Lynn was born in
North Olmsted, Ohio, and claims always to have wanted to be an architect. "When I was twelve, I could already construct perspective drawings and draw
axonometric projections", says Lynn. "In high school, someone taught drafting and in the first day of class they saw that I could do all these constructed drawings. I started picking oddly-shaped objects like threaded cones and I would try to draw them in two-point perspective. I got into drawing as a kind of sport." Lynn graduated
cum laude from
Miami University in Ohio with degrees in architecture and philosophy and from
Princeton University School of Architecture with a
Master of Architecture. He is distinguished for his use of
computer-aided design to produce irregular,
biomorphic architectural forms, as he proposes that with the use of computers,
calculus can be implemented into the generation of architectural expression. Lynn has written extensively on these ideas, first in 1993 as the editor of an
Architectural Design special issue called "Folding in Architecture". In 1999, his book
Animate FORM, funded in part by the
Graham Foundation focused on the use of animation and motion graphic software for design. His book,
Folds, Bodies & Blobs: Collected Essays, contains the republished essay from
ANY magazine "Blobs, or Why Tectonics is Square and Topology is Groovy" in which he coined the term "blob architecture" later to become "
blobitecture" popularized in a
New York Times Magazine article "
On Language: Defenestration" by
William Safire. The 2008 book
Greg Lynn FORM, edited with Mark Rappolt, includes contributions by his colleagues, collaborators and critics including
Ross Lovegrove,
Jeffrey Kipnis,
Chris Bangle,
Sylvia Lavin, Imaginary Forces,
Peter Schröder,
Bruce Sterling,
J. G. Ballard,
Brian Goodwin and
Ari Marcopoulos. He was one of the earliest teachers to explore the use of the digital technology for building design and construction when he was teaching "Paperless Studios" with
Hani Rashid and
Stan Allen while
Bernard Tschumi was dean of
Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation from 1992 to 1999. He was professor of spatial conception and exploration at the
ETH Zurich Faculty of Architecture from 1999 to 2002 and was Davenport Visiting professor at the
Yale School of Architecture from 1999 to 2016. Lynn's New York Presbyterian Church in
Queens, New York, with
Douglas Garofalo,
Michael McInturf is an early project which used vector-based animation software in its design conception. He was profiled by
Time magazine in their projection of 21st-century innovators in the field of architecture and design. Lynn's latest works begin to explore how to integrate structure and form together as he discovered some
biomorphic forms are inherently resistant to load. He often experiments with methods of manufacturing from the
aerospace, boat building and automobile industries in his installations such as
Swarovski crystal sails and HSBC Designers Lounge for 2009
Design Miami,
Bubbles in the Wine installation at the
Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, 1999
The Predator at
Wexner Center for the Arts with
Fabian Marcaccio, 2002
Expanding the Gap installation at Eigelstein 115 (
Martin Rendel and René Spitz) with
Ross Lovegrove and
Tokujin Yoshioka, and in his industrial design projects like the super formed titanium
Alessi Tea and Coffee Towers of 2003 and the
Vitra Ravioli Chair. Working with Panelite his studio invented a hollow plastic brick called the Blobwall and using an
upcycling approach to design and materials is repurposing children's toys as the building bricks for
Recycled Toys Furniture, and a
Fountain of Toys at the
Hammer Museum by scanning
rotomolded plastic toys, composing them on a computer, cutting them with a five-axis
CNC router and assembling them into welded monolithic objects. The Bloom House includes curvaceous interior elements and windows, built in plastics, fiberglass and wood all using this software and CNC controlled machines for its fabrication. ==Publications==