Gaudi was the first biomathematical architect, and the first in modern history to employ an analog computer in the designing of shell structures. Clearly influenced by the Gothic tradition of material testing and non-linear engineering, Gaudi employed physical models with weights to determine building efficient shell forms. The Sagrada Familia (1882-), his masterwork, was designed in this way. This interest in computational form is also evident in the geometry of the ornamentation on the building. Based on minimal surfaces, ornament is generated through the definition of edges, lofting routines, and aggregation of those elements at various scales.

The Rose window reveals how ornament, driven by both geometrical and structural logics, begins to define an architecture which is informed by computation and efficiency, but which cannot be reduced to those factors. It is in nature where we see a similar open-ended logic: performance is everywhere, but it is always messy, always wildly variable, never optimal. Excesses are always intermixed with efficiencies.