Designing Morpho-Ecologies: Versatility and Vicissitude of Heterogeneous Space

Abstract

‘Morpho-Ecology’ is a concept and design approach that combines the notion of ‘morphology’, and thus intrinsically ‘morphogenesis’, with the notion of ‘ecology’. In the early 19th century, in the context of his studies in botany, the poet and writer Goethe defined morphology as the study of forms; he combined the study of ‘Gestalt’, or structured form, with the process of ‘Bildung’, or formation, which acts continuously upon form.¹ Later on in the century, the term ‘ecology’ was coined by the German physician and zoologist Ernst Haeckel, who defined it as the science of relationships between organisms and their environment.² Here Michael Hensel and Achim Menges outline their theoretical and methodological framework for ‘morpho-ecological design’ in architecture, illustrating it further with two projects that combine research and design. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.