Der Spiegel Online wrote about three young German architects who are creating buildings out of living trees. Ferdinand Ludwig, one of the architects, has found a way to graft young willow trees together trunk to top to form a “tree tower,” the idea being that the trees “will have finally merged into a single organism.” Ludwing and his colleagues hope to build a range of buildings using trees — towers, pavilions, tree houses, and walkways. According to Der Spiegel, “Ludwig calls this technique ‘plant addition.’ To do it, he uses one-year-old willows that are thin and flexible but at least 10 meters (33 feet) long. Once the willows have matured to full strength, the strands will be able to support the eight-meter (26-foot) tower that Ludwig plans to begin building near Lake Constance in southern Germany at the end of July, as though they were steel beams.”
The German architects describe their new technology as “building botany.” At the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Basics in Modern Architectural Design, the architects are studying plants and the ”elasticity of plane trees,” to determine how effectively willow trees can grow around steel pipes and other architectural structures. Trees are viewed as more sustainable materials than C02-intensive steel or other manufactured building materials.
In the architects’ process, flexible trees are attached to the steel structures and bent into shape. Trees grow and take on more of a load bearing function. “After a few years — and what Ludwig calls a ‘botanical certificate of fitness’ inspection by a structural engineer — the support structure can be removed. At which point the roof and floors that have been inserted should be supported entirely by the trees.” However, there are risks: if the metal fasteners are too tight, they can obstruct the flow of sap and severely damage the tree. The architects have sometimes added “sap bypasses” to keep the trees healthy. Also, the buildings require significant maintenance.
Der Spiegel says none of this is new. “Training trees to grow in all manner of decorative shapes is not new, it has been part of the skilled landscape gardener’s repertoire since the 13th century. And companies like the Israeli firm, Plantware, have perfected these techniques as they have shaped trees into fruit bowls, toilet paper holders and street lamps; they call their work ‘arbor-sculpture.’”
While the manipulation of trees as well as tree damage caused by the building structure may give many pause, the architects think tree material, given its inherent sustainable features, should be viewed as the same as steel or concrete. Add your thoughts.
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Image credit: Der Spiegel
Why would anyone “shape[] trees into fruit bowls, toilet paper holders and street lamps”?