawings were automatically generated. construction of very large buildings. 4
The ETFE cushions make the building very energy efficient,
and sufficient solar energy is trapped within to heat the pools

Notes
1. Stuart A Kauffman, The Origins of similarities of behaviour and can be
Order: Self-Organization and exploited for engineering design.
Selection in Evolution, Oxford Case studies show how the models
University Press (Oxford), 1993. for foam behaviour can be used in
2. ‘A combination of emergence and the selection of the optimum foam
self-organisation is often present in for a particular engineering
complex dynamical systems. In such application. See LJ Gibson and MF
systems, the complexity is huge, Ashby, Cellular Solids: Structure and
which makes it infeasible to impose Properties, Cambridge University
a structure a priori: the system Press (Cambridge), 1997.
needs to self-organise. Also, the 5. D’Arcy Thompson, On Growth and
huge number of individual entities Form, Cambridge University Press
imposes a need for emergence.’ Tom (Cambridge), 1961, first published
De Wolf and Tom Holvoet, 1917.
‘Emergence and self-organisation: a 6. Plateau’s observation in 1873 that
statement of similarities and when soap films come together, they
differences’, Proceedings of the do so as three surfaces meeting at
International Workshop on 120 degrees, and Lord Kelvin’s 1883
Engineering Self-Organising challenge of subdividing a 3-D space
Applications 2004, Belgium. into multiple compartments or cells.
3. Francis Heylighen, ‘Self- 7. D Weaire and R Phelan, ‘A
organisation, emergence and the counterexample to Kelvin’s
architecture of complexity’, conjecture on minimal surfaces’,
Proceedings of the 1st European Philosophical Magazine Letters, Vol
Conference on System Science, 69, 1994. See also D Weaire, ‘Froths,
1989. foams and heady geometry’, New
Watercube physical prototype; cells and ETFE cushions fabricated 4. The structure and properties of Scientist, 21 May 1994.
for the testing of environmental and structural behaviour, and cellular solids such as engineering 8. Denis Weaire and Stefan Hutzler,
confirmation of production logics. honeycombs, foams, wood, The Physics of Foams, Oxford
cancellous bone and cork have University Press (Oxford), 2001.

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Foster and Partners, Smithsonian Institute Courtyard

Enclosure, Washington DC, 2004
Courtyard enclosure roof structure.

Instrumental Geometry

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For two decades, the individual members of Research and Development at KPF London, where he has been
involved with many major building projects, most recently the
the SmartGeometry Group have pioneered Bishopsgate Tower. Hugh Whitehead leads the Specialist
innovative computer-aided design (CAD) Modelling Group at Foster and Partners that has provided
techniques and technologies. Now that they consultancy on such prominent buildings as the Swiss Re
are situated in key positions in internationally Tower, GLA City Hall, the Sage Gateshead and Beijing airport. J
renowned companies, the group is involved Parrish, Director of ArupSport, has contributed to the
in developing a new generation of parametric development of outstanding sports stadiums such as the
Sydney Olympic Stadium and the Allianz Arena in Munich.
design software. Here, Robert Aish (Director Together they formed the SmartGeometry Group, and here
of Research at Bentley Systems), Lars they outline their common views on the aim of the group.
Hesselgren (Director of Research and ‘The objective of the SmartGeometry Group,’ says Lars
Development, KPF London), J Parrish (Director Hesselgren, ‘is to create the intellectual foundations for a
of ArupSport) and Hugh Whitehead (Project more profound way of designing. Change can only be additive,
Director of the Specialist Modelling Group, not subtractive, so SmartGeometry does not reject or deny
existing, more informal or intuitive approaches to design.
Foster and Partners, London) discuss with What SmartGeometry initially set out to achieve was to add to
Achim Menges the group’s instrumental the established skills other complementary formal systems of
approach to geometry and their unique notation that would allow for the creation and control of
collaboration spanning the world of practice more complex geometry. We recognised that architecture, and
and software development. design in the broadest sense, was critically dependent on
geometry, but that a complete geometric tradition of the
understanding of descriptive and construct geometry was
Geometry has always played a central role in architectural being lost through lack of use in a bland planar and
discourse. In recent years, the importance of geometry has orthogonal minimalism or, indeed, through misuse by being
been re-emphasised by significant advances in computer-aided excessively indulged at the “hyper” fringes of design. Against
design (CAD) and the advent of digital fabrication and
performance analysis methods. New design approaches are ‘The objective of the SmartGeometry
being developed that will profoundly change the current Group was to reassert an understanding
nature and established hierarchies of architectural practice. of geometry in design as more than an
The arrival of parametric digital modelling changes digital “experiential commodity”. Rather than
representations of architectural design from explicit
geometric notation to instrumental geometric relationships.
being wilful and arbitrary, even the most
Architects are beginning to shift away from primarily complex geometry could provide a
designing the specific shape of a building to setting up formal resolution of competing forces
geometric relationships and principles described through and requirements. It could suggest and
parametric equations that can derive particular design resolve both structural efficiency and
instances as a response to specific variables, expressions, environmental sensitivity.’
conditional statements and scripts.
Robert Aish, Lars Hesselgren, J Parrish and Hugh this background, the objective of the SmartGeometry Group
Whitehead have been at the forefront of these developments was to reassert an understanding of geometry in design as
for many years. The formative period for their collaboration, more than an “experiential commodity”. Rather than being
when the intent and methodology of parametric design wilful and arbitrary, even the most complex geometry could
applied to architecture was established, was the time when all provide a formal resolution of competing forces and
of them were working for, or in collaboration with, YRM in the requirements. It could suggest and resolve both structural
mid-1980s. There they took Integraph’s Vehicle Design System efficiency and environmental sensitivity.’
and applied it to pioneering buildings such as the Grimshaw He summarises the group’s active engagement in building
Waterloo International Rail Terminal and the ‘Stadium for the up new skills and techniques for current and future
Nineties’, a project that featured a retractable roof defined generations of architects: ‘The group aims to help create the
through fully associative geometry. Since then, Robert Aish intellectual environment for further developments in this field
has moved on to become Director of Research at Bentley that stretch beyond relatively simple geometric mechanisms
Systems, where he is responsible for the development of new into more complex approaches to the generation and
parametric design software. Lars Hesselgren is Director of evaluation of built forms.’

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In pursuing an instrumental understanding of geometry, systems for other industries. We learnt about what was
the group identified very early on the limits of ‘conventional’ transferable to architecture and we learnt what additional
CAD concepts that mimic pen and paper with mouse and functionality would be required if the transition of parametric
screen, and constrain the architectural language through design to architecture was to be successful. There are two
libraries of predetermined architectural elements. Robert important characteristics of parametric design applied to
Aish explains: aircraft or ship design that are not present in terrestrial
‘There was a direct mapping between what was thought to architecture. The first is that concepts and configurations
be an architectural vocabulary of : “walls, windows and doors” change relatively slowly. Secondly, a single design, with some
and a simplified computational equivalent. Maybe this was all minor variations, will be used for a production run of ten,
that could be implemented at the time. But the net result, and hundreds, or possibly thousands of instances. Therefore, there
disastrous at that, was to entrench this highly limited form of is the time and resources to invest in the proper “genotype”
architecture by making it “more efficient” and excluding to and ensure that this can support the anticipated variations in
architecture based on more general geometry or less the phenotypes. Contrast this with buildings where, in the
conventional components and configurations. What is main, each one is unique. There is no time or need to develop
different with recent parametric design tools is that the set of a highly adaptive genotype. There is only one instance so
constructs is far more abstract, but at the same time the there is no need for a genotype that can support variations in
system is “extensible”, so that it is the designer who can make the phenotype.
his own vocabulary of components. We have broken the ‘There are three exceptions to this statement. First, with a
“hard-coded” naive architectural semantics. We are no longer building such as a sports stadium, which is distinctly “rule-
interested in “local efficiency” within a restrictive CAD system, based”, it may be advantageous to develop a strong genotype
but rather the designer has the opportunity to define his own the characteristics of which can be refined and shared with
vocabulary from first principles, by first understanding the successive variants. Second, a building such as the Grimshaw
underlying geometric and algebraic abstractions.’ Waterloo International Railway Terminal contains “variation”
A parametric approach to design has already been in use within a single configuration. In this case, establishing a
in the aero, automotive, naval and product design industries. viable genotype for the characteristic “banana” truss was an
In fact, most related software applications are spin-offs from essential prerequisite for the design. Third, all design can
these industries. All of the SmartGeometry members were benefit from refinement. We don’t just build the first idea.
users or developers of some of the early parametric software The intellectual processes of externalisation, generalisation
for mechanical engineering and naval architecture. Hugh and abstraction that are essential in aircraft or ship design
Whitehead and Robert Aish explain their views on concepts to define the genotype can also benefit a one-off building
of parametric applications in those fields, comparing them design. However, the important difference with terrestrial
to architecture and outlining the group’s strategies for architecture is the rapid exploration of alternative
developing a new parametric design application as follows: configurations. This requirement for the convenient
‘Production industries for the engineering of cars, ships exploration of alternative configurations adds an important
and aircraft are geared to minimise tooling costs by creating requirement to the functionality of parametric design tools.
a range of standard models from mass-produced custom Thus it seemed to be of prime importance to create a system
components. On the other hand, construction industries for with great flexibility, particularly in the form and content
the architecture of buildings aim to create one-off custom of “collections”.
designs, but with an economy based on the use of ‘Buildings are collections of objects. If the design
standardised components. Of course, this is a simplistic changes, as it will or should do, then these collections of
historical view. However, it aims to highlight the different objects have to respond. The content of the collections will
approaches of the two industry sectors. Both achieve a variety change, and the individual members of the collection also
of products while exploiting standardisation in different ways have to respond uniquely to changes in their specific
to achieve efficiency. The advent of digital fabrication context. If we wish to support a flexible approach to design,
techniques has made possible the concept of “mass then this requires that the concept of flexibility and
customisation”, which is blurring this distinction and thereby responsiveness is programmed in from the very initial
allowing industries to learn from each other and also to thoughts about the application, and then this concept has
borrow technologies. But the core technology for the shift to be consistently implemented. But what this also means is
resides in software engineering. that designers who use this software must understand how
‘The success of a piece of software is about the match or to control this type of flexibility, how to think abstractly
mismatch of assumptions between the software designer and about design with an “algebra of collections”. The question
the users. We can say that we all learnt from the assumptions is whether the need to understand and be completely
made by the software developers of these other parametric conversant with a formal notation is acceptable to

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architects and designers. Is it either an essential way to add 7 Multiple representations: the ability for the user to
precision to the expression of design intent or an simultaneously create and operate on different,
imposition that distracts from an intuitive sense of design? complementary, linked representations
Historically architecture successfully combined different 8 Transactional model of design: representations are an
ways of thinking that spanned both the intuitive and the editable, re-executable design history.
formal. So there is a strong precedence established. Of late,
the formal component has been somewhat lacking, again ‘All software is based on the concept of representation, so
with notable exceptions. Certainly the emerging what is being represented with GenerativeComponents?
architectural practices being started by the new generation Superficially, what the user sees on the screen is geometry
of graduates emerging from architectural schools have no that might represent some building or other more general
inhibitions in moving effortlessly between these two design, but this is not the primary representation. At the next
approaches and producing impressive results.’ level of depth, GenerativeComponents is explicitly modelling
One of the focal points of the group’s work in synergising the dependency or other more general relationships between
their individual expertise in a unique collaboration spanning geometry and other nongraphic elements such as variables,
the worlds of practice, research and education is the expressions, conditional statement and scripts. Again, this is
development of the GenerativeComponents software. All of not the primary representation. What is effectively being
the group’s members contribute in different ways to the represented are design decisions or, more correctly, a
evolution of the software, and they are in agreement that ‘the “transactional” model that allows a sequence of alternative
specification of GenerativeComponents is intentionally open- decisions to be constructed, exercised and evaluated. This
ended and generic in order to provide an integrated corresponds to the process of design at its most fundamental.
environment for design and development that is not tied to
any specific industry or workflow conventions. It aims to Parametric design systems are
support the evolution of ideas by exposing the language and introducing a whole new set of concepts,
making this accessible to both designer and developer in a
consistent manner at all levels of interaction.’
based on design theory, computational
Robert Aish, who is leading the development of theory and object-oriented software
GenerativeComponents as Bentley’s Director of Research, engineering that may be quite unfamiliar
more specifically explains the key concepts of this next to practising designers.
generation of CAD software:
‘We can describe GenerativeComponents as an “object Nonetheless, parametric design systems are introducing a whole
oriented, feature based” modelling system and development new set of concepts, based on design theory, computational
environment that represents the convergence of design theory theory and object-oriented software engineering that may be
with computational theory. The GenerativeComponents quite unfamiliar to practising designers. Yet the intention of
technology is based on the following eight key concepts: GenerativeComponents is to apply these concepts in a way that
is directly related and beneficial to the process of design.’
1 Implication: the ability to define “long-chain” associativity Some of these concepts have already been implemented in
of geometric constructs, allowing the implications of practice by members of the group in close collaboration with
change to be explored via automatic change propagation project-specific design teams. With the aim of exploiting
2 Conditional modelling: the ability to encode and exercise advantages of parametric design processes, new ways of
alternative implications allowing changes in behaviour or enabling and structuring the development of geometrically
configuration of the geometric construct complex buildings have been established. Hugh Whitehead
3 Extensibility: the ability to turn parametric models into explains how such a parametric approach to design has
new reusable components, where behaviour of the become instrumental for the work of Foster and Partners:
component is defined by the original model ‘At Foster and Partners the Specialist Modelling Group
4 Components: the transition from digital components provides inhouse consultancy to project teams at all stages
representing discrete physical entities to devices for from concept design to detailed fabrication. Although we
cognitive structuring provide tools, techniques and workflow, these are developed
5 Replication: the ability to operate on sets of digital in the reverse order. Starting with the formulation of the
components, potentially where each set member can problem, the first step is to propose an appropriate workflow.
uniquely respond to variations in its context Within this frame of reference, suitable techniques are tried
6 Programmatic design: the ability to combine declarative and tested in different combinations. The results then form
representations in the form of an implication structure and the brief for the development of custom tools that are tested
procedural representations by the design team in a continuing dialogue. Custom tool-

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building ensures that a rationale becomes an integral part of allows one to track comparative options and to perform more
the design concept. This then allows for the generation and iteration of the analysis cycles. Consequently, the main
control of more complex building geometries. impact of such an approach on the practice of architecture is
‘In addition to the Smithsonian Institute project [see on the decision-making process. Previously the designer had
overleaf], another interesting example is the Swiss Re building to freeze the early strategic decisions in order to progress to
that forced us to address the problem of how to design and increasing levels of detail. This involved cyclic explorations,
produce details that are programmed rather than drawn. At but the early decisions can only be challenged if there are
each floor, the rules are always the same, but the results are both time and resources to rework the downstream details. In a
always different. At the same time, even if every plan, section parametric approach, the ability to populate an associative
and elevation could have been drawn, this still would not framework with adaptive components allows us to defer the
adequately describe the design intent, even for tender decision-making process until we are ready to evaluate the results.’
purposes let alone construction. The building stands as a Parametric modelling has been understood as instrumental
classic example of an associative framework providing a for its ability in improving workflow, its rapid adaptability to
context for adaptive parametric components, so that changing input and its delivery of precise geometric data for
fabrication follows a consistent dialogue between structural digital fabrication and performance analysis. But while
and cladding node geometry. The designer is in charge of the accelerating and extending established design processes, the
rehearsal, but the contractor is responsible for the skills and techniques developed by the SmartGeometry Group
performance. We are limited in what we can build by what we do also inherently challenge the way we think about the design
are able to communicate. Many of the problems we now face of buildings. One may argue that novel aspects in architecture
are problems of language rather than technology. The emerge when deeply entrenched typologies, conventions and
experience of Swiss Re established successful procedures for preconceptions of the organisation and materialisation of the
communicating design through a geometry method statement. built environment are challenged and rethought by the design
‘Complex geometries involve very large parameter sets that team. The SmartGeometry Group envisions their approach to
are impossible to control by direct manipulation. With design to become instrumental for such processes of rethinking
buildings like the Beijing airport, which has a double-curved architecture. Hugh Whitehead explains:
roof that is 3 kilometres long, the approach was to develop ‘As of yet, designers use sketches and models to externalise
control mechanisms that can be driven by law curves. Law a thought process, in order to provide both focus and stimulus
curves control “rate of change” and can be geometric as for the development of shared ideas. The use of generative
graphs or algebraic as functions. By representing higher techniques that are editable promotes a higher level of
derivatives as curves, or even surfaces, complex behaviour can awareness. It encourages all preconceptions to be challenged
be achieved with simple manipulation.’ because they must first be formulated in language.’
Such a parametric and editable approach to design offers a Robert Aish concludes by highlighting the group’s awareness
high degree of geometric control combined with the ability to of the importance of developing a culture of use of generative
rapidly generate variations. All of the group’s members agree techniques in parallel to the digital tools themselves:
that parametric models therefore seem to be particularly ‘In general, there is a shift in many human activities from
versatile in providing the relevant information for digital “doing” to “controlling”, involving the development of tools and
performance tests. However, the requirements for different a “culture of use” of these tools. Design as a discipline emerges
analysis methods need to be considered. Whitehead continues: from the craft process as a way of abstracting and evaluating
‘Digital performance tests are carried out in collaboration alternative possible configurations, usage scenarios and
with external consultants. This involves many different materialisations without actually physically making and testing
software applications and operating systems, but more each possible alternative. Design involves many analogues of the
importantly each requires a different simplified finished artefact that, with varying fidelity, simulate or indicate
representation of the model as the input to their analysis the anticipated behaviour of the yet to be built result. These
routines. Structural analysis requires centre lines, thermal analogues, the design medium, introduce representational and
analysis requires volumes, acoustic analysis requires simple manipulation techniques that may be interesting or attractive in
planes, and daylight analysis requires meshes. The more their own right, and these may start to influence the resulting
complex and detailed the model, the more difficult it is to physical outcomes. Seen from this perspective, the development
decompose to an appropriate level of simplification. Because of computational design tools, including parametric tools, may
of the cost of simplifying or rebuilding models, consultants not be too different to development of preceding design tools or
prefer to engineer a design only when the configuration has to the development of tools in general.
become stable. However, when the model is generative, it ‘What we need to focus on is the relationship between the
becomes easier to produce multiple representations, which development of these tools and the corresponding
remain associative to the conceptual framework. This ability development of the skills and the culture of use.’

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Robert Aish, Bentley Systems, GenerativeComponents What variations does this model allow us to explore? a) the
Parametric Design Software Development poles of the spine curve can be moved in Cartesian space; b)
the position of the planes on the spine curve can be moved in
Design involves both exploration and the resolution of 1-D parametric space (along the spine curve); c) the poles of
ambiguity. Therefore, it is not sufficient that computational the cross-sectional curves can be moved in the 2-D planar
design tools can model a static representation of a design. What space; d) the number and spacing of the points on the surface
is important is that the design tools are able to capture both can be defined within the surface’s 2-D parameter space; e)
the underlying design rules from which a range of potential various alternative ‘lacing’ options are available to use the
solutions can be explored, and facilitate how this ‘solution points on the surface to populate either planar or nonplanar
space’ can be refined into a suitable candidate for construction. quadrilateral or triangular panels; and f) the order of the
The question is, how can these design rules be represented and spine curves and cross-sectional curves can be varied. Having
how can this exploration and refinement process be supported? defined this process, the designer can then explore variations
By way of illustration, let us consider the issues involved when within the solution space, not in some rigid parametric way,
a roof, initially based on a doubly curved freeform surface, is but by using an intuitive process of ‘direct manipulation’ and
required to be constructed from planar components. Here, the ‘hand–eye coordination’.
designer might want to explore simultaneously two Here, the designer can graphically select and manipulate
interrelated aspects of the design: alternative surface one of the control points of the law curve model and observe:
configurations and alternative penalisation strategies. a) the law curve update; b) the cross-section curves update; c)
To model not just one solution to this problem, but the the surface update; d) the points on the surface update; e) the
design rules that can be used to explore alternative solutions, quadrilateral panels on the surface update; and f) the planar
requires a complex ‘graph’ of ‘associative geometry’. The unfolded fabrication model update. The whole process is being
system of geometric relationships illustrated here is quite intuitively controlled in dynamics with the designer
complex to understand, even when presented with the finished completely in control of the ‘form making’ process and its
model. It is necessary to imagine how more complex it was to materialisation. While these variations are reasonably
originate the model. Our contention as software developers is complex, it should be stressed that they are only the
that a 3-D geometric representation, while essential, would be variations that can be explored within this particular logical
insufficient to describe the complex geometric associativities and geometric configuration. The designer can also change
required to present the underlying design rules. So in addition the configuration (by editing the relationships in the symbolic
to the standard geometry model (Figure 1) we include a model), which then opens up alternative ranges of variations
symbolic model (Figure 2) that externalises and presents these to be explored.
relationships in an explicit graphical form. Also represented is To arrive at this level of expression and control required
a law curve ‘controller’ (Figure 3) that provides a geometric that the designer had to be skilled in the logic of design, in
input at one stage removed from the geometric models and order to define and refine the complex system of geometric,
the flat pattern layout of the panels (Figure 4) ready for laser algebraic and logical relationships that is the essential
cutting. (In this context, the law curve is controlling the foundation of this process. Ultimately, it is this combination
elevation profile of the roof surface, independently of the plan of intuition and logic, of ideas and skills, that is of interest.
‘S’ configuration of the ‘spine’ curve.)

Figure 1 (left): Geometry model. Figure 2 (right): Symbolic model of the same Figure 3 (left): Law curve ‘controller’ of parametric surface model. Figure 4
parametric geometry of a double-curved surface. (right): Flat pattern layout of its faces.

47
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 “Your reverend love should know that the lord Ep. 58. a.d. 796.
King Charles has often spoken to me of you in a
loving and trusting manner. You have in him an entirely most faithful
friend. Thus he sent messengers to Rome for the judgement of the
lord apostolic and Ethelhard the archbishop. To your love he sent
gifts worthy. To the several episcopal sees he sent gifts in alms for
himself and the lord apostolic, that you might order prayers to be
offered for them. Do you act faithfully, as you are wont to do with all
your friends.
“In like manner he sent gifts to King Æthelred and his episcopal
sees. But, alas for the grief! when the gifts and the letters were in the
hands of the messengers, the sad news came from those who had
returned from Scotia[111] by way of you, that the nation had revolted
and the king [Æthelred] was killed. King Charles withdrew his gifts,
so greatly was he enraged against the nation—‘that perfidious and
perverse nation,’ as he called them, ‘murderers of their own lords,’
holding them to be worse than pagans. Indeed, if I had not
interceded for them, whatever good thing he could have taken away
from them, whatever bad thing he could have contrived for them, he
would have done it.
“I was prepared to come to you with the king’s gifts, and to go
back to my fatherland.” This was from three to four years later than
his latest visit to our shores. “But it seemed to me better, for the sake
of peace for my nation, to remain abroad. I did not know what I could
do among them, where no one is safe, and no wholesome counsel is
of any avail. Look at the very holiest places devastated by pagans,
the altars fouled by perjuries, the monasteries violated by adulteries,
the earth stained with the blood of lords and princes. What else
could I do but groan with the prophet,[112] ‘Woe to the sinful nation, a
people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers; they have forsaken
the Lord, and blasphemed the holy Saviour of the world in their
wickedness.’ And if it be true, as we read in the letter of your dignity,
that the iniquity had its rise among the eldermen, where is safety and
fidelity to be hoped for if the turbid torrent of unfaithfulness flowed
forth from the very place where the purest fount of truth and faith
was wont to spring?
 “But do thou, O most wise ruler of the people of God, most
diligently bring thy nation away from perverse habits, and make them
learned in the precepts of God, lest by reason of the sins of the
people the land which God has given us be destroyed. Be to the
Church of Christ as a father, to the priests of God as a brother, to all
the people pious and fair; in conversation and in word moderate and
peaceable; in the praise of God always devout; that the divine
clemency may keep thee in long prosperity, and may of the grace of
its goodness deign to exalt, dilate, and crown to all eternity, with the
benefaction of perpetual pity, thy kingdom—nay, all the English.
“I pray you direct the several Churches of your reverence to
intercede for me. Into my unworthy hands the government of the
Church of St. Martin has come. I have taken it not voluntarily but
under pressure, by the advice of many.”
Offa died in the year in which this letter was written, and his death
brought great changes in Mercia. Excellent as Offa had in most ways
been, we have evidence that the Mercian people were by no means
worthy of the fine old Mercian king. In reading the letter which
contains this evidence, we shall see that Offa had a murderous side
of his character. In those rude days, chaos could not be dealt with
under its worse conditions by men who could not at a crisis strike
with unmitigated severity.
 CHAPTER VI
Grant to Malmesbury by Ecgfrith of Mercia.—Alcuin’s letters to Mercia.—Kenulf
and Leo III restore Canterbury to its primatial position.—Gifts of money to the
Pope.—Alcuin’s letters to the restored archbishop.—His letter to Karl on the
archbishop’s proposed visit. Letters of Karl to Offa (on a question of discipline) and
Athelhard (in favour of Mercian exiles).

Before proceeding to examine Alcuin’s letter to a Mercian

nobleman on the death of Offa and his son Ecgfrith, it should be
remarked that we of the diocese of Bristol must not allow the
mention of this poor young king Ecgfrith to pass without our
acknowledgement for a deed of justice done. When Offa defeated
the West Saxon king at Bensington, he took possession of a good
deal of the border land, including two tracts of land which King
Cadwalla of Wessex had given to Malmesbury, namely Tetbury in
Gloucestershire and Purton in Wilts. William of Malmesbury naturally
reports the iniquity of Offa in thus pillaging the abbey which was the
home of William’s life and studies. Offa gave Tetbury to the Bishop of
Worcester. Purton was the subject of a deed by Ecgfrith during his
reign of a few months. The deed has remarkable interest for us in
this diocese, in that it is doubly dated; first as in the seven hundred
and ninety-sixth year from the Incarnation, and next, with a very
interesting recognition of our own Aldhelm, due to the fact that the
theft had been from Aldhelm’s own Malmesbury, “in the eighty-
seventh year from the passing of father Aldhelm.” The deed restores
land of thirty-five families at Piritune, on the east side of Braden
Wood, to the abbat and brethren of Malmesbury, for the repose of
the soul of his father Offa who had taken it from them, and in order
that the memory of Ecgfrith might always be preserved in their
prayers. As a sort of unimportant afterthought he adds that the abbat
and brethren have given him two thousand shillings of pure silver,
probably as many pounds of our money. The deed was signed by
Athelhard of Canterbury, not by Lichfield. The reason no doubt is that
Tetbury and Purton are south of the Thames, and so outside the
Province of Lichfield and within the diminished Province of
Canterbury.
When the death of Offa’s son, the youthful Ecgfrith, king of Mercia,
occurred in this same year 796 in which year his father Offa had
died,[113] and a distant cousin Kenulf succeeded, Alcuin, as has
been said, wrote a very serious letter to one of the chief officers of
Mercia.
“These are times of tribulation everywhere in the Ep. 79. a.d. 797.
land; faith is failing; truth is dumb; malice
increases; and arrogance adds to your miseries. Men are not content
to follow in the steps of our early fathers, in dress, or food, or honest
ways. Some most foolish man thinks out something unsuited to
human nature, and hateful to God; and straightway almost the whole
of the people set themselves busily to follow this above all.
“That most noble youth [Ecgfrith] is dead; not, as I think, because
of his own sins alone, but also because the vengeance of his father’s
bloodshedding has reached the son. For you know best of all how
much blood the father shed that the kingdom might be safe for the
son. It proved to be the destruction, not the confirmation, of his reign.
“Admonish the more diligently your new king [Kenulf], yes, and the
king of Northumbria [Ardwulf] too, that they keep in touch with the
divine piety, avoiding adulteries; that they do not neglect their early
wives[114] for the sake of adulteries with women of the nobility, but
under the fear of God have their own wives, or by consent live in
chastity. I fear that Ardwulf, the king of my part of the country, will
soon[115] have to lose the kingdom because of the insult which he
has offered to God in sending away his own wife, and, it is said,
living openly with a concubine. It seems that the prosperity of the
English is nearly at an end; unless indeed by assiduous prayers, and
honest ways, and humble life, and chaste conversation, and keeping
the faith, they win from God to keep the land which God of His free
gift gave to our forefathers.”
 With this letter we may fitly compare the letter which Alcuin wrote
to the king himself, Kenulf, who had thus unexpectedly succeeded. It
begins in a complimentary manner, but it is a very faithful letter. It
carefully recognizes the inconsistencies of Offa’s life, inconsistencies
which appear to have characterized the best rulers in those times,
very rude and violent times, when one occasion and another seemed
to demand ruthless treatment.
“To the most excellent Coenulf, King of the Ep. 80. a.d. 797.
Mercians, the humble levite Albinus wishes health.
“Your goodness, moderation, and nobility of conduct, are a great
joy to me. They are befitting to the royal dignity, which excels all
others in honour, and ought to excel also in perfectness of conduct,
in fairness of justice, in holiness of piety. The royal clemency should
go beyond that of ordinary men, as we read in ancient histories, and
in holy Scripture where it is said[116]—Mercy and truth exalt a throne;
and in the Psalms it is said[117] of Almighty God—All the paths of the
Lord are mercy and truth. The more a man shines forth in works of
truth and mercy, the more has he in him of the image of the divine.
“Have always in mind Him who raised thee from a poor position
and set thee as a ruler over the princes of His people. Know that
thou art rather a shepherd, and a dispenser of the gifts of God, than
a lord and an exactor.
“Have always in mind the very best features of the reign of your
most noble predecessor Offa; his modest conversation; his zeal in
correcting the life of a Christian people. Whatever good
arrangements he made in the kingdom to thee by God given, let your
devotion most diligently carry out; but if in any respect he acted with
greed, or cruelty, know that this you must by all means avoid. For it
is not without cause that that most noble son of his survived his
father for so short a time. The deserts of a father are often visited on
a son.
“Have prudent counsellors who fear God; love justice; seek peace
with friends; show faith and holiness in pious manner of life.
 “For the English race is vexed with tribulations by reason of its
many sins. The goodness of kings, the preaching of the priests of
Christ, the religious life of the people, can raise it to the height of its
ancient honour; so that a blessed progeny of our fathers may
deserve to possess perpetual happiness, stability of the kingdom,
and fortitude against any foe; that the Church of Christ, as ordained
by holy fathers, may grow and prosper. Always have in honour, most
illustrious ruler, the priests of Christ; for the more reverently you are
disposed to the servants of Christ, and the preachers of the word of
God, the more will Christ, the King pious and true, exalt and confirm
your honour, on the intercession of His saints.”
When Kenulf, this distant cousin of Ecgfrith, came to the throne,
he looked into the matter of the archbishopric of Lichfield, and he
took a view adverse to Offa’s action. He wrote to Pope Leo III a
letter,[118] in which he put the points very clearly. His bishops and
learned men had told him that the division of the Province of
Canterbury into two provinces was contrary to the canons and
apostolical statutes of the most blessed Gregory, who had ordered
that there should be twelve bishops under the archbishop of the
southern province, seated at London. On the death of Augustine of
Canterbury, it had seemed good to all the wise men of the race, the
Witangemote, that not London but Canterbury should be the seat of
the Primacy, where Augustine’s body lay. King Offa, by reason of his
enmity with the venerable archbishop Jaenbert and the people of
Kent, set to work to divide the province into two. The most pious
Adrian, at the request of the said king, had done what no one before
had presumed to do, had raised the Mercian prelate to the dignity of
the pallium. Kenulf did not blame either of them; but he hoped that
the Pope would look into the matter and make a benign and just
response. He had sent an embassy on the part of himself and the
bishops in the previous year by Wada the Abbat; but Wada, after
accepting the charge, had indolently—nay foolishly—withdrawn. He
now sent by the hands of a presbyter, Birine, and two of his officers,
Fildas and Cheolberth, a small present, out of his love for the Pope,
namely, 120 mancuses,[119] some forty to fifty pounds, say not far off
£1000 of our time.
 Pope Leo addressed his reply to king Kenulf, his most loved
bishops, and most glorious dukes. It was a difficult letter to write, for
Kenulf had been very frank about the uncanonical action of Hadrian
the Pope. Leo answered this part of Kenulf’s letter by stating that his
predecessor had acted as he had done (1) because Offa had
declared it to be the universal wish, the petition of all, that the
archbishopric should be divided into two; (2) because of the great
extension of the Mercian kingdom; (3) for very many causes and
advantages. He, Leo, now authorized the departure from Pope
Gregory’s order in so far as this, that he recognized Canterbury, not
London, as the chief seat of archiepiscopal authority. He declared
that Canterbury was the primatial see, and must continue and be
viewed as such. I cannot find in his letter a definite declaration that
he annuls the act of his predecessor, but that is the effect of the
letter; nor does he declare that Lichfield is no longer an
archbishopric. Kenulf, as we have seen, had sent him, out of his
affection for him, a gift of 120 mancuses. But he reminded the king
that Offa had bound his successors to maintain the gift to the Pope,
in each year, of as many mancuses as there are days in the year,
namely, he says, 365, as alms to the poor, and as an endowment for
keeping in order the lamps [in the churches]. This is much more
likely than the shadowy gifts of Ina, king of Wessex, to have been
the origin of Peter’s Pence, a sum of money collected in England, at
first fitfully and eventually year by year, and sent out to the Pope.
The money was collected in the parishes of each diocese down to
the time of the Reformation. It is a regular item in the
churchwardens’ accounts of the earlier years of Henry VIII. Only a
fixed amount of the whole sum collected was sent to the Pope, the
balance being used for repairs in the several dioceses. We have a
list prepared by a representative of a late mediaeval Pope giving
£190 6s. 8d. as the amount received by him for the year,
corresponding roughly to a normal 300 marks a year.
Offa’s money for the Pope went of course from Mercia. When
Wessex became predominant, Ethelwulf, the son of Ecgbert and
father of Alfred, made large gifts to Rome, and left by will 300
mancuses, 100 in honour of St. Peter, specially for filling with oil all
the lamps of his apostolic church on Easter Eve and at cock crow,
100 in honour of St. Paul, in the same terms and for the same
purpose in respect of the basilica of St. Paul, and 100 for the Pope
himself. King Alfred also sent presents to Rome. From 883 to 890
there are four records of gifts from Wessex. After 890 we have no
such record in Alfred’s reign; and in Alfred’s will there is no mention
of the spiritual head of the Church of the West.
We learn from our own great historian, William of Malmesbury, that
Kenulf wrote two later letters to Leo on this subject, and he gives us
Leo’s reply.[120] Athelhard, the Pope says, has come to the holy
churches of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, to fulfil his vow of
prayer and to inform the Pope of his ecclesiastical mission. He tells
the king that by the authority of St. Peter, the chief of the apostles,
whose office though unworthily he fills, he gives to Athelhard such
prelatical authority that if any in the province, whether kings, princes,
or people, transgress the commands of the Lord, he shall
excommunicate them till they repent. Concerning the jurisdiction
which the archbishops of Canterbury had held, as well over bishops
as over monasteries, of which they had been unjustly deprived, the
Pope had made full inquiry, and now placed all ordinations and
confirmations on their ancient footing, and restored them to him
entire. Thus did Pope Leo III condemn the injustice of Pope Hadrian
I. We had better have managed our own affairs, instead of paying to
foreigners infinite sums of money to mismanage them.
Before we leave this strange episode of the creation of an
archbishopric of Lichfield, it is of special local interest to us in Bristol,
and to the deanery of Stapleton, that the chief Mercian prelate,
Higbert of Lichfield, signed deeds relating to Westbury upon Trym
and Aust on Severn, above the archbishop of Canterbury. This was
in 794. Offa the king signed first, Ecgferth, the king’s young son,
second, and then Hygeberht; Ethelhard of Canterbury coming fifth in
one and fourth in the other. The first deed gave from the king to his
officer Ethelmund, in 794, four cassates of land at the place called
Westbury, in the province of the Huiccians, near the river called
Avon, free of all public charges except the three which were common
to all, namely, for the king’s military expeditions, for the building of
bridges, and for the fortification of strongholds.[121] The other deed
restores to the see of Worcester (Wegrin) the land of five families at
Aust, which the duke Bynna had taken without right, it being the
property of the see of Worcester. To make all safe, six dukes made
the sign of the cross at the foot of this deed, which is, as we all know,
the origin of the modern phrase ‘signing’ a deed or a letter. The
dukes included Bynna himself.
Alcuin wrote a very wise letter to Athelhard of Ep. 85. a.d. 797.
Canterbury on the occasion of the restoration of the
primacy. He advised that penance should be done. Athelhard and all
the people should keep a fast, he for having left his see, they for
having accepted error. There should be diligent prayers, and alms,
and solemn masses, everywhere, that God might wipe out what any
of them had done wrong. The archbishop was specially urged to
bring back study into the house of God, that is, the conventual home
of the monks and the archbishop, with its centre, the cathedral
church. There should be young men reading, and a chorus of
singers, and the study of books, in order that the dignity of that holy
see might be renewed, and they might deserve to have the privilege
of electing to the primacy.
“The unity of the Church, which has been in part cut asunder, not
as it seems for any reasonable cause but from grasping at power,
should, if it can be done, be restored in peaceful ways; the rent
should be stitched up again. You should take counsel with all your
bishops, and with your brother of York, on this principle, that the
pious father Higbert of Lichfield be not deprived of his pall during his
lifetime, but the consecration of bishops must come back to the holy
and primal see. Let your most holy wisdom see to it that loving
concord exist among the chief shepherds of the churches of Christ.”
With regard to the remark of Alcuin that Ep. 171. a.d. 801.
Athelhard should do penance for having left his
see, it may be explained that Alcuin had in vain advised Athelhard
not to leave England on the restoration of the primacy to Canterbury.
Athelhard persisted in visiting Rome, and informed Alcuin that he
had commenced the journey. Alcuin thereupon wrote this:—“Return,
return, holy father, as soon as your pious embassy is finished, to
your lost sheep. As there are two eyes in the body, so I believe and
desire that you two, Canterbury and York, give light throughout the
breadth of all Britain. Do not deprive your country of its right eye.”
Then Alcuin gives a very significant hint that the ways of the clergy
of England are not good enough for France, and they had better not
let Charlemagne see anything of that kind.
“If you come to the lord king, warn your companions, and
especially the clergy, that they acquit themselves in an honourable
manner, in all holy religion, in dress, and in ecclesiastical order; so
that wherever you go you leave always an example of all goodness.
Forbid them to wear in the presence of the lord king ornaments of
gold or robes of silk; let them go humbly clad, after the manner of
servants of God. And through every district you must pass with
peace and honest conversation, for you know the manner and
custom of this Frankish race.”
Nothing could make more clear the commanding position held by
Alcuin than this exceedingly free counsel from a deacon to the
Primate of England. We may quote portions of yet another letter
giving the same impression.
In a letter to Athelhard after his safe return to Ep. 190. a.d. 802.
England and a favourable reception which he had
reported to Alcuin, Alcuin congratulated the archbishop on the
restoration to its ancient dignity of the most holy see of the first
teacher of our race. By divine favour, the members now once more
cohered in unity with the proper head, and natural peace shone forth
between the two chief prelates of Britain, and one will of piety and
concord was vigorous under the two cities of metropolitans. “And
now,” he writes, “now that you have received the power to correct
and the liberty to preach, fear not, speak out! The silence of the
bishop is the ruin of the people.”
It is an interesting fact that we have a letter which Alcuin wrote to
Karl, introducing to him this same archbishop on the very journey of
which he so decidedly disapproved.
“To the most greatly desired lord David the king, Ep. 172. a.d. 801.
Flaccus his pensioner wishes eternal health in
Christ.
“The sweetness of your affection, and the assurance of your
approved piety, very often urge me to address letters to your
authority, and by the office of syllables to trace out that which bodily
frailty prevents my will from accomplishing. But novel circumstances
compel me now to write once more, that the paper may bring the
affection of the heart, and may pour into the ears of your piety the
prayers which never have been in vain in the presence of your pity.
Nor do I believe that my prayers for your stableness and safety are
vain in the sight of God, for the divine grace gladly receives the tears
which flow forth from the fount of love[122].
“I have been informed that certain of the friends of your Flaccus,
Edelard to wit, Metropolitan of the See of Dorobernia and Pontiff of
the primatial see in Britain, and Ceilmund[123] of the kingdom of the
Mercians, formerly minister of king Offa, and Torhcmund[124] the
faithful servant of king Edilred, a man approved in faith, strenuous in
arms, who has boldly avenged the blood of his lord, desire to
approach your piety[125]. All of these have been very faithful to me,
and have aided me on my journey; they have also aided my boys as
they went about hither and thither. I pray your best clemency to
receive them with your wonted kindness, for they have been close
friends to me. I have often known bishops religious and devoted in
Christ’s service, and men strong and faithful in secular dignity, to be
laudable to your equity; for there is no doubt that all the best men,
approved by their own conscience, love good men, being taught by
the example of the omnipotent God who is the highest good. And it is
most certain that every creature that has reason has by His
goodness whatever of good it has, the Very Truth saying, ‘I am the
light of the world. He that followeth me walketh not in darkness but
shall have the light of life.’ John viii. 12.”
Before we leave Mercian affairs and the relations between Karl
and Offa, it may be of interest to give a letter[126] from Karl to Offa
which will serve to show the extreme care he took in order to
maintain ecclesiastical discipline, and the severity of that discipline.
That a man with all the affairs of immense dominions on his hands
should have made time to produce such a letter on such a point
seems very worthy of note. Karl’s statement of his titles shows that
this is an early letter.
“Karl, by the grace of God king of the Franks and Defender of the
Holy Church of God, to his loved brother and friend Offa greeting.
“That priest who is a Scot[127] has been living among us for some
time, in the diocese of Hildebold, Bishop[128] of Cologne. He has
now been accused of eating meat in Lent. Our priests refuse to
judge him, because they have not received full evidence from the
accusers. They have, however, not allowed him to continue to reside
there, on account of this evil report, lest the honour in which the
priesthood is held should be diminished among ignorant folk, or
others should be tempted by this rumour to violate the holy fast. Our
priests are of opinion that he should be sent to the judgement of his
own bishop, where his oath was taken.
“We pray your providence to order that he transfer himself as soon
as conveniently may be to his own land, that he may be judged in
the place from which he came forth. For there also it must be that the
purity in manners and firmness in faith and honesty of conversation
of the Holy Church of God are diligently kept according to canonical
sanction, like a dove perfect and unspotted, whose wings are as of
silver and the hinder parts should shine as gold.
“Life, health, and prosperity be given to thee and thy faithful ones
by the God Christ for ever.”
A letter which Karl wrote to Athelhard of Canterbury begging him
to intercede for some exiles, sets forth his style and title very
differently[129], evidently at a later date.
It bears very directly upon one of the complaints which, as we
have seen, Offa had made in letters to Karl; namely, the shelter
afforded at Karl’s court to fugitives from Mercia.
“Karl, by the grace of God king of the Franks and Lombards and
Patrician of the Romans, to Athilhard the archbishop and Ceolwulf
his brother bishop, eternal beatitude.
 “In reliance on that friendship which we formed in speech when we
met, we have sent to your piety these unhappy exiles from their
fatherland; praying that you would deign to intercede for them with
my dearest brother king Offa, that they may be allowed to live in their
own land in peace, without any unjust oppression. For their lord
Umhrinsgstan[130] is dead. It appeared to us that he would have
been faithful to his own lord if he had been allowed to remain in his
own land; but, as he used to say, he fled to us to escape the danger
of death, always ready to purge himself of any unfaithfulness. That
reconciliation might ensue we kept him with us for a while, not from
any unfriendliness.
“If you are able to obtain peace for these his fellow tribesmen, let
them remain in their fatherland. But if my brother gives a hard reply
about them, send them back to me uninjured. It is better to live
abroad than to perish, to serve in a foreign land than to die at home.
I have confidence in the goodness of my brother, if you plead
strenuously with him for them, that he will receive them benignantly
for the love that is between us, or rather for the love of Christ, who
said, Forgive and it shall be forgiven you.
“May the divine piety keep thy holiness, interceding for us, safe for
ever.”
It was a skilful stroke of business on Karl’s part to send the men
over to the charge of the archbishop, which amounted to putting
them in sanctuary. If he had kept them in France and written to beg
that they might be allowed to return, it would have been much easier
for Offa to say no. And if he had sent them direct to Offa in the first
instance, they would probably never have got out of his clutches at
all.
 CHAPTER VII
List of the ten kings of Northumbria of Alcuin’s time.—Destruction of Lindisfarne,
Wearmouth, and Jarrow, by the Danes.—Letters of Alcuin on the subject to King
Ethelred, the Bishop and monks of Lindisfarne, and the monks of Wearmouth and
Jarrow.—His letter to the Bishop and monks of Hexham.

We must now turn to Alcuin’s native kingdom of Northumbria, over

whose evil fortunes he grieved so greatly in the home of his
adoption.
I do not know how better some idea can be formed of the political
chaos to which Northumbria was reduced in the time of Alcuin than
by reading a list of the kings of that time. It is a most bewildering list.
All went well so long as Eadbert, the brother of Archbishop
Ecgbert, reigned. He was the king of Alcuin’s infancy and boyhood
and earliest manhood. His reign lasted from 737 to 758, when he
retired into a monastery. He was the 21st king, beginning with Ida
who created the kingdom in 547. He was succeeded by (22) Oswulf
his son, who was within a year slain by his household officers, July
24, 759, and was succeeded on August 4 by (23) Ethelwald, of
whose parentage we do not know anything. In 765 he was deprived
by a national assembly, and (24) Alchred was placed on the throne,
a fifth cousin of the murdered Oswulf, and therefore of the royal line.
In 774 he was banished, and went in exile to the king of the Picts,
being succeeded by (25) Ethelred, the son of his deprived
predecessor Ethelwald. Ethelred reigned from 774 to 779, when in
consequence of cruel murders ordered by him he was driven out,
and (26) Alfwold, son of (22) Oswulf, and therefore of the old royal
line, succeeded. Alfwold was murdered in 788, and was succeeded
by (27) Osred, the son of (24) Alchred, sixth cousin of his
predecessor, and therefore of the royal line. After a year he was
deposed and tonsured, and was eventually put to death in 792 by
(25) Ethelred, who had recovered the throne lost by his expulsion in
779. He was killed in 796 in a faction fight, after he had put to death
the last two males, so far as we know, of the royal line of Eadbert,
Ælf and Ælfwine, sons of (26) Alfwold. Simeon of Durham tells us
(a.d. 791) that they were persuaded by false promises to leave
sanctuary in the Cathedral Church of York; were taken by violence
out of the city; and miserably put to death by Ethelred in
Wonwaldrenute. He was succeeded by (28) Osbald, of unknown
parentage, but a patrician of Northumbria; he only reigned twenty-
seven days, fled to the king of the Picts, and died an abbat three
years later, in 799. He was succeeded by (29) Eardulf, a patrician of
the blood royal,[131] who had been left for dead by (25) Ethelred, but
had recovered when laid out for burial by the monks of Ripon. He
had the fullest recognition as king; was consecrated at the great altar
of St. Paul in York Minster on May 26, 796, by Archbishop Eanbald.
In his reign Alcuin died. In 806 he was driven out by (30) Elfwald, of
unknown parentage, but by the help of the Emperor Charlemagne he
was restored in 808. He died in 810, and was succeeded by his son
(31) Eanred, who was the last king but one of the royal house, and
the last independent king of Northumbria, dying in 840, and being
succeeded by his son (32) Ethelred II, expelled in 844, restored in
the same year, and killed sine prole in 848.
This, as has been said, is a most bewildering list. It is, however,
convenient to have it stated at length, inasmuch as several of these
kings are named in a noteworthy manner in the letters of Alcuin. To
emphasize the view that Alcuin took of the state of Northumbria, the
list just given may be summarized thus, it being borne in mind that
every king who reigned in Alcuin’s time after Eadbert’s death in 758
is included in the summary. Oswulf, murdered 759; Ethelwald,
deprived 765; Alchred, banished 774; Ethelred, expelled 779;
Alfwold, murdered 788; Osred, deposed 789; Ethelred, killed by his
own people, 796; Osbald, expelled 797; Eardulf, expelled 806.
The Venerable Bede had said in his letter to Archbishop Ecgbert in
735 that unless some very great change for the better was made in
all walks of life in Northumbria, that country would find its men quite
unable to defend it successfully if an invasion took place. We have
seen that so far as the reigning persons were concerned, the change
was for the worse; we have now to see how bitterly true Bede’s
prophecy, or rather his calculation of the necessary consequences,
proved to be. We are taken in thought to the year 793, not quite sixty
years after Bede’s letter. One excellent reign had lasted twenty-one
years, the next eight reigns averaged four and a half years, and all
ended in violence.
Higbald, the eleventh Bishop of Lindisfarne, 780-803, takes us
back nearly to the best times of that specially Holy Isle. Ethelwold,
724-40, his next predecessor but one, was the bishop under whom
King Ceolwulf, to whom Bede dedicated his famous work the
Ecclesiastical History of the English Race, became a monk. It was
this king-monk that taught the monks of Lindisfarne to drink wine and
ale instead of the milk and water prescribed by their Scotic founder,
Aidan. His head was preserved in St. Cuthbert’s coffin. Ethelwold’s
immediate predecessor was Eadfrith, 698-721, who wrote that
glorious Evangeliarium which is a chief pride of England, the
Lindisfarne Gospels. To Bishop Eadfrith and his monks Bede
dedicated his Life of St. Cuthbert, between whom and Eadfrith only
one bishop had intervened. The entry at the end of the Lindisfarne
Gospels connects Ethelwold and Eadfrith with the production and
binding of that noble specimen of the earliest Anglian work. Put into
modern English it runs thus:—
“Eadfrith, bishop of the church of Lindisfarne, he wrote this book at
first, for God and St. Cuthbert and all the saints that are in the island,
and Ethelwald, the bishop of Lindisfarne island, he made it firm
outside and bound it as well as he could.”
The entry proceeds to tell that Billfrith, the anchorite, wrought in
smith’s work the ornaments that were on the outside with gold and
gems and silver overlaid, a treasure without deceit. And Aldred, the
presbyter, unworthy and most miserable, glossed it in English, and
made himself at home with the three parts, the Matthew part for God
and St. Cuthbert, the Mark part for the bishop—unfortunately it is not
said for which of the bishops, the Luke part for the brotherhood. Only
one bishop came between Ethelwold, who bound this priceless
treasure, and Higbald, to whom we now turn.
 The Saxon Chronicle has under the year 787 this entry:—“In this
year King Beorhtric [of Wessex] took to wife Eadburg, daughter of
King Offa. In his days came three ships of the Northmen from
Haurthaland [on the west coast of Norway]. And the sheriff rode to
meet them there, and would force them to the king’s residence, for
he knew not what they were. And there they slew him. These were
the first ships of Danish men that sought the land of the English
race.”
They soon came again, this time not to the coast of Wessex, but to
the coast easiest of access from their own land. In 793 this is the
entry in the Saxon Chronicle:—
“In this year dire forewarnings came over the land of Northumbria
and pitifully frightened the people, violent whirlwinds and lightnings,
and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. These tokens mickle
hunger soon followed, and a little after that, in this same year, on the
sixth of the ides of January [January 8] the harrying of heathen men
pitifully destroyed God’s church in Lindisfarne through rapine and
manslaughter.”
In the next year, 794, it is said:—
“The heathen ravaged among the Northumbrians, and plundered
Ecgferth’s minster at Donmouth [Wearmouth]; and there one of their
leaders was slain, and also some of their ships were wrecked by a
tempest, and many of them were there drowned, and some came to
shore alive and men soon slew them off at the river mouth.”
Wattenbach and Dümmler make the ruin of Lindisfarne take place
not on January 8 but on June 8. The Saxon Chronicle has Ianr. in
both of the MSS. which name the month. There is only one other
entry in the year 793, and it follows this,—“And Sicga [who had
murdered King Alfuold] died[132] on the 8th of the Kalends of March,”
that is, February 22. It is clear that these two events took place at the
end of 793, the years at that time ending with March, and January,
not June, was the month of ruin.
The twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow are described as
Ecgferth’s minster, because King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, 670-85,
gave land to Benet Biscop to found a monastery at the mouth of the
Don, now called the Wear, and some years later another portion of
land for the twin monastery of St. Paul, Jarrow. Later in Biscop’s life
he purchased two additional pieces of land from the next king,
Aldfrith, giving for the first two royal robes, or palls, made all of silk,
worked in an incomparable manner, which he had bought in Rome.
For the second, a much larger piece, he gave to the king a
manuscript collection of geographical writings, of beautiful
workmanship. We in the south-west must always remember that
Benedict Bishop first brought his vast ecclesiastical treasures to the
court of Wessex, but finding his royal patron dead went up north with
them. But for the death of the King of Wessex, we should have had
Wearmouth and Jarrow here as well as Malmesbury, Bede as well as
Aldhelm, and it may be Alcuin too.
We have letters of Alcuin to King Ethelred, to Higbald the Bishop
of Lindisfarne, and to the monks of the twin monastery of
Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, on this catastrophe. The letter to
Ethelred comes first:—
“To my most loved lord King Ethelred and all his Ep. 22. a.d. 793.
chief men the humble levite Alchuine sends
greeting.
“Mindful of your most sweet affection, my brothers and fathers and
lords honourable in Christ; deeply desiring that the divine mercy may
preserve to us in long-lived prosperity the fatherland which that
mercy long ago gave to us with gratuitous freedom; I therefore,
comrades most dear, whether present, if God allow it, by my words,
or absent by my writings under the guidance of the divine spirit, do
not cease from admonishing you, and by frequent repetition to
convey to your ears, you who are citizens of the same fatherland,
those things which are known to pertain to the safety of this earthly
realm and to the blessedness of the heavenly home; so that things
many times heard may grow into your minds with good result. For
what is love to a friend if it keeps silence on matters useful to the
friend? To what does a man owe fidelity if not to his country? To
whom does a man owe prosperity if not to its citizens? By a double
relationship we are fellow-citizens of one city in Christ, that is as
sons of Mother Church and of one native country. Let not therefore
your humanity shrink from accepting benignly what my devotion
seeks to offer for the safety of our land. Think not that I am charging
faults against you: take it that I aim at warding off penalties.”
We should here bear in mind that Ethelred had fourteen years
before this been expelled for cruel murders, and that he was now in
the first year of his restored reign and had already sent away his first
wife and taken another, a scandal so great in those days—bad as
they were—that the Saxon Chronicle with remarkable particularity
gives the month and the day of the gross offence, September 29. He
afterwards murdered the two surviving members of the royal house.
Alcuin’s letter to the king proceeds:—
“It is now nearly 350 years that we and our fathers have dwelt in
this most fair land, and never before has such a horror appeared in
Britain as we now have suffered at the hands of pagans. And it was
not supposed that such an attack from the sea was possible.[133]
Behold, the church of the holy Cuthbert is deluged with the blood of
the priests of God, is spoiled of all its ornaments; the place more
venerable than any other in Britain is given as a prey to pagan races.
From the spot where, after the departure of the holy Paulinus from
York, the Christian religion took its beginning amongst us, from that
spot misery and calamity have begun. Who does not fear? Who
does not mourn this as if his fatherland itself was captured?”
We should note Alcuin’s recognition of the fact that the restoration
of Christianity in Northumbria was due not to persons of the Anglo-
Saxon race and Church, but to Aidan and his monks of the Irish race
and Church.
“My brethren, give your most attentive consideration, your most
diligent investigation, to this question,—is this most unaccustomed,
most unheard-of evil, brought upon us by some unheard-of evil
custom? I do not say that there was not among the people of old the
sin of fornication. But since the days of King Alfwold[134] fornications,
adulteries, incests, have inundated the land to such an extent that
these sins are unblushingly perpetrated even among the handmaids
dedicated to God. What shall I say of avarice, rapine, and judicial
violence, when it is clearer than the light how these crimes have
increased, and a despoiled people are the evidence of it. He who
reads the Holy Scriptures, and revolves ancient history, and
considers the working of the world, will find that for sins of this nature
kings lose kingdoms, and peoples lose their father-land. He will find
that when men in power have unjustly seized the property of others,
they have justly lost their own....
“Consider the manner of dress, the manner of wearing the hair, the
luxurious habits of princes and of people. Look at the way in which
the pagan manner of trimming the beard and cutting the hair is
imitated. Do you not fear those whom you thus copy? Look at the
immoderate use of clothes, beyond any necessity of human nature.
This superfluity of the princes is the poverty of the people. Some are
loaded with garments, while others perish with cold. Some flow over
with luxuries and feasts like the rich man in purple, while Lazarus at
the gate dies of hunger. Where is brotherly love? Where is that pity
which we are bidden have for the wretched? The satiety of the rich
man is the hunger of the poor. That Scripture saying is to be
dreaded, ‘He shall have judgement without mercy that hath shewed
no mercy’[135]; and we have the words of the blessed Peter the
Apostle[136], ‘The time is come that judgement must begin at the
house of God.’ Judgement has begun, and with terrible force, at the
house of God where rest so many lights of the whole of Britain. What
is to be expected for other places, if the divine judgement has not
spared this most holy place? It is not for the sins of only those who
dwelled there that this has been sent.
“Would that the penalty that has come upon them could bring
others to amend their lives. Would that the many would fear what the
few have suffered, and each would say in his heart, groaning and
trembling, ‘if such men, if fathers so holy, did not save their own
habitation, the place of their own repose, who shall save mine?’
Save your country by assiduous prayers to God, by works of justice
and of mercy. Be moderate in dress and in food. There is no better
defence of a country than the equity and piety of princes, and the
prayers of the servants of God.”
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