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There is an undeniable link between mankind and nature, but if we were to graph that using time and connection as parameters, it will show as a descending line.

Contemporary life is defined by cities, concrete forests where even the green areas have been designed and feel artificial. This drives individuals away from their own essence to an artificial realm. In ‘The Conditioned Outdoor Room’, Bernard Rudofsky argues that the link between environment and mankind can be mended. He supports his theory by reminding us of our anscestors and the way they used to integrate a garden in the house, not as a separate space, but as a ‘room with sky as a ceiling’. He states that while the relation between us and nature deteriorates we lose parts of what make us human without realizing it.

Throughout history man has always strugled with the forces of nature. Climate has been more of an enemy than a friend. We could not control it, but we could hide and protect ourselves from it. First hiding in caves and later building their own habitats.

A home is called a shelter – a protective space where we feel safe, where we control the climate and where we seal out nature. But even with this attitude towards the environment, nature was not completly forgotten.

Today we speak of the indoor life we have settled into, subways as the ‘revival of the cave’.  Using technology to control the indoor environment we are just reinforcing what our anscestors were doing. Hiding. Sealing. This ultimate control of temperature, humidity and light solely through technology weakens the proverbial ‘if you can’t beat it, join it’.

Rudofsky proposes that we do join nature, within reason. He raises the issue that using a garden properly can improve the quality of life, that they can end up being ‘ oasis of delight’. Rather than sheltering ourselves in, can we not find comfort outside.

This introversion has pushed us to make the outdoor a fabric of wasted space.

Giving examples from Asia to Europe, he examines the pattern in wich he examines how the garden is used in relation to the users thoughout time.

He critices contemporary american lawns, which represent more a space that need exesive care than one that provides joy. Nature should not be viewed as a sacrifice of time, space and energy.

Rudolfskys proposal is one of interconnection between built environment and natural environment. He proposes integration of garden within a home. Walls would offer detachement from outside leaving one to feel more protected and making the garden more habitable. The walls act as a confroting factor and a privacy screen.  The reference to Ancient Rome, the way they used nature to generate a particular mood favorable to spiritual composure, strenghtens this idea and can be adapted to modern life.

Loosing ‘the essence of being human’ can be prevented through good design and nature-integrated solutions. The use of todays technology not to seal ourselves in, but to open ourselves up, will scrub away the artificial layers of contemporary lives.

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D’Arcy Wenthworth Thompson, On Growth And Form, 1917

Unlike the majority of biologists and naturalists of his time, that were only enthusiastic about the attributes of precedents of that particular form,  D’Arcy Thompson was working on the numerical explanations trying to define the forms of living things and physical phenomena in the light of mathematics.

On Growth and Form, notable mathematician and biologist demonstrates that the growth and form of any species of animal or plant can be interpreted through relatively simple mathematical equations. He suggests that biological growth and form has to  follow physical laws, and that one can see the materialization of these universal laws by analyzing common features in the form of different organisms. His “theory of transformation”  argues that a species evolves into another one not through a series of minor alterations in diverse body parts but through a large-scale transformation of the entire form.

Most of the transformations that stands as proof of his theory are specific cases of generic transformation which are obtained by the method of ‘conjugate functions’ and equivalent to the projection of the original figure on a new plane deforming coordinates with four different techniques that are; uniform linear functions where x-y axes are extended proportionally,  non-uniform or logarithmic definitions, simple shear where some set of parameters stay the same while others change in length as well as in orientation and radial deformation around a focus point that exposes similar characteristics with todays parametric system.

As to construct examples for his arguments he uses linear and non-linear functions to show how the corresponding bones of similar species are adapted to their particular functions, with his tactfully drawn illustrations of morphed images of the skulls of related species, reckoning primates and humans.

Thompson introduces maths as a formative apparatus simulating how the structures of the organic world mimic patterns in the inorganic existences. Thus originating the scientific explanation of the word ‘morphogenesis’, commonly used in biology to define the biological process that results in developing the shape of an organisms. He defines it as task of comparison of related forms rather than in the precise definition of each one.

He proposes structuralism by using scientific data of the physical forces when imposing biological forms, but biological forms aren’t necessarily obliged to make sense in scientific formulas at all times. That is why his examples could be considered as ‘ideal’ states of organisms.

The reading could be perceived as a poetic exposition praising the marvels of nature not only because of his profound use of language but the way he implements scientifically data in history with ideas ahead of its time and that the study of science of living things is not solely dependent on mathematics nor it should be considered as an inexplicable divinely created phenomenality.

Possible personal research:

Is it possible to adapt the mathematical formulas that are used to define the ‘shapes’ of a building not only into the ‘form’ but also into the potential states of  ’growth’ or ‘transformation’ of a building within time? Can buildings be designed to think and adapt to the nature not only within their rigid and predefined structures but as an expanding system inside the infrastructure of the future cities without any further human intervention?