전하빈(Jeon, Ha-Been) ; 장용순(Chang, Yong-Soon)
https://doi.org/10.5659/JAIK.2026.42.1.103
Contemporary urban architecture is often criticized for visual monotony and homogenized experience. Responding to this problem, and to
Thomas Heatherwick’s diagnosis of a “blandemic,” this study argues that the relationship between Gaudi and Heatherwick should be
understood not in terms of visual resemblance but as a higher-order methodology linking rule extraction, sectional co-determination, and the
organization of public experience. Rather than positing a direct line of influence, the research investigates methodological affinities by
organizing prior studies on both architects into an analytical framework of biomimicry, regionality, and form?structure integration and
applying it to four of Heatherwick’s built projects. The analysis shows that both architects treat nature not as a stock of images but as a
repository of operative rules, and read site, climate, materials, and urban flows as variables that organize form, layout, and microclimate. In
both cases, structural equilibrium, sectional decision-making, and environmental performance are coordinated within an internal order that
privileges continuous variation over simple repetition. While Gaudi develops rule-based generation through equilibrium-driven geometries and
the integration of ornament, structure, and passive performance, Heatherwick extends these logics through prototyping- and fabrication-led
processes, rule-based terracing and vertical greening, and the linkage of buildings to urban pedestrian loops. The study proposes a comparative
analytical language that traces correspondences beyond visual likeness and offers rule-based design criteria for recovering sensory richness and
a robust sense of place in contemporary architectural practice.