Growing Architecture introduces Baubotanik — the emerging design discipline that treats trees not as ornament but as structural material, tracing the botanical growth laws that make living construction legible to architects and designers.
About This Book
What does it mean to design with living matter that continues to grow, adapt, and age after construction is complete? Growing Architecture addresses this question through the lens of Baubotanik, a discipline that formalises centuries of intuitive practice — from the Khasi people of eastern India weaving rubber tree branches into footbridges, to the dance lime trees that once anchored village life in southern Germany — into a coherent methodology for contemporary practice. Editors Ferdinand Ludwig and Daniel Schönle present built projects, prototypes, and speculative concepts alongside the underlying botanical principles, making a compelling case for living construction as a serious architectural proposition rather than a provocation. Essential reading for anyone working at the intersection of landscape, ecology, and built form.
Key Features
- 240 pages of built projects, prototypes, and visionary concepts in living construction
- Edited by Ferdinand Ludwig and Daniel Schönle
- Published by Birkhauser
What You'll Discover
- The principles of Baubotanik and how botanical growth laws can be harnessed as a structural design logic
- Historical precedents for tree construction — from Khasi root bridges in eastern India to lime tree structures in southern Germany — reframed as antecedents to a new discipline
- How living architecture challenges conventional definitions of permanence, authorship, and material control in design
- The relationship between growing structures and urban nature, and what it means for a building to become part of an ecosystem rather than sit apart from it
About the Author
Ferdinand Ludwig and Daniel Schönle are the editors of this volume and central figures in the development of Baubotanik as a recognised design discipline. [Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 240
- Dimensions: 280 x 220 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783035603323
- Publisher: Birkhauser
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, landscape architects, and urban designers exploring ecological and living-material approaches to construction, as well as students and researchers in environmental design and botanical urbanism.