Observations: on movement and adaptive design

By midsummer, a pinecone resting on dry ground has done its work: every scale is spread open and every seed has been dispersed. This process is made possible by a simple yet precise mechanism. The fibres that make each scale’s two layers run in different directions. As the pinecone dries in the heat, one layer shrinks faster than the other, bending the scale outward. If the pinecone gets wet, the scales close. This movement is a property of the structure itself, not of anything living, and it happens automatically every time the surrounding air changes.
Designed spaces can borrow the same wisdom, incorporating self-adjusting lighting, self-moving blinds… Structures and solutions that change with outdoor conditions, making buildings and interiors flow with their surroundings.

The Observations grow from a daily habit of noticing details in nature and drawing design insights from them. They’re collected in a monthly digest as part of anooi’s newsletter, which gathers the studio’s world and explores the idea of nourishing spaces. The same attunement shapes the studio’s work, lives in A Biophilic Year – a book-object and online archive on people, nature, and design – and becomes a sensory practice with In Season, a seasonal physical letter.