Botanical architecture encompasses greenhouses, conservatories, winter gardens, and other structures designed to create controlled environments for plant life. These buildings are defined by their transparency — glass and iron or steel frames that maximise light transmission while maintaining thermal separation from the outside climate.
From the Victorian palm houses of Kew and Schönbrunn to contemporary biomes like the Eden Project, botanical buildings represent some of the most innovative structural engineering of their eras. The Crystal Palace (1851) — a botanical glasshouse scaled up to exhibition size — triggered a revolution in prefabricated construction.
