Designer Brittany Bell, a student at Victoria University School of Design in Wellington, New Zealand, has designed a conceptual seed archive.
“Seeds will be stored in the event of a future apocalypse,” explains Bell, who goes on to say that “Structure is a plant that has grown from the city.”
The following text is from Brittany Bell:
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Every year more and more species of plants are becoming endangered or extinct. The New Zealand government has proposed the notion to create a seed archive for the Pacific Region to house its native plants and preserve them for future generations.
The major problem to overcome will be constructing architecture that will adapt to the changing and unpredictable future environment. Therefore the architecture will mimic the architecture of a plant, as plants have the innate ability to adapt to their changing environment. The architecture of the seed archive is in the form of a growing cytoskeleton of a plant.
It continues to grow and adapt to prevailing wind, rainfall and sun exposure. For example the wings on the sides of the structure are heat sensitive and move to accommodate the protected plants within.
The funnel forms in the interior act as the main structural columns, but also house the large trees that need to grow upwards towards the sun. The architecture will be able to grow and expand overtime and rely on element-sensitive technology to exist without human presence.
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Posted by Rose Etherington
December 10th, 2008 at 2:23 am
oh,it’s perfect,i like it!very very nice!But,is it real building?And it is just concept?
December 10th, 2008 at 2:33 am
a wonderous magical delight of structural fluidity,
idealism has to be a place where realism needs to adventure.
silicon m
December 10th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Great images!!! (from Brazil)
December 10th, 2008 at 3:13 am
All that work, and that’s what the staircase looks like?
December 10th, 2008 at 3:39 am
This girl is amazing, I checked out her blog and although its new and has little content what is there shows a person of enormous talent. What a tremendous aptitude for visual arts and the architecture isn’t bad either. Very inspiring work.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:03 am
Sarah Schneider???
December 10th, 2008 at 4:44 am
very, very, extremely scary looking
December 10th, 2008 at 4:53 am
Oh Zaha! what have you done to us all!? You have infected everything!
December 10th, 2008 at 5:37 am
swoopy.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:00 am
A lovely conceptual bubble and a nice Bond villain lair, but what do you know about archives of any sort, especially seeds and light and heat? Or am I mising the fact that this is underground? Which is not really a great choice in NZ.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:18 am
never knew conceptual seeds needed so much space
December 10th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Student work… nice job. Yet…. too much Zaha Hadid spirit on this.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Nice renders, i can see some of Calatrava’s Lyon railwaystation in it too.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:38 am
really cool!
December 10th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Fantastic visuals and great imagination. quite beautiful..
December 10th, 2008 at 10:58 am
aaaa…Calatrava revival.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:01 am
love the “schwarzwald” like balustrade on the spiral stair.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Beatyfull
December 10th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I agree about this staircase. So we are in this fluid period now. After stabling boxes. mmh………
December 10th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
zaha meets calatrava.
incredible 3d skills, beautiful images, eye candy, but not more.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Even if this is not for normal people nor for mass production i hope that this guy one day find investor that will spent millions for house like this. I would like to see this thing build becouse then everything appears…until that moment i will not critic this object. And floor plans will be useful in this moment also. Neo neo neo ultra baroque style strike back:) /srry for eng:)
December 10th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
great appology for autor … woman. DKDX
December 10th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
eh Lyon called-they’d like their station back please!
December 10th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
this is what hadid’s and calatrava’s child would look like…..hmmmm
December 10th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Since when do student projects deserve a publication on this website? especially when they are pale copies of zaha, calatrava and others famous stararchitects? Is this just the stararchitect system already starting from school level? Is it now time for the starstudents?
My god… architecture is lost… dezeen should better try to publish real, true approaches like the ELEMENTAL project in iquique, chile… that one was different and fresh
December 10th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
nice images… although design plagurism + does good design not warrant at least a hint of practicality and logic, not just sculptural??? hmm
December 10th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
It looks like a soup with “secret” ingredient of Zaha, Ross Lovegrove, Hernan Dias Alonso, Calatrava, Sarah Schneider and many others who we dont know of course…
December 10th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
It’s a fantastic job! I love it!
December 10th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
oh com’on admit it guys…you are all jealous of not being able to produce such beautiful renders like this…including myself…I wouldn’t say it’s bad or is copied of someone else’s design…try to think out of the box…this girl is already hadid and calatrava…she’s going to be much more in few years…so I say all you guys who are criticising, you better get your tools right and get some work done at least at this level in the coming years…lozerz…
December 10th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
why does future have to be so white and glossy?
December 10th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
i can’t believe the stupid comments on this site. is anybody here actually a practicing architect, design or otherwise?
the simple reason this project looks like so many others like hadid, et al, is because these people use the same software and modeling techniques and many are following the same ideological trends.
that said, i like this project more than most. its well done, especially noteworthy for a student project.
credit has to go tot he spiral stair, it does a good job of anchoring this project in conventional space.
… and the program actually fits the formal language, unlike that ridiculous piece of marina side architecture from yesterday.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
If Sci-Fi has taught me anything, it’s that apocalypses attract gigantic space monsters. Do the exterior “spikes” prevent gigantic space monsters from eating it?
Also, if “plants have the innate ability to adapt to their changing environment” why is this facility necessary?
December 10th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I agree with michael – i don’t really see the point to posting this – yes, the work (form making, rendering) is absolutely well done, but I see no evidence that the designer has even vaguely approached how this project would work and this is fundamental to design. The form making is certainly advanced but without having approached any of the issues specific to the project, I don’t think it has much design merit.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
It’s a beautiful piece of (conceptual) sculpture, but it looks like it was designed in a vacuum.. Have things like the possible placing\context of it on a site, the relationship and function of zones and spaces and the needs of human habitation within the building been considered, or is it just an excuse to render some nice flowing forms? It’s hard to get much of a sense of how it would actually operate.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
“The major problem to overcome will be constructing architecture that will adapt to the changing and unpredictable future environment. Therefore the architecture will mimic the architecture of a plant, as plants have the innate ability to adapt to their changing environment.”
= very easy concept.. unfortunately this building will be static and the plants will keep on growin’..
nice images though..
December 10th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I think this is amazing, whether it be Hadid-like or not. I think people need to realize student projects are done in short timelines, WITH other papers going on – and this young lady has created and rendered something superior and far more detailed than Zaha Architects!
Program is very present, MVRDVs post the other day had no program whatsoever visible, and they published pretty tacky renders.
Absolutely awesome, its very scary to think that these young guns are coming into the workforce soon…
December 10th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
It looks neat, yada yada… WHERE DO YOU PUT THE SEEDS? Another complete design failure. Concept above function. This is completely impractical and seems to have completely ignored the purpose. It looks neat, that’s it. It certainly is not a worthwhile project, all waste no utility. Someone needs to crack open a fresh can of reality check.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
The formal complexities are extremely compelling here, clearly you have significantly advanced Maya skills. Your renderings are also stunning, so you’ve mastered Maxwell too. It takes a lot of talent and hard work to produce imagery of this quality. Congratulations.
Clearly you admire Calatrava’s station in Lyon, as well as Lovegrove’s stair in his studio. And yes, Zaha has managed to infect your brain too. But let’s be honest, all students copy their idols, in style, technique, presentation, and supporting theory. However, borrowing form is never and elegant solution. While it’s true Hadid and Calatrava have very distinct styles, the implementation of those styles is highly site specific. To understand these masters is to understand their thinking, their process, and to then implement it in your own way, given the terms of your specific brief.
You’ve neglected to work through the conceptual basis for this project to the same degree to which you’ve studied it’s formal qualities. I think a seed archive is an excellent brief to explore (kudos to your tutor) invoking novel notions of security, lifespan, and climatology. But morphogenesis is difficult to flush out as a formal strategy. Rather than suggest that the building grows, or has wings that flap, I might suggest your notions of movement and responsiveness be implemented at a much smaller scale. In other words, think nano rather than macro.
A wonderful project. Well done.
A quick message to DEZEEN. Keep publishing student work. Especially at this level. It’s inspiring, impressive, and keeps those of us in practice on our toes.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Nice to finally see some stuff from New Zealand up here. Well done, there is a lot of talent here and it would be great to see more. Awesome work Brittany!
December 11th, 2008 at 12:48 am
There’s not a single human being in these renderings… ? But maybe it’s not designed to be used by people, only to be rendered so it looks good…
December 11th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Brittany! Well done on a very interesting project. I think so more detailled info on how the seeds are to be stored/ accessed would have been useful.
Have you seen this?
http://www.expatica.com/de/news/local_news/Secure-seed-bank-to-open-in-Arctic-region-off-Norway-.html
It is an actual seed vault in the arctic circle. Good luck
December 11th, 2008 at 1:12 am
As an ex Massey/Wellington student its great to see this calibre work coming out of lil ol nz. I think the concept is great, and would be well received in NZ, the perfect environment to document a collection of nature ! Does the orginal designer have a specific location ? id be interested to know where bouts in NZ this could/would be built.
I did read a quick comment on the stairs . . they’re quite obviously a clone of Ross Love groves carbon fibre ones . . (a great staircase to copy tho!)
I agree with Tylers comment – i bet few of you will even produce this level of work in your professional practice. This no doubt was done in ONE year, more specifically 26 weeks, so no – not every detail will be resolved.
What happened to allowing students to EXPERIMENT at university, or do you just want to teach them how to draw up concrete boxes clad with alucobond.
December 11th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Some pics here
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Svalbard%20seed%20vault&w=all
December 11th, 2008 at 2:48 am
This should be in the top ten for 2008-09
December 11th, 2008 at 4:13 am
New Zealand. Punching above their weight again.
Must be somethin in the water.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Well, let’s not get carried away and call Calatrava a “Master!”
Very sexy indeed, but I’m never really sold on architecture that is said to be capable of “growing and expanding,” because frankly, that’s nothing particularly new; buildings grow and expand all the time. If anything, buildings of this kind of formal freedom are actually harder to make “grow”. It sounds great, but ultimately is just a way of saying that your design can magically accommodate anything, anytime, when in fact there is very little in the design itself that convinces me this is actually true.
Really compelling though…
December 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Minto Says:
I think people need to realize student projects are done in short timelines, WITH other papers going on….
oh c’moooon, just wait until you are in the real world when all this nice-looking conceptual imagergy has to be done waaaaay faster than when you are a student because, yup, you gotta BUILD it in the real world…! And that means adding the functional and budget parts…. (oh, and you will have more than one project in real life too, trust me….)
December 11th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
you cant be serious ???
December 11th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
This could be really good for a sci-fi movie.
December 11th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
to micheal
you stuffy old bum, lighten up
no one but you can second guess what constitutes as ’starchitecture’ except the the indivual levelling the accusation. These large arch practices like zaha are making alot of money, sure, but they are also raising the profile of architecture, bringing it into the publics eye- you’re correct in some respects that their work might not have the pure integrity of some smaller more finely honed projects- but their net impact is none the less probobly positive. I know before and when i started my architectural education i was totally enrapt with architects like ghery – after becoming interested i became more impressed by the subtle and deep talents of other more obscure or respected architects.
architecture often lacks vision and wild imagination as its strangled by stuffy purists – i’d far rather see blade runner-esque cities cropping up (roll on OMA) than endless purist toss-
theres a balance – and a place for both – the worlds really large!
December 11th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
typo:
i meant to put
architecture often lacks vision and wild imagination as its strangled by stuffy purists – i’d far rather see blade runner-esque cities cropping up (roll on OMA) than endless purist toss- BUT THATS ONLY MY PERSONAL PREFERENCE
theres a balance – and a place for both – the worlds really large!
December 11th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
i see great maya skills. the form isn’t that novel.
December 11th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I’d like to comment on the actual aesthetics and architecture of this project, not the background of Zaha nor circumstances of student work…
I think there are some interesting spatial proposals, namely the bridge that swoops over the ground. There also appears to be a variety of different sizes of spaces..big, small, medium, and with different light qualities.
I think the notion of a place with seldom human presence is exciting. It is a bit like a resort, except peak season is only once or twice a year when scientists drop by.
Where these images fail for me is the materiality. I think the singularity of this white, mirroring material is overbearing and underdeveloped. Whereas you have determinedly chosen glass, one of the most traditional buildings materials, you also selected an imaginative material. Its apparent that materiality was not a focus, but there is a strong disconnection between tradition and invention here. Does glass suit such a project…?
While the interior perspectives are exciting, the storage of the seeds is still unclear. The exterior images are awfully unsuccessful, because they give no statement about the building…not even as an object. I gather very little quality from these outside images. I also find the detailing of the exterior too fussy. Not over the top, just fussy.
The starting concept does not appear in the actual project, in my opinion. This idea to grow and adapt seems also underdeveloped, as there is no hint or drawing of growth. In urban design proposals, you often see boring phasing diagrams (5 years, 15 years, 50 years), but we are not even given such a drawing to inspect.
In terms of rendering, there isnt too much skill involved here. Any architecture student with a day on the computer can make such renderings. The modeling however is definitely showing talent.
You seem have to have placed quite a bit of importance on the natural daylighting. I wonder if your material selection has anything to do with this–the reflections make a well lit, diffuse interior environment. Did you consider other environmental factors?
Thats all for now…more student projects! But please something not Zaha-inspired…please. It’s sexy, but getting stale like my baguette from Tuesday…!
December 11th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
i would hire her as a render-girl/3d modeller for my office… as a designer never!!
December 11th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I just have to say I went to university with her and she is actually really, really hot too. Some people.
December 12th, 2008 at 2:50 am
hmm, nice but do we really need to house a tree in a funnel?? Or protect plants from..SUNLIGHT & HEAT? that’s what plants thrive on, sunlight and heat..
But, good effort nonetheless, seems like lotsa material reference were taken from futuristic laboratories.
December 12th, 2008 at 3:48 am
this is zaha hadid with calatrava
December 12th, 2008 at 5:30 am
a nice imagination…but is it posible??mayb no such thing call imposible for a designer..but,back to logic…u dont think it waste quite a lot of space??
anyways,its a very amazing design…i lov eit too…hee…
December 12th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
No plans? no sections? Nothing to really measure this out as a whole – its just a bunch of highly polished renderings. Sure its all there, but I really don’t get ‘why’ I should be looking at any of these scenes?
Really the whole ’seed sanctuary’ thing is just tacked on after the fact as a way to explain the formal topologies and make it ‘programmatic’.
Vapid.
December 14th, 2008 at 4:29 am
To everyone throwing names of designers: dont forget Colani!
December 15th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Sexy!!! Very very Sexy!
December 17th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
It’s really outstanding.congratulations!
December 18th, 2008 at 1:23 am
some good images here?
http://sarah-schneider.blogspot.com/
Well done… i see your work is getting further attention!!
your project has,.. erm, come along way?
December 18th, 2008 at 2:24 am
I love this so much…colors and atmosphere is just stunnin’! This is best organic design of the year…..eat ur heart out zaha!
December 18th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Check out Design Advance January issue – this project features! The designer is also a feature in January CG Magazine.
December 19th, 2008 at 12:13 am
LOVELY! HOT! SEXY! this girl is a genius!
Check here blog – GOODNESS!
Brittany Bell take over Zaha Architects, Please…!
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Santiago Calatrava… melted
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
How do I drive a forklift around in that?
December 30th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I really like the “melted” aesthetic, as Guy correctly states. It really works this time (as generally modern architecture seems to get melted ever-so-randomly). I think it works because where the “white stuff” (unknown futuristic material) completely melts away it exposes the inner workings and structural details. I think the beauty of this project is really in the fine detailing. For example each stair case is very individual and obviously made from scratch, not just thrown in standard stuff. Great work – Bravo!
December 31st, 2008 at 4:14 am
Holy mother of organic!
January 1st, 2009 at 4:02 am
I like the fourth image down, great seeing a hint of program. Also like how their are no scale people, gives a really great sense of atmosphere. Nice rendering and modeling skills, theory I am not to sure about – but would love to see more.
January 4th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Wonderful vision… well done!
There appears to be nothing but praise and jealousy in the comments above…. two very flattering things for any designer to have bestowed on them and a true indication of success!!!!!!! ; )
If any of the above ‘critics’ have had their own work published (here or elsewhere) I would be pleased to compare their work against this project!
Keep up the good work Brittany!
A
January 12th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
DUDE,
GREAT GREAT PROJECT! i CANT GET ENOUGH OF THIS FIGURATIVE DESIGN! i JUST WISH THAT THESE ARE NOT LOST IN DIGITAL TRANSLATION.
ARE WE DOING OUR STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS? CAN IT BE BUILT.
IF NOT, THESE VERY VERY COMPETENT AND CREATIVE ARCHITECTS SHOULD BE DOING INDUSTRIAL DESIGN! (AT LEAST WE CAN MOULD THEM IN ONE PIECE!)
KEEP ON THE CREATIVE CREST!
bRIAN