Lianas

Nature as Model

Buildings often lack light, which doesn’t always penetrate spaces evenly. So, let us look to nature for inspiration, and plants in particular, to capture more natural light and thus reduce our dependency on artificial lighting, which plants have a natural capacity to do.

Observe the liana and let it shape how we design buildings. A climbing plant with a particularly flexible stem, the liana wraps itself around solid and well-rooted vertical supports. It climbs upward in search of direct sunlight. These plants are not always parasitic or competitive, and some may even be beneficial to their “host”—which in most cases is neither damaged nor smothered by them—and to the habitat they enrich.