Growing Architecture for the Planetary Garden: Position Paper on Living Architecture in the Context of Gardens and Healthy Environment

This position paper discusses the topic of living architecture in the broader context of gardens and healthy urban environments. It takes up the idea of understanding the earth as a “planetary garden” by Gilles Clement and explains how architecture with and from living trees could contribute to this vision. For this purpose, the German term Baubotanik is introduced and the special characteristics of living structures are presented by contemporary examples. With the aim of outlining future applications of the approach, tree growth and urban growth are linked and the technique of plant addition is presented as a way of reconciling the divergence between immediate expectations and long-term developments. The paper concludes by discussing studies on the subjective perception of quality of life and the health-promoting effect of urban trees in relation to the possibilities of living architecture.