杏吧原创

(Image: A project by Irene Cheng in collaboration with Dr Issam Hussain and Dr Francesco Proto)

This is what bone cancer looks like as it takes over the body 鈥� as interpreted by the artistic eye of , who studies architecture at the University of Lincoln, UK.

Cheng used current knowledge about how the cancer mutates bone structure over time, acquired in a collaboration with Issam Hussain of the university鈥檚 school of life sciences, to portray its extreme effects, as shown below in historical photos.

Cheng鈥檚 project explores how the human body鈥檚 adaptations to deformations could influence architecture. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not about trying to say that cancer is a good thing,鈥� she says. Rather, it鈥檚 about learning from how the structure of the human body can accommodate such fast-growing, extensive changes 鈥� and what that could mean for buildings inspired by imperfection, adds Francesco Proto, who is supervising the project.

The project will culminate in April 2015 with a design for a building.

Proto, Cheng and colleagues previously won an honorary mention for their . That building was inspired by another extreme example of biological development: a butterfly鈥檚 growth inside its cocoon.