The document discusses how nature follows natural laws and has perfected efficient use of materials over millions of years. It argues that great architects like Eiffel, Wright, Gaudi, and Utzon drew inspiration from nature in their designs, creating buildings with inner harmony that follow principles of physics. These buildings, like the Eiffel Tower, Fallingwater, La Sagrada Familia, and Sydney Opera House, became icons through designs informed by nature that find the optimal form. The document advocates for architecture that respects natural laws to create unexpected yet familiar forms that inspire and delight people through a close relationship with nature.

1. Natural Design that Inspires Me
Nature follows laws - it has no choice, they are nature’s laws. It has done so for many millions of years
and in so doing has perfected ways to survive. Most notably it is very good at efficient use of
materials. To building a web a spider excretes material that is stronger than steel, and it can all be
recycled by eating it and re-excreting. As a snail grows it grows its shell, depositing layers of calcium
that reflect its size, protecting it from harm. The curved shape conveys strength and allows the shell to
be thin. In extremis the snail can digest the shell and use its calcium to reform new shell. Nature
operating a cyclical economy.
Once man discovered (defined) these natural laws he started to try to break them. Our battle against
nature defines our progress – conquering nature has been a hallmark of industrialisation. But how
wise is this? Great things happen when you follow nature and work with it.
It cannot be a coincidence that many of our great architects have cited nature as their greatest
inspiration and in many cases the foundation of their philosophy of design. Gustav Eiffel, Frank Lloyd
Wright, Antoni Gaudi, Jorg Utzon and Frei Otto were notable for using natural form and an
underlying harmony with nature as their keystone.
As an engineer I am drawn to the idea that good building design follows the natural laws of physics
and that our spirit is drawn to things that have an inner harmony that comes from working with
nature. I was also profoundly influenced by Frei Otto in my early years when working on gridshell and
cablenet projects. I learned that the pure catenary shape of a hanging chain gave the perfect form for
a cable in tension and an arch in compression. Asking material to bend seemed so wrong once you
saw how it is so much more efficient in pure tension and compression.
And it becomes interesting to see the effect that Nature can have on the quality of the experience of
our buildings; where economy of material, if well used, can give disproportionate returns.
The Eiffel Tower, and indeed so many of Eiffel’s less well celebrated railway bridges across France, is a
classic case of natural elegance. A form that reflects perfectly where material needs to be placed to
effect an efficient cantilever tower. The sweeping curves come from an empathy with natural laws –
how the stresses at the root can be reduced by spreading the feet. As a result and quite
unintentionally, Eiffel gave Paris and France something special; its own icon. There is nothing more
quintessentially French.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water is surely the best known and best loved example of 20th
century
domestic architecture. The building grows from the rock on which it sits, water flow from it. It
becomes part of the natural landscape, integrated and inseparable. Its form is not designed for lease
use of material but to match the grandeur of the nature around it. It is an icon of American
architecture.
La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s unfinished masterpiece, is a marvellous example of the use of natural
forms in masonry. Early in his career he embraced the stone masons art of form-finding using
handing chains as his model. He took this to enormous lengths to define not just arches but whole
vaulted roof forms. It was a way to give his masons a three dimensional model of the geometry he
wanted to achieve. By following natural catenaries the masonry would be in pure compression under
its own weight, and hence would need the least material. Having created a form that fascinates and
feels natural, Gaudi created an icon. A building that is unmistakably Barcelona and certainly “speaks
Spanish”.

2. In Sydney Utzon came up with the most dramatic form on the edge of the harbour to enclose the new
opera house. Inspired by nature, and a follower of Frank Lloyd Wright, he said of design: “if it grows
naturally, the architecture will look after itself”. The shells of the roof were achieved ultimately as
simple spherical segments to allow them to be made in ways that were familiar in the 1960s. Perhaps
now we would be able to use computer modelling and fabrication in the quest to get a closer match
to his naturally inspired forms, but the essence of nature is what still inspires. This is a building that
delights us in the same way as nature itself, making its own beauty. And with this building Australia
gained an icon for a nation.
Frei Otto embarked on a post war crusade to supersede the heavy tradition of Albert Speer and drive
architecture forward in a way that followed nature. His quest for minimal forms and use of chain
models to drive the shapes to be efficient and optimal created some outstanding and original work.
The Munich Olympic stadium complex of 1972, working with Gunther Behnisch, is a tour de force of
purity of tensile line – a tent with attitude and grandeur that takes the breath away. It is becoming an
icon certainly for Munich and I suspect beyond.
In London I would turn to two recent building that work with and reflect nature: the Millennium Dome
and the British Museum Great Court roof – both icons of the 21st
century. The Millennium Dome has
the pure form of a dome yet its structure is that of a cablenet. It is lighter than the air it contains – a
cobweb of steel gently lifted off the ground with twelve steel masts. The essence of simple
engineering following nature. Borne from the pen of Richard Rogers and the engineering mind of Ian
Liddell they conceived a masterpiece of lightweight architecture. The British Museum’s famous roof is,
by contrast, a shell – the lightest net of steel beams that uses its vaulting form the way that a snail
uses its own shell, transferring loads effortlessly in compression. It looks as light as it does because it
follows nature in its form and the way it functions.
These buildings are all examples of harmonious design where architecture and engineering is one –
the form comes from a respect for nature and the laws that govern it. It results in architecture that is
uniquely formed from the natural flow of forces and the efficient use of material.
I would conjecture that these are iconic because they hold within them a sense of “rightness” that
people feel. Following nature can create unexpected forms for buildings but expected from nature. It
brings people into a closer relationship with the buildings because of this harmony. Unexpected yet
familiar, intriguing and yet comfortable.
How important is this lesson from nature? We seem to believe that the buildings we work in, learn in
and live in are merely commodities that just have to keep out the rain and keep us safe. And we seem
to think that towns and cities are no more than useful aggregations of people and their buildings.
There is no need to make them inspire and delight us. Yet the power of our built environment to do
us good or harm is immense. Recognising the emotional impact of our buildings and cities is crucial if
we are to realise this power. Appreciating the central role of nature in the creation of buildings that
inspire and delight is vital. Our sensitivity to the natural laws and the unexpected delights that can
come from allowing them through into the form of our buildings has to be properly appreciated.