The Evolution of Designs

The Evolution of Designs tells the history of the many analogies that have been made between the evolution of organisms and the human production of artefacts, especially buildings. It examines the effects of these analogies on architectural and design theory and considers how recent biological thinking has relevance for design.Architects and designers have looked to biology for inspiration since the beginnings of the science in the early nineteenth century. They have sought not just to imitate the forms of plants and animals, but to find methods in design analogous to the processes of growth and evolution in nature. Biological ideas are prominent in the writings of many modern architects,of whom Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright are just the most famous.Le Corbusier declared biology to be ‘the great new word in architecture and planning’.

Since the first edition of The Evolution of Designs was published in 1979, there has been a resurgence of interest in biological analogy. This is in part because of the introduction of computer methods in design in the 1980s and 1990s which have made possible a new kind of ‘biomorphic’ architecture through ‘genetic algorithms’ and other programming techniques. This new revised edition of this classic work adds an extended Afterword covering these more recent developments.