Embryological Houses, Greg Lynn

The Embryological House is a postmodern, organicist style inspired by evolutionary biology and the science of turbulence and made possible by the computer’s ability to generate warped or fluid forms. The Embryological House is suppose to trace the evolution pattern of the human embryo. The prototype of the embryological house is a topological symmetrical pure sphere, which is a curve duplicated 6 times. He experienced a series of six control points attached to this basic geometry and saw that there are potentially unlimited iterations derived from a basic form, or primitive – the sphere. However, each of these endless results would be unique. This project is a hinge point where idea of house typology moves from the modernist model to an organic, flexible, genetic/generic prototype from which an infinite number of iterations can be generated. Having these features, the project is one of the first and most significant examples of mass customization.

 

-Gamze Kahya

 RESEARCH RESOURCES

Lynn, Greg. “Greg Lynn: Embryological Houses,” AD “Contemporary Processes in Architecture” 70,3, London: John Wiley & Son, 2000.

[In this publication, Lynn describes the main intentions of the project in a detailed way.]

Burns,Karen. “ Greg Lynn’s embryological house project: the “Technology” and metaphors of metorsm of Architecture”, 2000.

[This paper offers a close reading of one architectural text engaged in “knowledge transfer”: the use of evolutionary biology discourse as an explanatory account and authority claim supporting Greg Lynn’s Embryological House Project (2000).]

Lynn, Greg. Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

[This book is a quite descriptive document to understand the conceptual idea behind the Embryological Houses.]