ABSTRACT
In general the term refers to an artisan working in hard materials except metal. In the fifth century B.C. this meaning undergoes further evolution, from something specific and physical, such as carpentry, to a more generic notion of making, involving the idea of poesis. — Kenneth Frampton
The current mood in architectural theory is to focus on the tectonic. Having exhausted the form possibilities presented by the metaphor of language, the metaphor of biology is coming to the forefront. The question becomes “What are the tectonic form implications of an architecture based on biology?” The green revolution is providing the impetus for this paradigm shift. Biomimicry, as an aspect of this green form tectonic, calls for the technology of architecture to be capable of responding to changing external and internal demands placed on it over time. The skin, as the first line of defense, becomes an important preoccupation of the designer. Structure takes on a different role, that of infrastructure – analogous to the armature in sculpture, or the skeleton of a living organism. Components of the tectonic form are tasked with specific behaviors that are programmed to anticipate their role in the architecture. The notion of “form” has evolved from a reference to an ideal and static Platonic shape, to that of a constellation of technical responses to parameters that various designers have contributed. The result is more of an assembly than a singular form. The exception is blobitecture, which references the natural forms of the whole organism, rather than its parts.
