Growth, Form and Proportion in Nature: Lessons for Human Habitation in off Planet Environments

For hundreds of millions of years, life has been unfolding and forming in every conceivable environment possible. For as long as humanity has been giving thought to principles of architectural design and construction, nature has been a source of reference, information and inspiration. This paper will take a deeper look at growth, form and proportion in nature (Kriegh & Gardner, 2002), and relate understandings to current work in space-based kit-of-parts building systems (Howe, 2002) and orbital organizational design principles (Sherwood, 2002).

This paper will be the first of two papers that will explore growth, form and proportion historically and in relation to space architecture. The second paper will look more deeply into proportional systems derived from nature and applied to earth based architectural precedents and will be delivered at a future conference.