Biography :-

• Biography Born near the gritty, industrial Scottish city

of Glasgow After soldiering in World War Two
McHarg, returned home and determined what to do
with the rest of his life.
• McHarg decided on landscape architecture, an
academic discipline and profession he knew nothing
about. Attended Harvard University, where he picked
up degrees in landscape architecture and city planning.
• Published his landmark book, Design With Nature, in
1969. In it, McHarg spelled out the need for urban
planners to consider an environmentally conscious
approach to land use, and provided a new method for
PIONEER OF THE evaluating and implementing it.
• ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT Founded the
firm of Wallace and Charg associates, later Wallace
McHarg Roberts & Todd (WMRT) which is known for
its central role in the development of the American
environmental planning and urbanism movements.
INTRODUCTION :-
• Classic methods of landscape analysis in the planning of human settlements. The book
in his words shows the future designer,
• On how to break down a region into its appropriate uses.
• Pointing out that
❑ we build where
❑ we should farm
❑ Cut forests
❑ where we should grow them
• And design forms where we should follow natures morphologies,
• mcharg makes clear and comprehensible recommendations for reversing the
destructive process of development Iconoclast.
Context of the book Setting :-
• City beautiful movement- followed by the world war evoked rapid
urbanization in America.
• Suburban sprawl was happening at a large pace. City needed to meet the
demands, laid down plans of linkages cutting across.
• 1950s and 1960s, the nascent American interstate highway system began
to spread its tentacles around ever-increasing swaths of land.
• Highway planners and subdividers focused almost exclusively on narrow
cost-benefit and efficiency considerations in choosing how to implement
their ideas.
• This approach had a negative impact on the nature as it followed a
straight line method rather than a analytical way.
• City and countryside • Processes as values
• Sea and survival • The naturalists
• The Plight • The river basin
• A step forward • The metropolitan region
• The cast and the capsule • Process and form
• Nature in the metropolis • The city-process and form
• On values • The city-health and pathology
• A response of values • Prospects
• The world is a capsule
City and Country side :-
• Author as a metaphor represents his thoughts as two roads- one to the
city and other to the country side-both has got its values.
• For him seeing city and countryside as separate entities doesn’t stand.
Eyes do not divide us from the world but unite us with it.
Sea and Survival :-
• The paradox of treatment of natural resources in different parts of
the globe, like in the example of dune grass – which is very
valuable in Netherlands but they are not even recognizable in the
entire eastern seaboard as a valuable thing.
• Problems Variations in the seashore environments badly affects the
plant growth of the area causing major ecological threats to the bay
shore itself.
• The distribution and the land formation of seaside
 Sea and Survival :-
Ocean - Beach - Primary Dune – Through - Secondary Dune -Back Dune -
Bay Shore - Bay
 Plight :-
• Author express his anxiety that man has
forgotten countryside.
• According to him city has both stress and
stimuli. But it comes with the attraction of
success.
• Countryside’s surround the cities not because
we used land wisely but these places are more
resistant to change Our success is based on
GDP which measures money, which itself is
discuss short term future.
• Commercialization has caused the death of
innovation in terms of rail road… by using it
for profit making.
• Religious references… Judaism- power over
nature monotheism- rejection of nature
Japanese relation to nature- Tao Shinto Zen
Being an organist without knowing nature is
stupid.
 A Step forward :-
• A Step forward Highway is a major public investment which affects the
economy, the way of life, health and visual experience.
• So it should be properly located and designed.
• An improved method is needed to incorporate resource values , social
values and aesthetic values than the conventional cost benefit analysis.
• Shortest distance between two points meeting the pre determined
geometric standards is not he best route for highways.
• The best route is the one that provides maximum social benefit at the
least social cost.
Interstate Highways should maximize public
and private benefits:
❑ By increasing the facility, convenience,
pleasure and safety of traffic movement.
❑ By safeguarding and enhancing land,
water, air and biotic resources.
❑ By contributing to public and private
objectives of urban renewal, metropolitan
and regional development, industry,
commerce, residence, recreation, public
health, conservation and beautification.
❑ By generating new productive land uses
and by sustaining or enhancing existing
ones
Addition of these values
 RECOMMENDED MINIMUM-SOCIAL-COST
ALIGNMENT
• SLOPE • LAND VALUES
• SURFACE DRAINAGE • TIDAL INUNDATION
• SOIL DRAINAGE • HISTORIC VALUES
• BEDROCK FOUNDATION • SCENIC VALUES
• SOIL FOUNDATION • RECREATION VALUES
• SUSCEPTIBILITY TO • WATER VALUES
EROSION
• FOREST VALUES
• WILDLIFE VALUES
• RESIDENTIAL VALUES
• INSTITUTIONAL VALUES
The Cast and the Capsule :-
• The world works within a harmonious relationship between the nature
and the men.
• So its all over starts from the chloroplast of the leaves which transfers
sun light into substances which supports the whole life of the globe.
Thus all animals and all men are plant parasites.
• It is the plant that colonized the land and thus permitted the evolution
from the sea of amphibians , reptiles, mammals and man.
• This realization of the dependency to the nature was actually the
breaking up of anthropocentrism Men we depend upon sun, the major
elements(4elements), the chloroplast and the decomposers.
Nature in the metropolis :-
• Nature can be understood as an interactive process, responding to laws, constituting to
a value system, offering intrinsic opportunities and limitations to human uses.
• Need to regulate construction on flood plains, earthquake prone areas. They account
to large free spaces to be potential public places.
• Developer way of looking. Opens space per person But nature is intrinsically variable.
• Planner perspective- green encircle the city.
• But it doesn’t include the greens within the city.
• Nature is a complex closely related network where each unit constitutes and becomes
part of the whole.
• City grows by densifying within and expanding. Thus reducing open spaces though
there is plenty of open spaces.
• Infusion of open space structure and urban development required.
Natural-process Value;
Degree of Intolerance

• Surface water
• Marshes
• Floodplains
• Aquifer recharge areas
• Aquifers
• Steep slopes
• Forests, woodlands
• Flat land
On value :-
• The Cultural attitude towards the land from the historic timeto the present phase.
• There are 4 distinct divisions – each has national associations The first explorations in
the 16th century towards the humanist expression of man and nature- renaissance
humanism in Italy.
• Assumption of power by man- Superiority on Nature Second occurred a century later.
• At the time of earliest colonial settlements- Set up in France Man and his supremacy
over a base and subject nature. Eg: Versailles English garden came into being in the
18th century.
• Decorative and tractable plants were arranged in simple geometry. Here the
ornamental qualities of the plant are paramount, but without any ecological concepts.
• During the change in the migration of power-in England – in the third phase- beginning
of a new view. Believing that some unity among man and nature was possible
A response to values :-
• Natural phenomenon are dynamic interacting process responsive to laws
offering opportunities and limitations to human use.
• So they have to be evaluated – each area has a suitability towards certain
functions.
• But for that we have to find the land capacity first. By testing it with an
existing site. Baltimore- 1800’s
 ALTERNATE PATTERNS OF GROWTH

• 1 UNCONTROLLED
• 2 LINEAR ARTERIAL
• 3 PLAN FOR THE VALLEYS AND METROTOWNS
 Development principles are as follows:
VALLEY WALLS WITHOUT FOREST COVER:
Such lands should be prohibited to development and should be planted
to forest cover. When they are covered with the appropriate distribution of
mixed hard woods to an average height of 25 feet they may be considered as
below.
VALLEY WALLS IN FOREST COVER
These walls, exclusive of slopes of 25% or greater, should be
developed in such a manner as to perpetuate their present wooded aspect. The
maximum density permitted for development should be 1 house per 3 acres.
WALLS AND SLOPES OF 25% ORGREATER
Valley walls, and all slopes of25% or greater should be prohibited to
development and should be planted to forest cover.
WOODED PLATEAU
Forest and woodland sites on the plateau should not
be developed at densities in excess of 1 house per acre.
PROMONTORY SITES
On specific promontories , in wooded locations,
the density limitations can be waived to permit tower
apartment buildings with low coverage.
OPEN PLATEAU
Development should be largely concentrated on
the open plateau.
THE WORLD IS A CAPSULE
• The Author began his experiment by creating an imaginary astronaut.
• An astronaut prepares for 2 yrs. and his inspiration is SURVIVAL.
• He learns the living process and all to sustain his living within the capsule.
• To do an act relating to site , it is important to understand the story and the actors of
the play, the nature.
• Producers, consumers and decomposers forming the primary structure of the eco
system is played with to create self sustained capsule.
• This involves a deeper understanding of the natural eco system its influences and
factors.
• What the experiment realized was the presence of man as a mere element in this whole
process, rather than the destructive role which we play in our present environment.
1st STAGE OF EXPERIMENT :

• He understands his role as a part of natural process.

• He who in the beginning was going to see the world as a image for the first
time understood the presence of many worlds and galaxies and the driving
factors.

2ND STAGE OF EXPERIMENT: FARM MORE SUSTAINED THAN A CITY

• Bell Jar experiment where you keep it on a farm and city, realizing that city
chokes and farm survives.

3RD STAGE OF EXPERIMENT: EARTH IS A CREATIVE PROCESS

• Where man has a unique creative role, that all physical and living processes
are arresting their energy on its path to entropy, and while doing so is
creating a self perpetuating and evolving system.
• Man shares this process with his history
• He is in the world with his indispensible partners of survival and creation.
PROCESSES AS VALUES
• Ideal is never a choice of either/ or but combination of both.

• Every caged animal however trained it is at the end of the day likes to adapt to
its natural setting.

• The land use which we adopt doesn’t confine to the right way of assigning
uses, since we build where we shouldn’t at all.

• Recognition of social values embedded in natural process should precede

building process.

• Project feasibility study for Staten island, new york highway shows McHarg’s
way of studying these factors to respond to design.
 STATEN ISLAND: NEW YORK
HIGHWAY
FEASIBILITY STUDY
Climate
Process

• Identifying the
Hydrology influential factors
Wild life
• Categorizing under
heads
• Impact study
STUDY • Represented in various

AREA
tones of intensity
Physiography
depending upon impact
Land use
• Overlaying all these
features to have a
wholesome idea of the
setting and do
appropriate
Soils Geology
interventions.
• The 3 factors which we have to look into broadly
are Conservation, Recreation and Urbanization.

• The studies are divided under these categories to

provide a map under each factor
• Conservation features like historic value, social
value, geological features natural habitats etc. are
mapped.
• Later they are classified under common heads of
similar nature.
• Further all these data is combined to get the final
overlay plan.
OVERLAY PLAN • Existing land use colours were
used.
• An overlay of all these three maps
gave us an idea of how to proceed
with design.
• Endless possibilities by adopting
these techniques.
• Problems faced at the time of
introduction was that it was
difficult to collect such kind of raw
data and to evaluate it technically.
• At present, the technological
issues that he had faced are sorted
out by the GIS

• An overlay of all three maps gives

us required information and data
to proceed with design in a more
informative way.

GRADES TO DENOTE THE INTENSITY FACTOR

McHarg’s Design method using overlays
INDIAN CONTEXT
A city which is more friendly to the environment can be
brought forth by the proper understanding of the place.
THE NATURALISTS
 THE NATURALISTS

• Designs are not trying to create a

utopia for everyone.
• All are created to make most people
happy.
• Earth and its denizens are involved in
a creative process and man a unique
role in it.
• Concept of creative and reductive
process as comparing a sand dune
and forest.
CONCEPTION OF FITNESS
• Fit for existence
• Fitting process: dynamic + mutation
• Measure of fitness-evolutionary survival
• Similar for man and socio-cultural factors.
• Creative test is to accomplish a creative fitting
• Identify (man fit for environment and vice versa)
• Inaugurate the process of fitting
• Adapting for better living
Altruism:
• Co-operative arrangements with other organisms sustaining
the biosphere.
• World is an ordered place and creatures respond to
biological laws that are intrinsic and self-responding.
THE METROPOLITAN REGION
THE METROPOLITAN REGION
• Most of the people that live in the cities live here, and it
is important that it is comforting and respectful.
• Not many of these areas are connected back to nature.,
this causes a problem which moves us away and further
distances from nature.
• Quadrant (the selection process)
• Relief, Geology, Hydrology, Urban suitability selection
process.
• Potomac river Basin
• To understand its interaction system.
• To study,
• Geology, Historic geology, Physiography, Hydrology,
Ground water, soils, plant associations, wild life, water
problems, Interpretations, uniqueness of resources,
mineral resources, slope, accessibility, water resources,
recreation sustainability, degree of compatibility,
optimum multiple land use.
PROCESS AND FORM
PROCESS & FORM

• Mankind is a destructive force and negative force.

• Form as communication and information.
• Look to nature-to understand form & a basis for
expression (man-nature-environment-city)
• Hence form follows nothing-it is integral of all the
processes
• Form can be ill fit, miss fit, unfit, fit & most fitting.
THE CITY : PROCESS AND FORM
CITY-PROCESS AND FORM

• The Overlay method needs to be tried

and tested in a living city.
• Geological an physiographical evolution
of a place.
• Physical setting had a huge impact on the
social setup of the space.
• Natural setting of a place together with
the urban form creates the drama.
• Natural features define the
establishment of the city.
• History not only pertains to buildings but
to land and features also.
• Design cannot only be based on
form but on evolution.
THE CITY : HEALTH AND PATHOLOGY
 CITY-HEALTH AND PATHOLOGY
• A study to relate ecology to the city.
• Interesting overlay of pathology, environment
and city to understand the issues of health.
• This showed higher diseased area within the
core city and lesser towards the country side.
• As density increases social stress too goes up
leading to diseases.
 PROSPECTS
• Naturalists state that utopia can never be achieved.
• And we remain unchanged.
• The fast dis-integrating cities will lead to a necropolis.
• As prospect, he offers reduction than destruction(anti creation).
Model for the Future:
• Negentropy-increase in levels of order
• Apperception-Transmute energy to information
• Symbiosis-combination of above mentioned factors
• Fitness and fitting-Selection of the fittest to accomplish better
fitting
• Health and pathology-evidence to all the above
REFERENCES :
• BOOK: “Design with Nature” by Ian L. McHarg(25th anniversary
edition: first published in 1967; reprinted on 1992).

• Design with Nature book review by Anjith Augustine (source: slide

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