On Growth and Form (Canto Classics) - Softcover

Thompson, D'arcy Wentworth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107672562 ISBN 13: 9781107672567

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2014

Synopsis

D'Arcy Thompson's classic On Growth and Form looks at the way things grow and the shapes they take.

About this title

Review

'Thompson describes, in great detail, how natural organisms evolve in response to the forces of survival to achieve fitness to purpose. Thompson demonstrates the causality of the shaping and design of natural organisms. For me, as a budding architect, this gave a clue to the concept of fitness to purpose: that architecture must evolve not as a formalistic shape-forming, but from a deep understanding of the programmatic, functional material and economic forces that shape it. This means an understanding of the material and structural aspects of a building, the life intended in a building (i.e. its human purpose) and the many forces (climatic and others) that must be responded to in the process. ... [the book is] as topical and significant today, going forward, as [it was], for me, 60 years ago.' Moshe Safdie, Architektura Konteksty

Book Description

Analysing biological processes in their mathematical and physical aspects, this historic work, first published in 1917, has also become renowned for the sheer poetry of its descriptions. It is now available for a wider readership including a foreword by one of today's great populisers of science.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1107672562
• ISBN 13: 9781107672567
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368