The KVA Matx team with MIT Digital Structures and Industry Partner WholeTrees Structures present TREE FORM, a design and research project in "The Next Earth” exhibition at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale. Presented by Berggruen Arts & Culture, the exhibition features groundbreaking research on MIT Architecture’s Climate Work and explores the intersection of computation, climate urgency, and architectural futures.
TREEFORM is inspired by the intelligence of trees as diverse spatial forms with inherent strength created over millions of years though natural evolution. How can we understand and visualize the capacities of branching trees as structural and spatial form in architecture? And how can the assembly of trees create new ways of building and living in a regenerative architecture that benefits forests, people, and the spaces they inhabit? TREE FORM embraces the diversity of trees in their varying natural form as the lowest carbon-emitting structural system available. It imagines how architecture might move from the extractive, modern-era free plan of standardized structural elements to a regenerative “tree plan” where tree form becomes a distinctive and collaborative partner in the daily lives of people.
TREE FORM leverages a new computational and design workflow that is being developed at MIT and prototyped with WholeTrees Structures to understand the collective behavior of an assembly of trees as building structure for a wide range of architectural building types. For a given architectural form, the shared spatial and structural role of an assembly of trees is developed through a ‘digital twin’ model that integrates finite element analysis to understand structural performance of a community of tree forms across different design configurations. This enables architects to collaborate with scanned trees in digital forest inventories and to design with the wild character of arborescent tree form in ways that are improvisational, playful and precise.
TREEFORM supports a value chain of relational benefits for trees, forests, people,and the spaces they inhabit. Harvesting small-diameter, invasive, or low-value branching trees is essential for forest health and fire resiliency, and sustainable construction. TREEFORM reduces forest ‘waste’ by transforming low-value trees with branching forks into high-value structural markets for architecture. This incentivizes the sustainable management of forests, supports local forest communities,captures carbon, and demonstrates a circular material process applicable to a wide range of varying natural materials.
TREE FORM Research Team
The TREE FORM Research Team includes Rachel Blowes (MIT SMArchsBT ‘25), Charles Janson (MIT MArch ‘25), Prof. Sheila Kennedy (FAIA, KVA Matx), Assoc. Prof. Caitlin Muller (PhD), and designers Sam Sundstrom and Austin Tsailin (KVA Matx). Industry partners are Amelia Baxter(CEO, WholeTrees), Kevin Stewart (Strategic Initiatives, WholeTrees), and Russel Miller-Johnson (Principal, Engineering Ventures). Special thanks to Aleks Banas, Zoe Gao, Bernardo Gonsalez, Joyce Tullis, and Jordan Walters ( MIT MArch ‘26–‘27).
TREE FORM Image Credits:
TREE FORM Architectural Designs and Exhibit Design by KVA Matx Research Team with MIT Digital Structures; Industry Partner, WholeTrees Structures.
TREE FORM Exhibit Tree Scans & Fabrication by WholeTrees Structures - Maine.