Plants and People: Botanical Tales of Architecture

Woven walls, thatched roofs, invading palms, highland camouflage: plants are part of global architectural histories in surprising ways. This course explores how plants have animated architectures of people and places around the world, examining colonial attitudes to land, health, resource extraction, and human coexistence through the lens of plants in architecture. In parallel to these historical and theoretical explorations, the course takes the local example of the Ticino palm (Trachycarpus fortunei), as example of a building material to experiment with in collaboration with local artists and researchers. Case studies will link Ticino to the tropics and vice versa, and will also draw on the research and activities of Dr. Davis’s SNSF project “Voyaging Vapors: Plant Histories of Plantation Architectures.”

Learn how architecture and architects have understood plants through history.
Understand how human labor and expertise intertwine with the history of plants in buildings.
Understand how humans have sought to train, exhibit, decorate, and grow with plants as/with/through architecture.
Learn how different cultures around the world have used plants in buildings for health and spirituality.
Understand plants having their own agency in buildings and history
How have humans misinterpreted plants; how do architects misunderstand plants?
Learn how plants have come to symbolize cultural traits for people, places, and buildings.

• Sustainable cities and communities
• Climate action
• Life on land
• Peace, justice and strong institutions

In presence

Learning together through lecture, reading, writing, discussion, a field trip to harvest, and a workshop to make roof thatch and mats.

Student work will be assessed through attendance, discussion, and written papers.

• Tegna, Ticino, 15.10.25 - 15.10.25 (Compulsory)