Before my education to architect at the Technical University of Eindhoven, I studied one year Biology (1971-72) at the University of Nijmegen. In the many years until now, I kept an eye on patterns in Nature, starting with the bible of d’Arcy W. Thompson in one hand and my pencil in the other. I formulated the question of the patterns in sunflower seeds as: “How can I produce these spirals without a pencil?” For, intuitively, it seemed to be a mistake to make a construction by drawing continuous curves. 15 years later, at the University of Utrecht, Aristid Lindenmayer (well-known for his L-systems) supported my way to develop phyllotactic patterns. I got my PhD in 1994 – as a biologist infiltrating in my former study in Eindhoven. For the second time I switched from Biology to Architecture.

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