Greenhouse Botanical Garden
The new pavilion at the botanical garden at Grueningen relates strongly to its context. The design was inspired by the surrounding forest, not the built environment. Both the formal vocabulary and the structural concept derive from nature. The pavilion is conceived to harmonize with and expand the forest. The form was developed using Voronoi tessellation, also known as natural neighbor interpolation. Analogous to cell division in nature, the geometry of the roof as surrounding membrane was determined by the position of the old and new trunks. The forest was augmented by four steel trees that form the primary structural system of the pavilion. At about five meters, the trunks branch toward the treetop, which forms the natural roof. A secondary glass construction, suspended from the steel branches, encloses the inner space of the greenhouse.
