look up Mockbee Coker from the book Thought and Process

stuttgart airport by von gerkan marg

i doubt the lee & gupta columns are entirely structural, especially since the building was existing; looks like a bunch of ornamental mimicry to me.

guadi, barcelona

koldinghus in denmark

Sibelius Concert Hall, Lahti, Finland.
Palo-Rossi-Tikka in collaboration with Kimmo Lintula

gehry designed some at rebecca's restaurant in venice. around 80's.
i can't find a picture.

Sibeliustalo is indeed a great example, although wood, not steel...

(reinforced?)

On the interior of Ralph Erskine's library at the University of Stockholm there are some really interesting steel columns with struts that emulate trees without being too referential. Sorry, I can't find a good picture.

@el jeffe,

You may be right. However reading the description I think it might be possible they were originally conventional columns that were replaced by the trees. They do look a little stylized though... on the other hand if you look at their other projects on that site they are about new structural systems (not that structural trees are entirely new, but..). But it is a little hard to be sure.

"A series of existing buildings within the Mumbai Race Course are to be converted to food and beverage complexes. Mimicking the ubiquitous mature shade trees, the architects proposed a new structural system in the form of tree branches, which will allow various modulations of volume and light penetration. The Cor-Ten roof will be perforated to correspond to the branches."

Also, I don't know if this is getting away from it, but there's also Norman Foster's Stansted airport:

i spent a couple of nights in that airport...good natural light...

You should look at Frei Otto's studies- Not too sure if anything was built but a lot of research was put into it...

a couple of nights, you don't mean contiguous do you? (no hotel?)

yeah, there are those openings at the top of each bay, hard to see because this is a nighttime shot. I imagine it must be very nice during the day.

always thought the gaudi trees looked more like celery columns...

calitrava bce in toronto

you know, I really think it rude to ask a question, receive a lot of sincere responses, and not reply with some measure of gratitude.

i mean, there's not one disparaging comment here - no one criticizing the willfulness of arborescence as a structural idea.

you were obviously raised in a barn, by wolves, in greenland.

no, not contiguous...one night at beginning of journey, one at the end...9 days apart...

thanks everyone! all the images have been really helpful.
now if i can get my boss to agree doing something like it...

and I rescind my previous comments!