0% found this document useful (0 votes)

19 views60 pages

History of Ecological Design

The document discusses the history of ecological design, tracing its origins from the term coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 to contemporary practices influenced by works such as 'From Cradle to Cradle' by McDonough and Braungart. It outlines three main eras of ecological design: naturalism, synthetic naturalism, and dark naturalism, highlighting the evolution of the relationship between human activities and natural processes. The paper emphasizes the importance of integrating ecological principles into design to minimize environmental impact and the ongoing debates surrounding sustainability and ecological practices.

Uploaded by

juancarlosbernado

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

19 views60 pages

History of Ecological Design

Uploaded by

juancarlosbernado

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 60

History of Ecological Design

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental

Science
History of Ecological Design
Lydia Kallipoliti
Subject: Ecology, Policy, Governance, and Law, Environmental History, Sustainability and
Solutions
Online Publication Date: Apr 2018 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.144

Summary and Keywords

The term ecological design was coined in a 1996 book by Sim van der Ryn and Stewart
Cowan, in which the authors argued for a seamless integration of human activities with
natural processes to minimize destructive environmental impact. Following their
cautionary statements, William McDonough and Michael Braungart published in 2002
their manifesto book From Cradle to Cradle, which proposed a circular political economy
to replace the linear logic of “cradle to grave.” These books have been foundational in
architecture and design discussions on sustainability and establishing the technical
dimension, as well as the logic, of efficiency, optimization, and evolutionary competition
in environmental debates. From Cradle to Cradle evolved into a production model
implemented by a number of companies, organizations, and governments around the
world, and it also has become a registered trademark and a product certification.

Popularized recently, these developments imply a very short history for the growing field
of ecological design. However, their accounts hark as far back as Ernst Haeckel’s
definition of the field of ecology in 1866 as an integral link between living organisms and
their surroundings (Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, 1866); and Henry David
Thoreau’s famous 1854 manual for self-reliance and living in proximity with natural
surroundings, in the cabin that he built at Walden Pond, Massachusetts (Walden; or, Life
in the Woods, 1854).

Page 1 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

SCIENCE (environmentalscience.oxfordre.com). (c) Oxford University Press USA, 2016. All Rights Reserved. Personal use
only; commercial use is strictly prohibited (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Since World War II, contrary to the position of ecological design as a call to fit
harmoniously within the natural world, there has been a growing interest in a form of
synthetic naturalism, (Closed Worlds; The Rise and Fall of Dirty Physiology, 2015), where
the laws of nature and metabolism are displaced from the domain of wilderness to the
domain of cities, buildings, and objects. With the rising awareness of what John McHale
called disturbances in the planetary reservoir (The Future of the Future, 1969), the field
of ecological design has signified not only the integration of the designed object or space
in the natural world, but also the reproduction of the natural world in design principles
and tools through technological mediation. This idea of architecture and design
producing nature paralleled what Buckminster Fuller, John McHale, and Ian McHarg,
among others, referred to as world planning; that is, to understand ecological design as
the design of the planet itself as much as the design of an object, building, or territory.
Unlike van der Ryn and Cowan’s argumentation, which focused on a deep appreciation
for nature’s equilibrium, ecological design might commence with the synthetic replication
of natural systems.

These conflicting positions reflect only a small fraction of the ubiquitous terms used to
describe the field of ecological design, including green, sustain, alternative, resilient, self-
sufficient, organic, and biotechnical. In the context of this study, this paper will argue that
ecological design starts with the reconceptualization of the world as a complex system of
flows rather than a discrete compilation of objects, which visual artist and theorist
György Kepes has described as one of the fundamental reorientations of the 20th century
(Art and Ecological Consciousness, 1972).

Keywords: ecological design, ecology, sustainability, synthetic naturalism, radical ecology, world planning, living
machines

Introduction
In their 1996 book Ecological Design, pioneers of sustainable design Sim van der Ryn and
Stewart Cowan argued for a seamless integration of human activities with natural
processes in fields including architecture, industrial ecology, sustainable agriculture, and
water treatment, pointing out the inherent flaws in design and production methods,
which are normatively out of synch with the rhythms and cycles of the natural world. In
their own words, ecological design is “any form of design that minimizes environmentally
destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes” (p. 18). The realization
that any designed product, space, or environment has an expansive presence in the
world, beyond its status as an object in materialized form, is significant; it projects and
extends the presence of all things relative to larger environmental forces and the nexus of
global flows.

Page 2 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

The neologism of the term ECOLOGICAL DESIGN emerged in the fields of design, architecture,
and planning in the late 1960s, when the widely publicized image of the whole Earth rose
to cultural prominence. Several publications at the time portrayed the planet as a finite
system with confined resources, projecting the effects of microactions to have an effect
on the macrodynamics of the planet. Thus, in many respects, ecological design marks the
rise of modern ENVIRONMENTALISM in the post–World War II period, manifest in a sense of
social activism, and with design as a remedial tool, to the prognosis of a dire future. The
active mobilization of design as a tool to an end has been decidedly absent from the first
environmental era at the turn of the 20th century, which promoted the fresh spirit of
wilderness and the preservation of unindustrialized lands.

The turn of the 21st century has marked a new era in environmental debates. This era is
ostensibly discernible in the eradication of the natural and the upsurge of the naturalized,
transposing Jacques Derrida’s argumentation for language and culture to the realm of
materials and cycles in the natural world (Derrida & Kamuf, 1994). In this light, French
architecture critic and curator Frédéric Migayrou argues that the very term ecological
design infers the loss of all things natural. Specifically, he writes, “ecology as a science is
based on the negation of all things natural . . . This marks the end of nature as an
indeterminate field of its own” (Migayrou, 2003, p. 22).

But even beyond literary circles, the turn of the century has coincided with the rise of the
term ANTHROPOCENE, which was popularized by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen after
being coined in the 1980s by biologist Eugene Stoermer. In the Anthropocene, the planet
admittedly has passed through a new geological time, whereby there are no more square
inches of untouched environment; that is, humans have reshaped the Earth in its entirety.
In this new material and existential condition, ecological design is not solely directed
toward the ethics of the world’s salvation and the rhetoric of confinement; rather, it
upraises in a variety of positions, decentralized from the human race as the protagonist in
the ecosystemic equation.

Overall, the invasion of ecological anxieties into the fields of design and architecture
takes many faces: from the restitution of moral values in design thinking and in the
revival of an archaic humanist discourse; through the substitution of “performance” for
“function,” in the restoration of a lost modernist and positivist ethos; to the
poststructuralist denunciation of environmental improvement and the critical recognition
of waste and pollution as having a generative potential for design.

As a circular, causal form of reasoning, ecology surfaces as an inevitable mechanism of

reason in design debates and in the advocacy of unity and the common good. Yet, it has
been argued that following the extensive dissemination of the term SUSTAINABILITY—most
broadly quoted in a report by the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations in 1987—
the development of sustainability criteria and the institutionalization of policies
promoting principles of sustainable design since the 1990s have most commonly served
mainstream corporate values. Most prominently, the Leadership in Energy and

Page 3 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Environmental Design (LEED) certification program has been critiqued consistently in

various design publications as a technical classification tool that empowers capitalist
production, creating a new revenue source veiled by the ethics of environmentalism.

To survey the formation of this field, three main eras will be examined in detail in this
article—namely, naturalism, synthetic naturalism, and dark naturalism—each rendering
the evolving perception of nature, relation to culture, and human occupation of the
natural world as subjects. Here, the history of ecological design will be studied in the
many faces that it has assumed since the inception of the term ecology by Ernst Haeckel.
Three periods will be examined relative to evolving perceptions of nature, culture, and
human occupation of the natural world: (a) NATURALISM (c.1866–World War II); (b) SYNTHETIC
NATURALISM (World War II–c.1996); and (c) DARK NATURALISM (c.1996–2017).
Postenlightenment, the environmental debate focused on the assiduous observation and
documentation of organisms, analytically classifying (and thus speculating on) the roots
of the world’s living stock. In the postwar period, environmental issues were addressed
through diagrams of feedback cycles; global resources were examined as interconnected
systems that could be redistributed. In the 21st century, while the environmental
discourse is much more diverse than in the past, it shares an investment in local data
classification of living systems, similar to information clouds of data constellations online
(Figure 1).

Click to view larger

Figure 1. A Diagrammatic History of Ecological
Design, created by Lydia Kallipoliti and Emily Klein.

Naturalism (c. 1866–World War II)

Searching for Roots

Page 4 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Origin Point: Coinage of the Term Ecology by Ernst Haeckel in 1866

The first period, unfolding approximately from the mid-19th century until the end of
World War II is tentatively characterized as “searching for roots.” This search is visual, as
witnessed in the assiduous documentation of plants, trees, and their usage as
genealogical systems; but it is also experiential, as seen in the long journeys of natural
scientists to unearth the roots of the world’s living stock. The sustenance of wilderness
has key significance during this period, as the natural setting was considered at this time
a distinct “other,” outside the practice of everyday life. Naturalism is also manifest in the
spirit of exploration of the open field, as well as in the intensification of ideas for
interconnectedness and immersion with nature, either expressed in material terms, as in
the case of Ernst Haeckel, or existential terms, as in the case of Henry David Thoreau.

The starting point for this period is the coinage of the term ECOLOGY by German zoologist
Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), who first used the word oekologie to refer to the “relation of
the animal both to its organic as well as its inorganic environment” in his 1866 book The
General Morphology of Organisms. Oekologie is derived from the Greek word oikos,
meaning “household,” “home,” or “place of dwelling.” Thus, Haeckel’s definition of
ecology amounted to the study of the relationships among living organisms and the biotic
and abiotic environments that they inhabit. Various definitions and reinterpretations of
Haeckel’s take on ecology have since emerged (notably Herbert Andrewartha and Louis
Charles Birch’s 1954 definition, which considers the distribution and abundance of
organisms as an important addendum), although all of them recognize ecology as the
study of interrelationships between organisms and the environment (Andrewartha &
Birch, 1986).

This period, which may be characterized as the prehistory of ecological design, is

manifest in visual maps that illustrate and speculate on the order and roots of the natural
world, such as Ernst Haeckel’s famous genealogical tree and Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s
Urpflanze, the Archetypal Plant (Figures 2 and 3). At the time, nature still held a sublime
quality, signifying a terrain distant from language. The natural world was seen primarily
as wilderness, which was to be observed, conserved, and imagined as separate from the
artificial. Goethe’s and Haeckel’s persistence in drawing trees and roots and conjecturing
them as visual analogs for the classifications of organisms is largely settled in the
tradition of German Romanticism, whereby the eminence of the soil, the landscape, and
the ideology of nationalism provides the basis of ecological thinking. In the search for
roots, the notion of ecology was associated with a longing for rootedness, a type of
hermeneutics of phenomenology, before phenomenology was founded as a philosophical
movement by Edmund Husserl.

Page 5 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

During this period,

naturalists and architects
did not attempt to
represent and draw
visually natural processes
and cycles, but rather
mostly to design spaces
and environments that
could be integrated within
natural forces in an
abstract empirical way.
Integration, moreover, was
expressed in the very idea
of rootedness, both
organizationally and
Click to view larger
iconographically, with
Figure 2. In 1837, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
illustrated in The Urpflanze his notion of an ancestral plants and organisms
and archetypal mother plant that takes on different serving as inspirational
forms in response to varying climactic conditions.
models for artificial
structures.

It is important to note here

that the origin of the
history of ecological
design is obfuscating at
best. The small fraction of
protagonists and theories
included in the first part of
this study is focused on the
origins of transference of
various ideas from ecology,
biology, physiology, and
natural history to design,
rather than the distinctive
Click to view larger rise of a new field. In fact,
Figure 3. Ernst Haeckel’s presentation of a three- as the ecologist and
kingdom system in the 1866 Generelle Morphologie
der organismen (Geneological Tree).
historian of ecology Robert
P. McIntosh (1985) argues in
his book The Background of Ecology, the proliferation of various terms in the 19th
century evidences an epistemological conflation of the field of ecology with biology,
physiology, and natural history. As he points out, even Haeckel, who introduced the word
ecology, felt it necessary to specify that “the terms biology and ecology are not
interchangeable” (Haeckel, 1891). In this light, “naturalism” and “the search for roots”

Page 6 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

focus on “protoecological design ideas,” borrowing the term protoecologist (Voorhees,

1983), to describe ecological insights before a formal science of ecology was formulated.

The conflation of terms is testament to the conflation of philosophical and effectually

existential positions as to the boundaries and accountabilities of ecological design as an
emerging field. Questions of whether ecological design is mechanical or organic, active or
passive, holistic or fragmented, conscious or unconscious are narrated by McIntosh to
pronounce the origins of the field of ecology, and they still preoccupy contemporary
debates of ecological design agency. If ecology has been critiqued, nevertheless, for its
adherence to observation, description, and an inductive approach to science (McIntosh,
1985), as has natural science, ecological design marks the passage from the observation of
natural systems to the intentional instrumentation of new systems as active agents.
William Coleman, a historian of science, argues that in the 19th century, biologists
switched from historical examination to experimental investigation with physiology;
likewise, design has introduced to ecology intentionality, purposiveness, and meddling
with natural systems, either by imitation, replication, regulation, or speculative
representation (Coleman, 1978).

Page 7 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Taxonomists

In many respects, the history of ecology is rooted as much in the history of classification
of the world’s living stock as in the recognition of feedback, evidenced in Ernst Haeckel’s
annunciation that organisms live in cohort with larger environmental forces. The ubiquity
of ecological concerns such as these that have unfolded since the 19th century illustrate a
persistent taxonomical thinking as a type of design endeavor, where the observation and
analysis of plants and organisms are given form and value. Therefore, it is significant to
witness that even before the application of language in the representation of ecosystems
and the feedback cycles of their respective subsystems, the permeation of taxonomical
organizational tools in the field of ecology has not been a neutral documentation of the
world’s living stock. Classification is not merely about facilitating and managing
knowledge; it also transforms the nature and the constitution of the systems at play and
is in fact a type of design activity. The classification of ecosystems has not simply
illustrated analytically what the world is made of, but also illustrated what the world
should be, according to the worldview of each author. As Peter Stevens (1994) argues,
classifications came to be treated as conventions; systematic practice was not linked to
clearly articulated theory; there was general confusion over the shape of nature; botany,
elements of natural history, and systematics were conflated; and systematics took a
position near the bottom of the hierarchy of sciences.

This line of inquiry is rooted in the work of 18th-century Swedish botanist, physician, and
zoologist Carl Linnaeus, known as the “father of modern taxonomy,” and later in the
influential taxonomical systems of the French botanist Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu and the
Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in the 19th century. Parallel to these
classification drawings, the geovisualization mountain drawings of German naturalist and
intrepid explorer Alexander von Humboldt inspired the young Charles Darwin. Von
Humboldt sought to unveil a mapping of the complex interrelationships and
interdependences of plants and organisms and to render nuanced spatial distributions
that underlie the natural world. Arguably, his drawings were not simply demonstrative of
such distributions, but also inventive and formative, as a means to advance how certain
connections might be identified (Wulf, 2016).

Finally, it is in the work of Ernst Haeckel that one might detect visual form in the concept
of evolution. In these parallel lines of investigation, it is discernible that Linnaeus
represents the old episteme of classifying the natural world, with classes primarily based
on formal resemblances and organizations primarily based on a bottom-down hierarchy.
Humboldt and Haeckel, on the other hand, represent new positions in classifying the
natural world (at the time), as an interlinked network of relationships between organisms.
Moreover, these two authors use inventively and formatively the medium of drawing, thus
allowing the medium to develop a relationship with itself.

Page 8 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

In particular, Linnaeus’s exhaustive catalog of work in Systema Naturae in 1735 classified

4,400 species of animals and 7,700 species of plants and introduced the conventional
binomial nomenclature that is still used to classify species. His outlines of the animal,
plant, and mineral kingdoms were the only visual expressions that he produced to explain
these taxonomic relationships. Artists during his time produced illustration plates of the
species and orders that he established, but Linnaeus produced only outlines, names, and
textual descriptions. In The Order of Things, Michel Foucault (1966) argues that “by
identifying plant objects through plainly expressed written codification than through
illustration, ‘emptied [them] of all resemblances, cleansed even of their colors.’”

It is important to emphasize that Linnaeus believed he was chosen by God to classify a

fixed number of species on Earth and to document God’s static and perfect natural order.
Linnaeus’s grid was reflective of classical systems of organizing and dictating space with
column orders, which were themselves static objects and whose species could be
classified by their shared physical characteristics. This grid of codification was simple
and direct, giving equal privilege to each part, and could essentially be used by anyone
anywhere and result in the same observations. The abundance of plant species studied
during the time of the naturalists was due not to a greater interest in plant life over
animal life, but the fact that the taxonomic hierarchy privileged organs that were visible
as such (Ayub, 2011). Linnaeus asserted a stronger sense of hierarchy in his taxonomy of
what he considered the three kingdoms of the natural world: animal, plant, and mineral.
While the latter two have been mostly dismissed, his ordering system for animals and the
binomial nomenclature for naming organisms remain the standardized format in modern
biology, even as Linnaeus denied any belief in evolution. The clarity and stability of his
system were such that Charles Darwin used it as direct evidence of his theory of descent
from a common ancestor through natural selection.

On the other hand, Humboldt expanded representational taxonomical formats to become

ecological in Haeckel’s sense of the term, relating organism and environment through
imagery in such a way that had not been seen before. He depicted scenes and phenomena
from his expeditions through the Americas in novel ways, taking cross sections of
volcanoes and mapping isothermal regions. He visually tied the distribution of life to
varying physical and environmental conditions, and popularized the notion of an
ecologically interconnected world. Humboldt’s “Essay on the Geography of Plants” in
1805 includes many of his most famous drawings, including the Chimborazo Map—an
image of a volcano in section, with annotative information on the surrounding plant
geography. His isothermal map suggests a global ecology bound not by political
delineations, but by a world of patterns and processes of environmental flows. In his final
years, Humboldt painted his portrait of nature in the massive treatise Cosmos (1845–
1862), a romantic perspective on the harmony of the universe, which has since revived
the term cosmos in popular discourse.

Haeckel is possibly the most controversial and pivotal figure of this period, having coined,
along with ecology, the terms anthropogeny (the study of human origins), phylum (the
taxonomic rank between kingdom and class), and phylogeny (the study of evolutionary
Page 9 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

relatedness among organisms via morphological data). In addition, he gave astounding

form to thousands of organisms in his milestone work Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms
in Nature), which he published in 10 installments between 1899 and 1904 (Figure 4).
Prior to this vast body of work crossbreeding science and art, Haeckel’s genealogical tree
marked a substantial paradigm shift in visual mapping from the Hippodamian gridded
classification tables of his predecessor, Carl Linnaeus, in Systema Naturae. Whereas
Linnaeus established the normative method of naming and numbering the world’s living
wealth in boxes, Haeckel’s genealogical tree graphically depicted the relationships
among organisms, introducing shape and scale as decisive parameters for his
classification system.

Haeckel’s fervent disapproval of religion and church extended to his condemnation of

Linnaeus’s popularity. Before Darwin and Haeckel, the predominant orientation of belief
was that all things were fixed and timeless in their existence. Haeckel’s conception of
ecology and classification transformed the collective conception of time, and also allowed
more than one type of organizational system to be overlaid upon his phylogenic tree.
While taxonomy and phylogeny belong to completely different systems of logic, they have
remained in relatively mutual coexistence until today, as modern biology uses a
combination of both approaches to differentiate and classify (Ayub, 2011).

Click to view larger

Figure 4. German zoologist and artist Ernst Haeckel
published an image-laden monograph of radiolarians,
detailing their intricate skeletons, in Kunstformen
der Natur (1904).

Evolutionists

Page 10 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (Darwin, 1859) has been enormously influential to
the development of environmental theories at the turn of the 20th century, not only for
naturalists and biologists, but also for architects, designers, and planners who
transplanted biological evolution directly to formal principles as well as social structures.
In particular, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s On Growth and Form (Thompson, 1917),
published the result of his studies of morphology, arguing that the forms of plants and
animals could be analyzed with inordinate precision via geometry (Figure 5). Thompson’s
visual documentation of growth and physical processes as studies of an evolving
morphological character has been of considerable relevance to designers near the end of
the 21st century, particularly in reference to the question of “variation,” which emerged
at the time when digital media were introduced in the design process in the early 1990s.

Most notably, Thompson has been cited by Greg Lynn in his studies on the Embryological
House in the late 1990s (Lynn, 1999), with Lynn’s survey of housing variations being
derivative from a system of dynamic forces shaped by flows of energy and stages of
growth from a digital seed. Arguably, Louis Sullivan, American architect, at the turn of
the 20th century, had similar concerns about the inherent transformation power of
geometrical entities that, to Sullivan, were only containers of energy upon which a
liberating will is imposed by the free choice, intelligence, and skill of human beings.
Although his writings mostly have been associated with the history of ornamentation
(Sullivan, 1924), his drawings on the “Awakening of the Pentagon” are testament to his
obsessive search for the inner force of the seed-germ that would allow the designer to
animate otherwise-inert geometrical forms. Although these authors have not by any
account been referenced as ecological designers, their contribution to expanding the
design process and comprehending larger environmental forces has been seminal.

Unlike D’Arcy Thompson,

who applied evolutionary
theory directly to
geometry and morphology,
other so-called
Click to view larger
evolutionists cast a wider
Figure 5. Transformation of Argyropelecus olfersi
net in transposing
into Sternoptyx diaphana. Scottish biologist D’Arcy evolution onto social
Wentworth Thompson analyzed the shapes, forms, structures, environments,
and scales of animals and plants in On Growth and
Form (1917), bringing mathematical measure and and the complex networks
grids to the study of biology. of interrelationships
between the material
constitution of environmental forces, civic life, and built forms. Two of the most eminent
members of this group were Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist turned pioneer town
planner, and Frederick John Kiesler, an Austrian-American architect, theater designer,
and sculptor. Although Geddes and Kiesler did not cognitively position themselves as
ecological designers, their work has been profoundly influential on expanding the process
of design beyond the making of determinate products. Both men were invested in

Page 11 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

engaging with larger environmental forces inherent in the design process of any object,
space, or city and, most important, in integrating civic life and culture as part of a larger
ecosystem of forces accountable for design.

Geddes claimed a homology between nature and the city in his seminal book Cities in
Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and to the Study of Civics in
1915. He thought of both cities and natural settings as ecosystems involving the flow of
energy, matter, and human and nonhuman organisms. Largely influenced by Darwin’s
Theory of Evolution, Geddes studied the city as an ecology and transposed the method of
biological taxonomy toward the classification of all elements comprising the collective
living stock of the city, including not only environmental forces, but also humans and
activities of civic life. His dynamic classification studies are evident in his compelling
diagrams of the city, which he described as “thinking machines.” Most notably, in the
“Notation of Life,” he visualized dialectic relationships between the individual, the
collective, and the natural, with the ambition of facilitating a reflective model for urban
organization fit for humanity as a dynamic species (Figure 6).

In Geddes’s work, the city

can be seen as both a long-
term structure and a
dynamically volatile
environment. In this light,
the relationship between
the biological and the
urban does not mark an
opposition between human
artifices and nature, but
rather the organization of
a system through dynamic
Click to view larger
flux where no optimal
Figure 6. Patrick Geddes, “The Notation of Life,” as
future form could be
published in 1927.
presumed. Geddes’s city in
evolution is not striving for
equilibrium or marching toward a predetermined ideal state, but he acknowledged an
unstable and changing environment, thus questioning a concept of teleology similar to
Darwin’s evolutionary biology. However, unlike Darwin, who emphasized natural selection
and the struggle for existence, Geddes believed that humans, with their ideals, ethics,
perceptions, and activities, supersede their evolutionary nature by virtue of reason, and
that this feedback loop pushes societies to evolve further. He thus argued for a type of
coevolution based on synergy and cooperation independent of natural selection, evident
in his triad “Work-Place-Folk,” which underlines the evolution of the city over time.

Geddes’s concept of coevolution can be related to Frederick Kiesler’s theories on

correalism, which he defined as “the dynamics of continual interaction between man and
his natural and technical environments” (Kiesler, 1939, p. 61). Kiesler believed that life was
Page 12 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

composed of interacting forces among three environments: the human, the natural, and
the technological, all of which are constantly in flux; thus, Kiesler thought that correality
was the manifestation of their interrelationships. However, as the natural environment
constantly changed, so did the needs of humans, affecting the output tools of
technological environment like a domino.

To translate Kiesler’s theoretical speculations of correalism into design principles, he

paralleled it with the terms biotechnique and continuous construction, which he defined
as design and construction methods that deny the notion of assembly and joinery in an
attempt to imitate the continuous properties of nature, making for “higher resistance,
higher rigidity, easier maintenance, and lower costs” (Kiesler, 1939, p. 67). Throughout his
career, Kiesler turned to biotechnique and continuous construction as his “repeated
answer to the architectural crisis of authenticity” (Kiesler, 1934). Projects such as his
Space House, Endless House, and Mobile-Home-Library are direct experiments to
translate his theories into practice.

Immersionists

American transcendentalist writers and philosophers, including Henry David Thoreau,

Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Muir, began to articulate a national identity through
their writings on the natural landscapes of the country, bolstered by tales of the untainted
wilderness from people visiting, documenting, and settling westward. Transcendentalist
thought linked divine spirituality to the awe-inspiring, scenic views and wonders of
nature that drifted eastward as tales on the tongues of traveling Americans. In addition to
inspiring a reverence for the sanctity of nature, the transcendentalists alerted the
American conscience to the ongoing harm to the natural world caused by human activity.
Thoreau in particular asserted that greater meaning could be found through experience
alongside nature, and that humans live their best lives as individuals and societies when
cognizant of the values of the wilderness. Their works gave birth to the preservation
movement and sowed the seeds for a modern environmentalism to emerge in the 20th
century.

For many critics, Thoreau’s book Walden, published in 1854 as a report of his stay at
Walden Pond for nearly a decade as an experiment in transcendental pastoralism, signals
the commencement of ecological awareness. According to historian Leo Marx, Thoreau
took seriously what Emerson has called the “method of nature” and adopted in his writing
the tone of a hard-headed empiricist (Marx, 1964, p. 243), describing life as it actually
occurred. His reports not only of idyllic landscapes, but also of negative experiences,
allegedly brought him as a subject closer to nature, which according to Marx has become
the psychic root of all American pastoralism—genuine and spurious. The spirit of this raw
intensity and investment in the natural sublime setting has identified American culture. In
Marx’s words: “The soft veil of nostalgia that hangs over our urbanized landscape is

Page 13 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

largely a vestige of the once dominant image of an undefiled, green republic, a quiet land
of forests, villages and farms dedicated to the pursuit of happiness” (Marx, 1964, p. 6).

The heir of this belief, that nature withholds divine qualities, is the celebrated American
architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright identified nature with a capital N, to replace God
(Wright, 1957), and thought of architecture as subservient to its magnitude. His holistic
ideas and his conception of form determined “by way of the nature of materials, the
nature of purpose” are exemplified in his famous Fallingwater Residence built in 1935 in
Mill Run, Pennsylvania (Wright, 1939, p. 3). Fallingwater, one of the most significant
buildings of American architecture, was designated a National Historic Landmark in
1966.

In 1939, Wright visited London and gave four lectures at the Royal Institute of British
Architects, where he didactically summarized the ideas manifest in his built work over
the years under the rubric of “organic architecture.” Organicism was for Wright not only
a design approach, but also a distinctively American worldview and an approach to a
democratic political regime, projecting a mythical dimension to society. The same year,
his lectures were published verbatim in a treatise entitled An Organic Architecture: The
Architecture of Democracy, where this characteristic quote appears: “So here I stand
before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the
modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to
now serve the whole of life, holding no ‘traditions’ essential to the great TRADITION. Nor
cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but—
instead—exalting the simple laws of common sense—or of super-sense if you prefer—
determining form by way of the nature of materials” (Wright, 1939, p. 3) Wright’s ideas on
human relationships, institutions, and the harmonization of modern space with nature
were evident prior to his annunciation of organic architecture in his most visionary
project, Broadacre City, which he worked on throughout most of his professional lifetime.
Broadacre City projected for Wright Thomas Jefferson’s dream of a nation of farmers,
proposing to give an acre of land to each citizen to form an idyllic farm community.

The continuation of American transcendentalist thought also can be evidenced in the

philosophy of DEEP ECOLOGY, a term coined by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in 1973
(Naess, 1973). For Næss, deep ecology is a philosophy of ecology that finds all living beings
inherently equal and having significant value. In this philosophy, the human disruption of
ecosystems is detrimental not only to the disturbed organisms, but to humans as well,
due to the upset of natural order.

Biofunctionalists

The bond between Romanticism and modern science is nowhere more evident than in the
formative years of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, and in the aspirations of
its founder, Walter Gropius, to unify the arts into a coherent and indivisible whole. In his
proclamation of the Bauhaus school in 1919, Gropius advocates for an organic

Page 14 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

reunification of architecture, painting, and sculpture accompanied by Lyonel Feininger’s

woodcut, where interlacing rays join in a mountainous edifice, strikingly similar to Bruno
Taut’s treatise drawings of an “Alpine Architecture,” published a little earlier than the
announcement of the Bauhaus manifesto.

The idea of unity with nature that the Bauhaus proclaimed does not lie far from the
sermons of American transcendentalists and the organicism of Frank Lloyd Wright. What
is distinct, nevertheless, is the belief that the unity of nature is to be literally transferred
and reconstructed in artificial edifices, in complex incarnations of biological systems.
Historians Peder Anker and Oliver A. I. Botar have used the terms biocentrism and
biofunctionalism to reference the idea of an irrefutable functional utility found in
biological organisms and complex systems that was pronounced across a wide spectrum
of individual teachers at the Bauhaus, including Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Klee, Johannes
Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, and Mies van der Rohe, and, most prominently, in the biological
references made by the Hungarian visual artist László Moholy-Nagy.

The leaders of the Bauhaus, who were complicit in modernist organicism, were in fact
resurging through the prism of modern science a premodern notion of nature hailing
from the Romantic period of the 19th century. Aiming toward balance, harmony, and
health, this premodern, Romantic understanding assumes a healable and—when properly
managed—harmonic interaction between an organism and its environment (Moore &
Lopez-Durand, 2010). Botar (2017) argued that biocentrism can be cast as the forerunner of
today’s benign environmentalism, espousing a monist, neovitalist, and ecological view of
the world.

Moholy-Nagy’s disposition in adapting natural systems to technical artifacts and

advancing this analogy toward environmental amelioration was introduced to him in the
book Plants as Inventors, by the Hungarian-Austrian soil biologist Raoul Francé. Francé is
regarded as one of the founders of the discipline that is now called Bionics, but the actual
term that he coined was Biotechnik (biotechnique), having consistently analyzed plants
and the possibility of plants to offer solutions to technical problems (Figure 7). The
writings of Francé were pervasive in the Bauhaus and heavily influenced other leaders,
particularly Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, who were (as Botard argues) vitalist and
monist organicists viewing the world and its components as nested hierarchies of
organisms animated by an ineffable life-force (Botar, 2017).

Page 15 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

An early complex-systems
thinker, Francé designed
pods, cones, and single-
celled organisms like
artifacts and attributed a
functionalist character to
natural systems,
advocating that the
inorganic and organic are
one. Ecological oneness,
sometimes referred to as
HOLISM, would ameliorate
the living conditions of
designed environments.
Click to view larger Francé’s monism
Figure 7. Austro-Hungarian botanist and suggested that there is one
microbiologist Raoul Heinrich Francé pioneered the
substance, one
analysis of plant forms and structures to find
solutions to human technical problems, one of the interconnected unity in the
first formal forays into BIOMIMETIC DESIGN, in Die agency of all life forms.
Pflanze als Erfinder (1920).
Monism was also a
philosophy supported by
the biologist Johann Jakob von Uexküll, manifest in his most notable contribution, the
notion of Umwelt, which was used later by the semiotician Thomas Sebeok and the
philosopher Martin Heidegger. In his extensive studies of animal behavior, von Uexküll
described Umwelt as a self-world that an organism composes, both perceptually and
materially, to live inside and act as a subject. To construct the Umwelt, the external and
internal forces of life are unified by the organism in a single entity that the architect
Caroline O’ Donnell describes as a bubble (O’Donnell, 2015).

For certain Bauhaus leaders, the inherent functionalism of natural organisms signaled
more than compositional concerns for harmony and nested hierarchies that unify layers
of the natural world; it revealed an underlying belief in improving human evolutionary
fitness, as well as environmental living conditions through ecological design (Anker, 2010).
This conviction, that the design of the environment may be a vehicle for the amelioration
of the human race, deviates slightly from the mainstream biofunctionalist discourse,
wherein the biological metaphor is seen as paradigmatic for science, society, and
aesthetics. Anker (2001) argues that ecological thinking and the normative policies of
environmental order veil eugenic and nationalist tendencies, which were at work in the
liberal mechanism of the British ecologist Arthur George Tansley and the holistic ecology
of the South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts. Through the combination of design,
technology, natural order and managerial politics, the discourse of ecological design at
the turn of the century was perceived on many fronts as a new form of humanism,

Page 16 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

comparable to Marxism and Christianity, or the next opiate for the masses, as Slavoj
Žižek has famously argued (Žižek, 2008).

Synthetic Naturalism (c. 1966–2000)

Searching for “Systems”

Origin Point: The View of the Whole Earth in 1966

The second period, unfolding approximately from the end of World War II until the end of
the 20th century, is tentatively called the period of the system, with the term system
referring to ecological design as the planned redistribution of global resources. The
period succeeding World War II signaled the rise of a modern environmental era,
distinctly different from preservation rallies for the fresh spirit of wilderness in the 19th
and early 20th centuries. In the 1960s and 1970s, ecologists appropriated the prevalent
social and political discourse of a closed, ill-managed planet heading toward evolutionary
bankruptcy, arguing that their science provided the most faithful account of civilizational
values. With mounting alerts of worldwide pollution levels, the implosion of cities, and the
physical downfalls of economic growth, such as the production of excessive waste flows,
environmentalism displayed a sense of social activism by means of the vigilant
redistribution of global resources. Toward this line of thinking, Buckminster Fuller, John
McHale, and Ian McHarg played a seminal role, explaining ecosystems by parallels
between the Earth and human processes (McHarg, 1969).

The starting point for this period is the highly publicized image of the whole Earth, which
was anticipated throughout the 1960s and eventually reached its apogee in the famous
Earthrise series taken by Apollo 8 in 1968. With this collective mirroring of humanity
circumscribed in the finite space of the Earth, this image accentuated the convergence
between the fields of ecology and cybernetics following World War II. The material reality
of the Earth called for the mobilization of cross-disciplinary tools for the purpose of global
information and systems control. Previous concepts of nature’s flawless preservation, as
separated from the urban milieu, engendered a novel naturalism of “synthetic
naturalism” or “artificial ecology,” where the functions and operations of nature were
copied as precise analogs in artificial systems. This signaled the end of nature as an
autonomous field and the rise of ecological design as a replication of self-organizing
cyclical systems instrumentalized through technological mediation (Kallipoliti, 2013).

Burdened with Le Corbusier’s metaphor of a “machine for living” in the 1920s, the rise of
ecological design in the 1960s and 1970s announced the building as a performative
machine and as a tool to address and harness the disturbances of the planetary reservoir
due to rising levels of pollution and overall environmental degradation. This modality of
reasoning for ecological design, which was prevalent followed World War II,

Page 17 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

foreshadowed a new, modernist ethos, with function replaced by environmental

performance, although this directive was now devoid of a tectonic expression and a set of
form-giving strategies, contrary to the distinctive formal language of early modernism at
the turn of the century.

These paradigm shifts were very much related to the ecologist’s appropriation of a very
specific scientific language and a set of classification tools used by cyberneticians in the
postwar period. By diagramming the flow of energy in the natural world as input and
output—circuits in a cybernetic ecosystem—cyberneticians provided ecologists with new
research techniques and a new biologically informed, but also a computational theory of
reading the world as a system composed of subsystems. The prolific brothers Eugene and
Howard Odum were major contributors in this direction, as they have promoted via their
numerous publications their concern with systems rather than individual environmental
factors or organisms. Even more, they have pioneered the visualization of ecosystems as
a language that could be broken down into components, pieces, and their feedback
similarly to electrical circuits.

According to historian Peder Anker, Howard Odum’s “methodological reductionism of all

biological life (including human behavior) to charts of energy circuits became the
justification for his proposals for scientific management of human society” (Anker, 2010, p.
99). In the 1950s, Howard Odum invented “Energese”—Energy Systems Language—to
instrumentalize ecosystems, as well as human agency, in terms of input and output during
studies of the tropical forests funded by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. This
representational language for ecological simulation models, derivative from electronic
circuits, has become the primary tool for architects to visualize performance and energy
flow using arrows of feedback (Figure 8).

Page 18 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Click to view larger

Figure 8. Howard Odum’s energy-flow diagram for
an aquatic ecosystem, an example of an early
metabolic (energy-flow) diagram for an aquatic
ecosystem.

Source: Howard Odum (1956), Limnology and

Oceanography.

World Planners

In his work throughout the 1960s, sociologist and futurist John McHale has observed a
substantial shift in the very nature of the design process; he argued that in a new age of
intensive industrialization, design involves the design of the planet itself (i.e., the entirety
of the planetary surface within which life proliferates). In his seminal book The Future of
the Future in 1969, he wrote that “man has enlarged his ecological niche to include the
whole planet.” McHale was an associate for Buckminster Fuller, arguably the single most
significant predecessor of ecological design in the 20th century. In the “World Design
Science Decade,” directed by Fuller and McHale, the goal was to diagnose a physiological
flowchart of planetary resources, a vast and comprehensive reshuffling endeavor, which
took cognitive analytical form in McHale’s second book The Ecological Context, as well as
in a different route in Ian McHarg’s seminal book Design with Nature.

The World Design Science Decade was a research program that originated with
Buckminster Fuller’s proposal to the International Union of Architects (IUA) at their VIIth
Congress in London in July 1961. Fuller proposed that architectural schools around the
world should be encouraged by the IUA to invest over the next 10 years into solving the
problem of how to make the total world’s resources serve 100% of humanity through
competent design, despite a continuing decrease of metal resources per capita. In 1961,
the total of the world’s resources served only 40% of humanity (Buckminster Fuller
Institute, 2012). On the one hand, these authors were earnestly utilizing design as a tool of
systemic management to address social equity and fair distribution of food globally; on
the other hand, their vision of the totality of the Earth, which could or should serve as a

Page 19 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

stage of action, envisioned a new empire and reasoned backward to a colonial and
empirical modality.

In many respects, Fuller’s, McHarg’s, and McHale’s work envisaged an idealized systemic
analysis of the universe where all patterns could be imagined as interlinked, engraved as
subsystems of systems in a master plan of natural order. All elements could recur in
different scales, nested within one another. “This was essentially the same notion of
organizational unity—from the intergalactic to the subatomic level—that was expressed at
the same time by Charles and Ray Eames in their film Powers of Ten of 1968” (Reinhold,
2001, p. 42). This holistic vision of the world, evident in his insistence on the latent
connectivity of all physical forces, can be viewed as foundational for Ludwig von
Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory in the 1950s, presupposing the universe—now a
system of systems—not only as a model for theoretical biology and the hard sciences, but
also as a description of society itself (Bowker, 1990).

The countless geopolitical statistics and data that populated the writings of Buckminster
Fuller and John McHale depict their conviction that only through advanced systems
management could one begin to deal with the daunting environmental complexity of the
planet Earth. Toward this substantial undertaking—the management production of new
principles for habitation—the interdisciplinary field of cybernetics seemed to offer a
viable solution. Actually, cybernetics was more of a necessity than a choice for futurist
world planners, in order to assess the “magnitude of a complex planetary
society” (McHale, 1969, p. 110). Cybernetics granted the architect—the global planner—
versatile tools to segment and systematize nebulous data effectively for the benefit of
design. At the same time, beyond the logistics of useful information operators,
cybernetics’ alleged convergence of living systems and machines provided a credible
cultural safety net, in alliance with the ecological zeitgeist of the time (Kallipoliti, 2013).

To this end, the Odum brothers have popularized cybernetic methods to describe
ecosystems. They translated this ecosystems approach, which Eugene Odum also terms
the “whole before-the parts” approach, to city planning and an analysis of Earth’s
systems as they relate to generations of human life (Odum, 1967). The Odums advocated
the science of ecology (predominantly the study of ecosystems) as the key to
understanding and managing Earth’s systems for the good of humanity and all its life
forms. In Relationship of Energy and Complexity in Planning (1972), Howard T. Odum
explicitly expanded on the notion of planning as human ecology that was first touched
upon by Patrick Geddes in his 1915 book Cities in Evolution. This regional planning of land-
use activities is holistic and comprehensive, much like the strategy to achieve informed
management of the environment and Earth’s resources for which Eugene P. Odum argues
in Ecology and Our Endangered Life-Support Systems (1989). The Odums furthered the
principles of holistic systems ecology and provided the scientific basis for approaching
planning as applied human ecology.

Page 20 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Outlaws

In the context of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and the unsettling atmosphere of rising
levels of pollution globally, “dropping out” of cities was a survival mechanism for
thousands of young intellectuals in the United States following Timothy Leary’s advice to
“Turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Many took Leary’s advice to heart, rejecting the
establishment of the political scene and translating quite literally his call to abandon
urban life by establishing alternative living communities in remote areas. One of the most
notable examples is Drop City, a community of geodesic domes made from car parts,
which was founded in Trinidad, Colorado, in 1965. Along with Drop City, several other
communes were established in the southwestern United States as ecological, living
laboratories, able to sustain themselves and cut off from the main urban networks;
communes were to recycle their waste, produce and distribute energy, and achieve a
degree of autonomy in a restored equilibrium with nature.

The emergence of the “do-it-yourself” culture in the network of these living communities
was fostered by the Whole Earth Catalog, envisioned by its creator, Stewart Brand, as a
planetary system of free information distributed throughout the Earth’s territory. The
open-source character of the Whole Earth Catalog was claimed by Brand as “access to
tools.” Jay Baldwin, Brand’s long-standing collaborator and also a graphic designer,
inventor, and creative builder, recalls the use of the word tools as being detached from
any sense of utility. Baldwin was a former student of Buckminster Fuller and a leading
figure in incorporating solar, wind, and other renewable sources of energy in the design
of habitats.

Overall, the Whole Earth Catalog instigated the production of several “do-it-yourself”
instruction manuals that certain communes produced, including Steve Baer’s Dome
Cookbook and ZomePrimer, Lloyd Kahn’s Domebook 1&2 and Shelter, Antfarm’s
Inflatocookbook, and Sim van der Ryn and Peter Calthorpe’s Farallones Scrapbook. One
could argue that the emergent practice of ecological design was coupled with a specific
building language, structured as an open-source living code. Writing open-source design
code on how to create a shelter was by no means a neutral agent of recording a building
process that was already predetermined and consequently executed; the manuals
themselves became a type of activist ecological design—in fact, the most radical kind of
environmental activism in the 1960s.

Steve Baer was the author of the first instruction manual, the Dome Cookbook, and the
inventor of the word zome, meaning a flexible type of geodesic dome that can be adapted
to various site conditions. He was arguably the most skillful and knowledgeable dome
builder, who traveled to many communes of the American Southwest aiming to share his
expertise; he performed various jobs and shifted activities from advanced calculations to
crude, hands-on crafting. He later founded the company Zomeworks in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, to utilize solar energy for direct heating of buildings. Baer is considered a
pioneer in solar design through his work on experimental Drum Walls for his residence in

Page 21 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Corrales, New Mexico, built between 1971 and 1972. In the interior of the house, 55-
gallon, water-filled barrels on a support frame served as the house’s primary heating and
cooling elements (Baer, 1975).

Parallel to Baer, Lloyd Khan, a dropped-out San Francisco insurance broker who became
a craftsman and builder, was largely inspired by Baer’s Dome Cookbook and maintained a
close relationship and collaboration with Brand as the designer and editor of the
“Shelter” and “Land Use” sections in the Whole Earth Catalog. Khan’s Domebooks were
produced from the Pacific High School, an experimental dome community in Bolinas, in
the San Francisco Bay Area. Peter Calthorpe, a former member of the Pacific community
and assistant in the production of the Domebooks, has become a leading pioneer of
sustainable design and technology along with his collaborator, Sim Van der Ryn.
Calthorpe and Van der Ryn published their own manual in the 1970s, the Farallones
Scrapbook, to outsource the experiments of the Farallones Institute, a community that
they founded in the late 1960s in Occidental, California, along with Sanford Hirshen.

The building experiments of the American counterculture in the postwar period have
been accounted by architectural historian Felicity Scott in her books Architecture or
Techno-Utopia: Politics After Modernism (2007) and Outlaw Territories: Environments of
Insecurity/Architectures of Counterinsurgency (2016). Scott’s poignant narration does not
simply bring to light marginal histories left untold; it also questions the absence of
ideological position and political intent in current architectural debates by tracking the
late history of utopia and dystopia, as well as its vanishing point; in her own words, “the
disassociation of architecture from both its historical and political context as well as from
its dreams of a better world to come” (Scott, 2007).

“Dropping out,” nevertheless, was more than a regressive grass-roots movement in the
context of the “do-it-yourself” culture in the United States. Despite the ardor for the
application of low-tech systems, the outlaws made recurrent references to the space
program, used NASA’s numeric tables as dimensions for their dome planks, and designed
domes by developing mathematical equations rather than drawings. They also shared a
fervent interest in crystallography, mineralogy, and the biological processes of growth
and metabolism, reading the cybernetic theories of Norbert Wiener, Marshall McLuhan,
and Buckminster Fuller.

As cultural theorist Fred Turner points out, the outlaws aspired to project a unified global
vision—one in which material reality could be imagined as an information system. In his
book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Turner (2006) described this vision as “cyber-
counter-cultural” and suggested that “the cybernetic notion of the globe as a single,
interlinked pattern of information was deeply comforting: in the invisible play of
information, many thought they could see the possibility of global harmony” (p. 4). In this
light, it might be vital to question if the digital evolution in design fields is the direct
effect of technological advancements or if it was already underway by an entire

Page 22 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

generation of subversive thinkers who, however distant from actual machinery, were
distinctively in tune with the systematization of thought that machines promised.

Deep Ecologists

The work of American transcendentalist writers in the 19th century gave birth to a
preservation movement in the 1960s and sowed the seeds for a modern environmentalism
that inspired a reverence for the sanctity of nature. As the transcendentalists alerted the
American conscience to the ongoing harm to the natural world as a result of human
activity, so did Rachel Carson’s landmark book for the environmental movement, Silent
Spring. Carson challenged the notion that humans should impose technological control
over the environment through chemicals, warfare, and space travel. On the contrary, she
suggested that human domination and design of nature was not necessarily the correct
course of action for the future. She urged people to question authorities who imposed
control and authoritarian design over nature, bringing popularity and a sense of social
urgency to the emerging environmental causes of her time. The cultural aftershock of
Silent Spring inspired the environmental movement that led to the founding of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970.

Influenced by Carson’s writings, Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss coined the term deep
ecology in his 1973 article “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A
Summary.” He proposed deep ecology as a holistic worldview to remedy the shallow
paradigm of ecological thought and study. Much as Thoreau ventured to a cabin in the
woods in Walden Pond to live and contemplate life and the natural world, Næss made a
similar foray into the mountains of Scandinavia, spending weeks at a time in a small
dwelling on Hallingskarvet.

The eight basic principles of deep ecology that Næss proposed while he stayed on
Hallingskarvet established the philosophy as an ecological worldview predicated on
observing and living with nonhuman nature to understand the interconnectedness of all
life forms, including humans. Næss’s deep ecology advocates a holistic approach to the
science of ecology, stressing the importance of experiencing life within nature and
recognizing the human position as intrinsically connected to the Earth and its well-being.
The philosophy of deep ecology can thus be thought of as a continuation of American
transcendentalist thought. Unlike Walden, nevertheless, wherein Thoreau avowed the
greater meaning of life for humans as individuals and societies when cognizant of the
values of wilderness, Næss’s interest was decentralized from the human as the main
cognizant inhabitant of the natural world. For him, every bit of life, human or nonhuman,
had equal significance, giving leeway to the rise of posthumanist theories in the 1980s, as
manifest in the writings of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Gregory Bateson, Bruno Latour,
Cary Wolfe, and Donna Haraway.

Garbage Architects
Page 23 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Garbage housing was a movement in the 1970s that mainly was spearheaded by the
British pioneer of so-called garbage architecture, Martin Pawley. Pawley’s translation of
the laws of nature and metabolism, rather than a simulation of growth in material
processes, was logistical and operative, literally suggesting the immediate use of the
leftover materials from global consumption. Perceiving building as an interface of global
resources, Pawley proposed that consumer by-products be fed back into the loop of
production as new building materials. With his various writings on garbage architecture,
Pawley merged two predicaments of the time (the housing crisis and excessive waste
flows), hoping to salvage two crises by feeding one into the other. The aspiration was that
as natural systems recycle their waste, by-products of urban environments might as well
be recycled too—an idea that sounds at first sight credible and worthy of pursuing, given
that a new functional life could be attributed to material excrement.

Garbage housing was conceived of as solidly confrontational to a vast and urgent social
problem—namely, the solid waste crisis, which called for resolutions at a national level
concurrently in both the United States and in the United Kingdom. In fact, the origins of
garbage housing can be traced to federal agendas envisioning the whole Earth as a
closed system with no material loss. Already by 1966, the U.S. National Academy of
Science declared: As the Earth becomes more crowded, there is no longer an “away.”
“One person’s trash basket is another person’s living space” (Waste Management and
Control, US National Academy of Science, 1966).

Pawley collaborated with the municipality of Santiago, Chile, on the prospect of

assembling available discarded items and transforming them to housing elements, as a
remedy to the explosive urbanization and housing problems of Santiago’s metropolitan
region. Following field research, he headed a research program at Cornell University as a
visiting professor in the spring of 1973, experimenting with various worthless materials
that were in a state of oblivion as industrial by-products such as cans, bottles, and
corrugated cardboard. As a visiting professor in the United States throughout the 1970s,
Pawley carried on his research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Florida A&M
University, thoroughly examining ways in which to create links between packaging-
container industries and building industries in order to construct his vision of a parasitic
housing policy.

Pawley’s colleague Witold Rybczynski experimented at the time in Canada with sulfur, a
valueless by-product of mining operations, attempting to mold it into new concrete
building blocks and other building elements. He was one of the founders of Ecol
Operation. Associated with McGill University’s Minimum Cost Housing Group in
Montreal, the Ecol Operation, like garbage housing, was advertised on the cover of a
student university publication with the equation: “Ecology + Building + Common Sense,”
based on the assumption that feeding the solid waste crisis into the housing crisis could
become an ecological therapy for the global economy.

Page 24 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

However, hints of frustration had already arisen from the movement’s main advocates by
the mid-1970s. With the technology available at the time, it was excruciatingly difficult to
use by-products to produce quality housing, fulfilling technical standards of insulation. On
top of this difficulty, garbage architects’ sincere attempts to seek pragmatic solutions for
the growing housing problems faced immense impediments by the building industry,
which was functioning in a closed loop of linear productivity and could not act as a
receptor for by-products of other industries.

Garbage architects’ initial, very sane cause was more than frequently overwhelmed by
demographic statistics, numeric analyses, and hectic solid waste classifications, with the
scope of redirecting all garbage to industrial utility. In short, garbage housing, centered
on attributing a functional causality to waste, while other aspects, such as the
exploitation of the nature of the found material, were largely forgotten. Garbage
architects did whatever was necessary to complete the material cycle of feedback loops,
but without offering new habitation possibilities. This was eventually a nonmarketable
housing strategy and ended up getting a firm rejection from the building industry, which
could not absorb cans and all sorts of other stuff back into its organism.

Page 25 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Autonomists

Following the oil crisis and a decade of intense environmental debate, the terms self-
sufficiency, self-reliance, life support, and living autonomy became pervasive in the
lexicon of alternative technologies in the 1970s that had preoccupied the British avant-
garde scene for several years. Based on its biological definition, autonomy refers to a
system’s organic independence and self-governance, a notion that was transferred to the
domestic realm to advance the idea of the house as a self-reliant ecosystem, detached
from its context. An autonomous housing community was like a restored Garden of Eden,
where architecture, SYSTEMS THEORY, and human biology could blend together in the hope of
radical social reform. Autonomy was not only an ecological statement, but also a political
statement, announcing a scheme of detachment from central authorities in favor of self-
empowerment via involvement and dependence on the erratic nature of planetary forces.

A prime example of an ecological autonomy case study is the Ecological House built
provisionally by the Street Farmers in London in the 1970s. In 1976, a venture of similar
nature was materialized in Berkeley, California, under the auspices of the Farallones
Institute. Centered around Sim Van der Ryn, a diverse group of farmers, builders,
architects, engineers, and biologists purchased and retrofitted a typical Californian house
to an experimental self-sufficient living laboratory. The primary goal was the creation of a
self-reliant urban household that would integrate the life-support systems of its residents
in such a way as to conserve and redevelop energy and resources (Farallones Institute &
Van der Ryn, 1979). Coined as the “Integral Urban House,” it contained several animal and
plant species as well as humans under one roof, with machines mediating and regulating
their delicate codependence (Figure 9). Along with Van der Ryn, a number of people
participated in the materialization of this project, including Bill and Helga Olkowski,
dedicated ecologists in the San Francisco Bay Area, who helped establish the first
Ecology Center in the United States at Berkeley in 1969 and organized the West Coast’s
first community recycling center.

The years immediately

following the oil crisis saw
a boom of alternative
technology movements in
the United States, Canada,
and Britain. The autonomy
project took off to the
extent of Architectural
Click to view larger Design’s special issue on
Figure 9. Feedback drawing for the Integral Urban “Autonomous Houses,” in
House, built in San Francisco in 1975. Produced by 1976, and Casabella’s
Lydia Kallipoliti and Tope Olujobi for the exhibition
“Closed Worlds” at the Storefront for Art and
response in its editorial
Architecture in New York in 2016. “The Other Face of Self-
Reliance” the same year. A
Page 26 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

prolonged genealogy of autonomous house projects was presented in Architectural

Design, including, among others, John Shore’s “Solo Dome”; Robert and Brenda Vale’s
“Autonomous House” in Cambridge, UK; The “Ouroboros House,” built by students at the
University of Minnesota; Simon Longland’s “Autonomous House” at the University of
Edinburgh; Alexander Pike’s “Autonomous House” at the University of Cambridge; Jaap‘t
Hooft’s “Autonomous Dome,” built in the Netherlands; Robert Reine’s “Integrated Living
System,” in Tijeras, New Mexico; and the “Ecol” project, built by the Minimum Cost
Housing Group at McGill University.

Urban retreat was as substantial all through the United States, as witnessed in the
propagation of several self-sufficient institutes experimenting on alternative energy
production from the early to mid-1970s. Inspired by John and Nancy Todd’s New Alchemy
Institute in Hatchville, Massachusetts, the Institute of Local Self-Reliance in Washington,
DC, the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Catonsville, Maryland, and numerous other
organizations and individuals experimented with food production and backyard
homemade reprocessing systems in an attempt to craft continuous cycles of people,
animals, plants, produce from land, and waste recycling. The premise was to forsake
interaction with the outside and to popularize an ecological and libertarian way of living
and acting, as well as to herald autonomy from the grid of energy supply as a political
statement against consumerism and capitalism (Figure 10).

On a slightly different
plane, one can consider
the work of Italian
architect Paolo Soleri and
his distinctive “ARCOLOGY”
project, which aimed to
establish and maintain
large, self-sufficient
Click to view larger communities of people. In
Figure 10. Feedback drawing for the Ark of Cape Arcology: City in the
Cod in 1976. Produced by Lydia Kallipoliti and Tope Image of Man (1969),
Olujobi for the exhibition “Closed Worlds” at the
Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York in
Soleri introduced his
2016. scheme to fuse
architecture and ecology
by reducing the ecological impact of human inhabitation through constructing
communities that were dimensionally compact, dense, and walkable. These communities/
urbanities were to be efficient with energy resources and highly autonomous, relying on
local food and energy. In 1970, Soleri and his wife began the construction of the Arcosanti
community in central Arizona as a simultaneous proof-of-concept and urban-design
laboratory to test and revise methods of implementing arcological principles.
Construction has continued through the present by means of workshops that draw people
from a wide variety of architectural, ecological, artistic, agricultural, and urban planning

Page 27 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

disciplines to learn about arcology and participate in the construction of facilities. At

present, residents of Arcosanti are primarily artists, students, and volunteers invested in
the livelihood of the community and furthering the Soleris’ arcological mission.

Climaticists

Twin brothers Victor and Aladar Olgyay coined the term bioclimatic, or passive solar
design, as a specialization within architecture in the 1950s. They proposed a linear
design methodology for creating comfortable spaces in different climatic regions using
charts and human comfort zones. This linear process was climate > biology > technology
> architecture. In his book Design with Climate: Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural
Regionalism (1963), Victor Olgyay defined the essence of bioclimatic architecture as the
creation of a favorable (comfortable) microclimate inside and outside the building
through the application of various architectural techniques. Further writings and projects
identify solar architecture and passive architecture as design strategies for creating
climate-responsive and human-friendly spaces. As the historian Daniel Barber suggests,
“In the immediate postwar period, before mechanical heating, ventilation and air
conditioning systems became affordable and widely available, the Olgyays were the
preeminent researchers into methods for using architectural means to place a building in
its climate” (Barber, 2014).

Whereas in the 1950s, the Olgyays were invested in orchestrating the tectonic vocabulary
of buildings in direct response to environmental conditions, the advancement of
technologies in air conditioning, humidifiers, and other devices for regulating interior
climate saw a massive increase in the early 1960s. In regulating indoor climate, the
opposition between form and machine became a core issue in building design.

The vital figure to begin mining this controversy, in the 1960s, is Reyner Banham, who
forecast the inevitable critical role of machinery in building systems and was thus
frequently critiqued as the technophile theorist of refrigerators. Banham’s famous collage
of an “Environmental Bubble” (originally published in Art in America in 1965) is in many
respects the antipode of bioclimatic design. While Banham’s Environmental Bubble would
be a sealed interior bubble controlled atmospherically by a tower of air conditioning and
heating mechanical devices, a passive house of the same period, such as Costantinos
Dekavallas’ house in Aigina, Greece, is entirely open to the exterior, creating natural
breezes by managing upward convention air flow. The former case speaks of a closed,
self-organizing system re-creating its own interior environment, while the latter case
speaks of an open system synchronized with the perturbations of the exterior
environment.

Whereas Dekavallas’s intentions were to use ecological design principles—including

natural cooling, heating, lighting, and ventilation—as generative parameters for his work,
Banham’s concerns were mostly hygienic; that is, how to screen noxious atmospheric
pollutants from the domestic interior by regulating its interior climate. According to

Page 28 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Banham, the word atmosphere was to be read literally; he claims that historically,
atmosphere has not only been calculated, but also governed design decisions—decisions
undertaken with the aid of medical practitioners.

Banham linked technological developments in regulating the conditions of interior human

habitation to a new desire to exert mechanical control over systems in feedback loops,
effectively coupling biology and architecture. He argued for the importance of
recognizing and realizing human needs, technological advances, and environmental
concerns as inherent components of modern architecture. His body of work on the use of
mechanical equipment was surmised in the seminal book The Architecture of the Well-
Tempered Environment, where he examines the massive intrusion of mechanical services
in buildings throughout the 20th century—machines for heating, cooling, ventilating,
artificial illumination, and acoustics—which eventually appropriated large parcels of the
building volume. Such technologies have obstinately remained outside the realm of
architectural design and were efficiently concealed by the building shell. Banham’s views
on the use of mechanical equipment for climate regulation were polemical, as he saw
machines as a radical design proposition that can change architecture systematically and
organizationally. His expressive integration of machinery in building design arguably
influenced the development of the Centre Georges Pompidou, built by Richard Rogers
Renzo Piano and Gianfranco Franchini in 1977, in which machinery is fully exposed and
color coded as an urban proposition for Paris.

Dark Naturalism (c. 2000–2017)

Searching for “Hyperobjects”

Origin Point: The Anthropocene

The third period, unfolding approximately from the end of the 20th century until today, is
tentatively characterized by a search for hyperobjects, a term coined by philosopher
Timothy Morton in his 2010 book The Ecological Thought. Morton describes hyperobjects
as so massively distributed in time and space that they transcend localization (Morton,
2013). The term is used broadly to refer to conditions ranging from global warming, to
Styrofoam, to the machinery related to capitalism.

Nevertheless, looking at Morton’s terminology from the perspective of ecological design,

one can think of the materialized constellations of new artificial creations such as the
Great Pacific Gyre. Also called the “plastic soup,” a pile of wasted fragmented materials
has coagulated and manifested itself as an island, cohering from a soup of waste to cell-
like locales—places that exist beyond human perception of urban daily life. These
emergent islands now force us to delve deeper into the geochemical affinities between
capital and excrement. Such places or islands will outlive us, but most important, they

Page 29 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

will inevitably alter and redefine the complex interrelationships between subjects and
their environment, thus inevitably altering the definition of ecological design as it was
given by Haeckel in 1866. As emergent types of artificial natures, such places are not in the
environment; they are environments themselves.

The starting point for this period is the Anthropocene, a new geological era for human
civilization popularized in 2000 by Nobel-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen after
being used by ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer since the 1980s. We are running through an
Earth epoch wherein the products of human invention and production, including the
making of buildings and cities, have unwittingly reformed the planet’s geophysical
properties. Perpetual floods, ice melts, tropical outbursts, dryness, and other climatic
phenomena reflect what we so often refer to as climate age, or what sociologist Andrew
Ross refers to as “strange weather” (Ross, 1991). If anything, the growing signs of
environmental degradation that first became apparent to the public eye in the late 1960s,
but were seen principally at local scales and as national problems, have escalated into an
all-out global crisis. The Earth now contains throughout its circumference a thin layer of
radioactive materials that began being deposited in 1945. The deposition of this layer
marks a decisive geological moment—a geological time marked by humans shaping the
Earth.

The etymology of the word “Anthropocene” is an oxymoron; it implies the human–

άνθρωπος—at the core of the stage set—σκηνή, yet at the same time, it suggests that we
are no longer supposed to think of history as exclusively human. Unlike its
anthropocentric predecessor eras, this new world, as posthumanist thinkers argue, does
not tolerate the separation of humans from nonhumans. Rather, it imposes an
asymmetrical confrontation between the human and the nonhuman (Morton, 2013), as the
pervasion of nonhuman elements with human ones is seamless even in our own
physiology.

Political theorist Jane Bennett approaches the impossibility of separating human from
nonhuman elements through the concept of vibrant matter, which presumes livelihood in
all material formations. Her vivid descriptions of materialized clouds, like omega fatty
acids that alter human moods and lively streams of methane emanating from landfills,
paints the picture of a darker era, where the blur of all things is seamless. For Bennett,
the image of dead or inert matter has fed the human ego and has empowered Earth-
destroying tendencies by preventing us from detecting and acknowledging a large range
of nonhuman powers and influences with which we interact (Bennett, 2010).

The Anthropocene lends tangible identity to this new period in which we live, one of
increasing existential threat. Therefore, how does one think about art, architecture,
aesthetics, and ecological design in the Anthropocene? The range of responses to this
period of environmental anxiety is extensive, from corporate approaches to generate
income through ecological tourism, to radical ecological design. The consensus,
nevertheless, is that Ernst Haeckel’s definition of ecology in 1866 (as an integral link
between living organisms and their surroundings) or Sim van der Ryn’s definition of

Page 30 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

ecological design in 1996 (a call to minimize the ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT of designed objects)
is not enough. Ecological design can no longer be conceptualized exclusively as a
combative tool against aggravating climatic conditions. Technology, as weaponry and as
defense, is not the sole option; neither is an exclusive engagement with teleology. The
new geological era of the Anthropocene raises not only material problems, but also
cultural and aesthetic issues. Our perception of the environment and orientation in the
world is irreversibly displaced, as the fantasy of our habitation outside of nature, or even
the very existence of nature itself, is no longer tenable.

In the age of the Anthropocene, is it possible that measures, policies, and regulations
limit the imaginary of architects, designers, and thinkers? Commonly, environmental
concerns promote a conservationist ethic and a list of cautionary daily practice of
scarcity. Nevertheless, are austerity and caution the only options for revering nature as a
found object? Theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, one of the most respected figures for
his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy, and nuclear
engineering, argues that the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have transformed the
world into a GREENER planet. As paradoxical as it seems, Dyson says that there is scant
evidence that human activity is causing global temperatures to rise, and that climate
models projecting dire consequences in the coming centuries are unreliable. In fact, even
if temperatures do increase significantly, it could actually be a benefit to humanity
(Dyson, 2009).

In fact, the term Anthropocene has been highly contested. Donna Haraway, a prominent
historian of science, has suggested a replacement for it, debating the merits of terms
such as Capitalocene (placing the blame on the overconsumption of capitalism) or
Plasticine (pointing to the material that is choking our planet). The alternative term that
Haraway seems to favor is Chthulucene, a name for the dynamic, ongoing, symchthonic
forces and powers of which people are a part (Haraway, 2015). As she argues, “I am a
compost-ist, not a posthuman-ist: we are all compost, not posthuman.”

For Haraway and other scholars and thinkers, in these darker times, it is imperative to
investigate, monitor, and document the strangeness of the real, to devote design as an
imaginative endeavor completely to the problems of the real, rather than projecting an
idealized outdated version of whole environments and healthy ecosystems. The
Chthulucene is not about constructing fictions and fantasies of wholeness. Rather, it is
about closely observing the ubiquity of pollution, asking questions and instrumentalizing
one’s findings in a creative way, without being unaware of their uncertainty and
complexity.

Subnaturalists

The term subnature is borrowed from architecture historian David Gissen to describe
what he calls a “fearsome zone, where the limits of contemporary life might be
staged” (p. 23). For Gissen, subnatures like smoke, gas, exhaust, dust, puddles, mud,

Page 31 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

debris, weeds, insects, and other curious worlds are canonically marginalized in
architecture discourse. At present, though, human activity in industry and technology has
profoundly altered the natural world, creating new states of nature found in the most
contaminated, polluted sites on Earth. Rather than attempting to synthesize or integrate
design with nature, the designers in this group create deviant, new natures out of the
current contaminated conditions.

Photographer Edward Burtynsky captures landscapes that are simultaneously beautiful

and unsettling—stunning scenes of oil fields, nickel extraction, and landscapes marred by
industrial waste disposal. This unsettling combination of the gorgeous and repulsive has
been called “the toxic sublime” by Jennifer Peeples, a professor of communication studies
at Utah State University. According to Peeples, the toxic sublime reveals the tensions
arising from visual representations of environmental contamination: beauty and ugliness,
magnitude and insignificance, known and unknown, inhabitation and desolation, security
and risk (Peeples, 2011).

In Spain, Enric Ruiz-Geli and Cloud 9, his interdisciplinary architectural team in

Barcelona, apply research and carry out workshops within the context of global warming
scenarios. Similarly, AMID (Cero9)—Cristina Díaz Moreno, Efrén García Grinda, and their
collaborators—focuses on new, culturally relevant, and unconventional forms of natural
beauty. A 15-year collection of their work was recently exhibited under the title “Third
Natures” at the Architectural Association in London. Deviant approaches to ecological
design are concerned with the lack of nature, in that the by-products of design and
human activity have the ability to create new, nonbucolic natures.

Another Spanish architect working with the generative potential of atmospheric pollution
and toxic politics in urban environments is Nerea Calvillo, founder of the collaborative
visualization project “In the Air” and the architecture office C+arquitectos. “In the
Air” (Calvillo, 2017) makes visible the microscopic and invisible agents of Madrid´s air
(gases, particles, pollen, diseases, etc.), to see how they perform, react, and interact with
the rest of the city. A Web-based dynamic model builds up the space that pollution
components generate, visualizing behavior patterns through data crossing. Similarly,
“Yellow Dust” (Figure 11), Calvillo’s installation for the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and
Urbanism 2017, builds a yellow cloud of water vapor, measuring airborne particles in the
area in which it is located. “Yellow Dust” opens the monitoring process in several ways,
showing the particulate measuring devices while allowing the viewer to feel the quality of
the air through the contact of the cloud with the body.

Page 32 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

An important voice in
environmental debates
comes from the Swiss
architect Philippe Rahm,
whose Paris-based practice
urges architects to develop
a new architectural
language that is directly
linked to climate change.
In his manifesto for a
Click to view larger
“Meteorological
Figure 11. The “Yellow Dust” installation for the
2017 Seoul Biennale “Imminent Commons”; designed
Architecture,” Rahm
by C+arquitectos/In The Air (Nerea Calvillo, Raul claims that “climate
Nieves, Pep Tornabell, Yee Thong Chai, Marina change is forcing us to
Fernandez, and Emma Garnett).
rethink architecture
Photo Credit: Daniel Ruiz.
radically” (Rahm, 2009) and
urges the advancement of
new tools for architectural composition derivative from phenomena like convection,
conduction, radiation, and evaporation. In his various projects, including the Jade Eco
Park in Taiwan (2012) and the “Hormonorium” in the Venice Architecture Biennale of
2002, Rahm literally designs atmospheres and weathers, amplifying the viewer’s
perceptual ability through various visualizations, as well as the viewer’s sentient ability
through body senses.

Along the same lines, the Chicago-based architect Sean Lally uses immaterial means,
including electromagnetic, thermodynamic, and acoustic energy, to design atmospheres
and environments. Evoking Reyner Banham’s famous “Environmental Bubble” in 1965 (in
collaboration with Canadian artist Francois Dallegret), Lally argues for an architecture
without walls, where boundaries can be formed by harnessing energy streams rather than
rearranging building components. In his project “New Energy Landscapes,” for the
second Istanbul Design Biennial of 2014, Lally claims that building with energy would
fundamentally change the ways humans interact with each other and their environments.

Machine Expressionists

Environmental expressionism dates to Reyner Banham’s “Environmental Bubble,” as

illustrated by François Dallegret in 1965, in “A Home Is not a House.” Banham questions
the necessity of conventional architecture, wondering, when a house “contains so many
services that the hardware could stand up without any assistance from the house, why
have a house to hold it up?” Thus, architecture assumes the form of the inner workings of
things—the “guts,” the circuitry and the tubes that materialize necessary connections; it

Page 33 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

exposes plumbing and circuity and develops an aesthetic proposition from the
performance of circulation and system feedback loops.

Environmental expressionism is distinct from biomimicry, in that there is no intent to

mimic nature formally or functionally, but rather to disclose the mechanical and chemical
viscera of ecosystems and buildings. It is conceptually related to structural
expressionism, which places visual emphasis on traditionally internal structural steel
elements of buildings by bringing them outside the primary envelope. In Renzo Piano,
Richard Rogers, and Gianfranco Franchini’s Centre Pompidou of 1971, for instance, the
structurally expressive façade is predominantly an aesthetic of legibility of mechanical
systems, as most of the components serve no structural purpose.

The Urban Algae Canopy project, by ecoLogicStudio (Marco Poletto, Claudia Pasquero)
with Carlo Ratti Associati, is an example of this concept, as it integrates microalgal
cultures into an architectural cladding and digital regulation system, avoiding all
attempts to hide the photosynthetic organisms or the technology that regulates their
oxygenation and growth. Similarly, Cesare Griffa’s Water Lillies are architectural
components that grow algae to be harvested as bio-fuel. Griffa posits the Lillies as an
expressive lighting system as well, creating a unique, luminescent, green night
environment.

Likewise, HYDRAMAX Port Machines from the Future Cities Lab (Nataly Gattegno and
Jason Kelly Johnson) rethinks San Francisco’s waterfront following sea-level rise in a
“synthetic architecture that blurs the distinction between building, landscape,
infrastructure, and machine” (Gattegno & Johnson, 2012). Filamentous, spiny, robotic
structures make boundaries more flexible and pliant by intelligently regulating the
environments of new aquatic parks, community gardens, wildlife refuges, and aquaponic
farms. All ecological functions of the project, like harvesting rainwater and fog,
modulating air flow, and solar gain, are performed by intelligent building systems
mobilized by sensors and motorized components that are outwardly visible in the utmost
detail. For Future Cities Lab, the proposals are not merely expressive of the inner
workings, but work as live models, in direct, real-time mechanical response to changing
environmental factors.

An alternative direction in the expressive demonstration of mechanical viscera and

circuitry, as the vital effective organs of environmental systems, is evident in the work of
Spanish architect Andrés Jaque and the Office for Political Innovation that he founded in
Madrid in 2003. Jaque’s projects are playful and humorous, yet highly precise, with each
proposal conceptualized as a built manifesto overlapping environmental with economic
and political concerns. For example, his project for the 2015 Young Architects Program
for MoMA PS1 in New York City was described by Dezeen magazine as a giant water
purifier, a movable artifact made of customized irrigation components, that makes visible
and enjoyable the so-far-hidden urbanism of pipes that we live with (McKnight, 2015).
Jaque frequently uses ready-made elements that reiteratively follow a logic of
orchestrated excess in order to make visible the intransigent infrastructural systems that

Page 34 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

are commonly used for environmental amelioration. By making circuitry and machinery
overtly perceptible, he criticizes the state of environmental affairs and argues that
environmental and political parameters are profoundly intertwined.

Corporate Performatists

Ecological capitalism is an emerging term enabling the capitalization, not necessarily of

nature but of our sense of loss of nature, for the development of new economies.
According to Sir Tim Smit, the executive vice-chairman and cofounder of the Eden Project
in the United Kingdom, more than 16 million people have come to see what was once a
sterile pit now transformed into a cradle of life, containing world-class horticulture and
startling architecture symbolic of human endeavor. Eden has contributed over 1 billion
pounds to the Cornish economy. This common and admittedly banal use of the word
sustainability strengthens the development of a most peculiar type of architecture: “one
that articulates a unique relationship between architecture and fantasy against a
background of immanent catastrophe” (Adams, 2010, p. 88) and eventually commoditizes
architectural and construction performance as a selling point for a rising ethos of
ecological capitalism. Smit has explicitly denounced the perception of mutually exclusive
capitalism and environmental consciousness, claiming that the Eden Project is the
product of powerful capital, as well as ecologically political conviction. Performance and
corporate ecology shape our practices of ecological and economical consumption,
providing guidelines for manufacture and expenditure and minimizing risks in which both
economy and ecology are implicated.

Ecological design has become a commodity. This approach demonstrates an interest in

technological achievements, in selling ecology, and in developing criteria for
professionals on which to judge ecological awareness, responsiveness, and design. The
Global Footprint Network, for instance, provides and revises a framework and procedure
for measuring the rate at which humans consume resources and generate waste
compared to how quickly the planet absorbs human waste and replaces those consumed
resources. Architecture historian Jonathan Massey has cited Foster + Partner’s 30 St
Mary Axe, more commonly known as “The Gherkin,” as a design that addresses the “ways
we imagine the risks associated with climate change, terrorism, and financial
globalization” (Massey, 2013). Risk management, most often considered as a form of
rationalizing contingency and uncertainty in business, is ecological as well. Massey
argued that 30 St Mary Axe is both a marker and an agent of change through addressing
risk. The Gherkin successfully bridges a perceived gap between sustainability initiatives
and economic growth and sells a certain kind of ecology to the public, even though its
sustainable features in operation actually fall short of achieving its touted energy
performance.

Nonhumans

Page 35 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

With its roots in Arne Næss’s definition of deep ecology, which proclaims that all living
beings are of inherently equal value, design for nonhumans affirms that design should
accommodate more types of life than merely human. Ariane Lourie Harrison of the
architecture firm Harrison Atelier, founded with Seth Harrison, who is an entrepreneur in
biotechnology and culture, has speculated as to what comprises the world following the
contemporary anthropocentric moment, what they have referenced as the posthuman
world. Several of their installation projects accommodate birds and bees (among other
species), which emerge at the forefront of their thoughts rather than being marginalized.

Architect Joyce Hwang, who is an associate professor at the University of Buffalo and
director of the Ants of the Prairie studio, has engaged in several projects pitched for
nonhumans, most notably Bat Tower, which she constructed in 2007 in upstate New York
for bats. She has designed several iterations of installations for bats and pests in an effort
to explore strategies for increasing public awareness of supposedly unwanted species as
a critical component of our ecosystem. Similarly, Pneumastudio, founded by Chris Perry
and Catherine Dwyre, envisions an architecture “Not for ‘us’ alone,” in the darker urban,
geographical, and architectural future predicated on the ecological crisis. In their
Anthropocene Folly, ecological design is conceived as a zone of exchange between human
and nonhuman forms of habitation (Figure 12).

Terreform ONE (Mitchell

Joachim and Maria
Aiolova), a nonprofit
architecture group based
in New York City, proposed
in 2016 a modular Cricket
Shelter (Figure 13), with “a
multipronged focus on
international hunger
Click to view larger solutions, sustainable food
Figure 12. An Architectural Folly for the distribution methods, and
Anthropocene by Chris Perry and Cathryn Dwyre of
emergency architecture,”
Pneumastudio. A full-scale, “permanent installation”
at OMI International Arts Center, Ghent, New York, with an aim to hygienically
in 2015. and humanely house and
harvest crickets for human
consumption in developed and developing countries (Terreform ONE, 2016). According to
Terreform One, “harvesting insects for food takes about 300 times less water than
acquiring the same amount of protein from cattle, pigs, and chicken.” Cricket Shelter is a
polemical project, in that it not only provides a habitat for forgotten species like crickets,
but also provides a plan for the entire harvesting process and food production and
consumption. This design approach intends to address contemporary ecological
conditions through interventions that foreground the Anthropocene yet are not
necessarily for humans.

Page 36 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Click to view larger

Figure 13. Cricket Shelter: Modular Edible Insect
Farm by Terreform One (Mitchell Joachim, PI), built
at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, 2016.

Resilients

As a design approach, RESILIENCE emphasizes designers’ combat with climate change

through the remediation of contaminated ecosystems and the recreation of soft
boundaries between dense human settlements and sparser, more rural areas. Ross Exo
Adams writes that resilient urbanism is cross-scalar, transcending boundaries of measure,
governance, and information. He cites New York City’s Resilience by Design (RBD), an
initiative to implement resilient design measures across the city’s coastal zones. The
transcendence of boundaries is key to ecological resilience, and Adams finds the
initiative’s great success thus far to be in its urbanization of the body, politicization of
local community, and accessibility of data-collecting, cybernetic technologies for the
individual. According to Adams, urban resilience “gains clarity as an ecology,” in which
design innovations negotiate between scales and types of urbanity from the
environmental to the political and technological (Adams, 2016).

As an operating case study of resilient design, Kate Orff’s practice SCAPE reenvisions
urban landscapes while incorporating principles of brownfield remediation, minimized
site disturbance, and meshing natural systems with human habitat. For instance, SCAPE’s
collaboration with Perkins + Will Architects for developing a resilience strategy for the
brownfield area of the Hudson Riverport in Kingston, New York, demonstrates a
methodology of crafting ecological resilience against flooding and sea level rise through
schemes that Kingston could deploy that would take a “cut-and-fill approach to softening
the edge and raising land to be developable,” increasing habitat on land and in water
(Scape/Landscape Architecture PLLC, 2014).

Dlandstudio, led by landscape architect Susannah C. Drake, is also known for practicing
resilience, which is particularly evident in the studio’s Gowanus Canal Sponge Park a
severely polluted site in Brooklyn, infamous as an EPA Superfund site. Dlandstudio
proposed a green corridor along each side of the canal that would absorb and remediate
water runoffs, but also would create new neighborhood activities for local residents. After

Page 37 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

five years, the project was funded in 2013 for a pilot section of the park, bringing to
fruition Drake’s belief in remediating landscape corridors that intertwine the ecology of
land use and people.

A different tangent on remediating contaminated ecosystems is evidenced in the work of

landscape architect and scholar Bradley Cantrell, who is chair of the Landscape
Architecture Department at the University of Virginia. Cantrell’s body of work, often
referenced as “Responsive Landscapes,” “Synthetic Landscapes,” or “Cyborg Ecologies,”
intersects computation and ecology, offering entirely novel ways to monitor, understand,
and represent complex natural processes, such as sedimentation and the evolving
geomorphology of riverbeds (Bentley, 2016). Cantrell develops and designs devices and
infrastructures that create complex interrelationships among maintenance, evolved
processes, and environmental responses on his custom-made test bed—a “fluid modeling
table”—which uses ultrasound to model topographic landscapes. Although Cantrell’s
work is mostly focused on digital and physical simulations in the laboratory, his
computational landscapes, using computing and machine learning, offer insight in
building physical infrastructures and natural landscapes that relate symbiotically with
cities and natural systems (Cantrell, 2014).

Contextualists

Related to Kenneth Frampton’s “CRITICAL REGIONALISM,” which strives to achieve a balance

between homogeneous, global forms and practices of architecture and heterogeneous,
vernacular, and local forms and practices, environmental contextualism exploits unique
qualities of place and locale to a resourceful end. Design involves capitalizing on local
places and resources to create magnetic, ecologically conscious architectures. Australian
architect Glenn Murcutt practices environmental contextualism in constructing a new
domicile in the vernacular of the aboriginal that espouses weightlessness of form and
environmental impact. His structures take advantage of the Sun and wind for lighting,
heat, and cross-ventilation purposes and use local materials in thermally strategic,
culturally sensitive ways. Murcutt’s ethos of environmental sensitivity can be surmised in
the phrase “how to touch the earth lightly,” which has become the title of a book on his
design work written by Philip Drew in 2001. Speaking of his work, Murcutt seems
emotionally and sensorially immersed in the context of the built word and conjures an
ethical and civic responsibility to the planet and its resources.

Context exists at the scale of site and region, and while one may think that this place
specificity limits Murcutt’s work to that locale, he forges an architectural connection with
ecology that is global in understanding and application. A contemporary of Murcutt’s,
Richard Leplastrier, also takes on the aboriginal conception of leaving little trace on the
Earth by reworking and reconfiguring spaces into minimal niches, adjusting the tectonic
composition of space in accordance with ecological conditions of region and site.

Page 38 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Living Fabricators

The architects and designers in the living fabricators group focus on what one might
loosely reference as biological design and fabrication. Stemming from ancient alchemical
practices and from a genealogy of experiments on chemical computation, the ideas
motivating the living fabricators involve the blurring of boundaries between living and
nonliving entities, as well as the aspiration to control design by animating and
orchestrating inner material forces. Understanding design as a growth process of organic
substances—one that can be steered to a projected outcome—is not by any means a new
concept. What is different, nevertheless, is the way in which in the past 15 years, such
enterprises have shaped via technological instrumentation.

One of the first groups that spearheaded the introduction of biology in the arts is the
SymbioticA artistic research lab, founded by artists Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, biologist
Miranda Grounds, and neuroscientist Stuart Bunt at the University of Western Australia’s
School of Anatomy and Human Biology in 2000. One of Zurr and Catts’s first projects
involved “The Semi-Living” Worry Dolls, the first tissue-engineered sculptures to be
presented alive in a gallery, part of the Tissue Culture and Art Project. Inspired by
Guatemalan worry dolls, these dolls were handcrafted of degradable polymers (PGA and
P4HB) and surgical sutures, and then seeded with living cells that, throughout the
exhibition, were gradually replaced with polymers within a microgravity bioreactor.
According to the artists, the aim of the project was to “direct and control the growth of
tissue into a desired shape in order to replace or support the function of defective or
inured parts” (Zurr & Catts, 2002).

A corollary term with semiliving, used for the transference of innovative technological
approaches in biology, microbiology, biotechnology, medicine, and surgery to design fields
is neoplasmatic design, coined by Marcos Cruz and Steve Pike in an issue that they guest-
edited in 2009 for Architectural Design. The editors defined as neoplasmatic projects that
are partly designed objects and partly living material, blurring the lines between the
natural and the artificial (Cruz, 2009). For the authors, neoplasmatic design implies
semiliving entities that require completely new definitions. As an educator, researcher,
and designer at the Bartlett (University College London), Cruz has taught and worked on
many projects that utilize living matter in buildings, mostly focusing on the utilization of
bacteria and algae.

A different position on the use of biological materials is manifest in the work of David
Benjamin, who is an assistant professor at Columbia University and founder of the New
York–based studio The Living. Rather than displaying in detail the surgical mechanisms of
material conversions as Cruz does, Benjamin’s interest lies in using form and materiality
to produce design proposals of negligible footprint. In the project “HyFi,” built for the
MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program in 2014 (coordinated by the Museum of Modern
Art), Benjamin deployed bricks made of corn and mushrooms to shape cylinders that
drew the heat upward in PS1’s courtyard. The bricks were manufactured by Ecovative, a

Page 39 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

biomaterials company based in upstate New York that mostly creates products grown
from mushrooms, fungal mycelium that are low-value, nonfood agricultural materials,
using a patented process. The bricks were grown within a period of less than 1 week and
were consequently planned to return to the city soil after the temporary exhibition space
closed.

The work of Canadian architect Philip Beesley and American architect Jenny Sabin is also
notable due to their poetically effusive enveloping presence, demonstrating the
intersection of computation, with biotechnology, mathematics, and synthetic biology.
Beesley’s most prominent work is “Hylozoic Ground” (Figure 14), part of a series of
immersive installations that he initiated in 2008, which react to the presence of visitors.
His intention was to create a metabolic architecture, a living, breathing entity capable of
regeneration and growth. Sabin won the MoMA PS1’s Young Architecture Program
competition in 2017 with plans for a shelter made of robotically knitted textile solar
panels. Mostly focusing on textiles, her work is not simply translating biological
metaphors but is invested in the nonlinearities of material and form across different
disciplines and scales. Seminal references for Sabin’s work include matrix biology,
materials science, and mathematics through the filter of crafts-based media including
textiles and ceramics (Sabin, 2014).

Click to view larger

Figure 14. Hylozoic Ground by Philip Beesley at the
Canadian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2010.

Page 40 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Planetarians

In the footsteps of Buckminster Fuller’s “World Games” and John McHale’s drawings for
vertical mobility—large cross sections of the Earth from the core to the stratosphere—one
can trace the work of Design Earth, a collaborative practice led by El Hadi Jazairy and
Rania Ghosn. As El Hadi Jazairy and Ghosn argue, their design research engages
technological systems such as energy and trash precisely because these systems do not
respect the morphological boundaries between the country and the city (Korody, 2016). In
a series of drawings engaging large-scale infrastructural systems (Figure 15), narrated via
a sensual visual storytelling, the authors are intent on reimagining urbanization’s
contract with nature. Via their work, Design Earth asks: What is the agency of design in
shaping such spaces of technological systems, particularly now that the ecological crisis
has opened the black box of urban externalities, all while these systems often remain
essentialized by the alarmist rhetoric of “energy needs,” “waste crisis,” “green
infrastructure,” or “food security”? (Korody, 2016).

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

The projects presented in COUPLING were conceptualized as life-support ecologies for

large-scale territories, enabling infrastructure to take a prominent role on a new
environmental stage set. Along these lines, Bhatia later founded the studio The Open
Workshop in San Francisco, with a number of projects addressing the intersection of
politics, infrastructure, and urbanism. Bhatia is also the research director of The
Petropolis of Tomorrow, which explores the relationship between urbanism and resource
extraction, and particularly cities formed from resource extraction associated with
energy.

Another practice whose work addresses territory and geography presented as excerpts of
Earth samples is NEMESTUDIO, based in San Francisco and founded by the Turkish
architects Neyan Turan and Mete Sonmez. In her own words, Turan argues that her work
“draws on the relationship between geography and design to highlight their interaction
for new aesthetic and political trajectories within architecture and
urbanism” (NEMESTUDIO, 2014). Similar to other members in this category,
NEMESTUDIO’s work is lyrical and engaged in powerful formats of visual representation
and storytelling on projecting the availability of resources in the future. In many of these
projects, samples of earth are overtly exhibited as testimony to the way that absurdity has
been institutionalized in environmental legislation.

Afterword
Looking back at the breadth of the history of ecological design enables an alternative,
elastic understanding of the term ecology, addressing not only a new kind of naturalism
and/or technoscientific standard, but also a recirculatory understanding of the world and
its resources. In this context, revisiting the term ecological, rather than sustainable and
green, is of the essence and may contribute to a reassessment of contemporary debates
on the environment. It may be in this epistemological fusion that we can ask more of
architecture and design.

The condition of flow and constant conversion was characterized by Gyorgy Kepes in 1972
as a primary reorientation of the 20th century. He explained:

The dominant matrix of nineteenth-century attitudes was the use of Marx’s term
“reification”; relationships were interpreted in terms of things, objects, or
commodity values. Today a reversal of this attitude has begun to appear; there is a
steadily increasing movement in science and in art toward processes and systems
that dematerialize the object world and discredit physical possessions. What
scientists considered before as substance shaped into forms, and consequently
understood as tangible objects, is now recognized as energies and their dynamic
organization. (p. 11)

Page 42 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

As well as a practice of minimizing the detrimental impact of buildings, ecological design

is an ideational and philosophical system of viewing the world of ideas, information, and
matter as flow, rather than as the accumulation of discrete objects. More than a material
system, it signals the migration of life through the conversion of one thing to another.

Appendix 1: Terminology
1864—Conservation design—Development of land use that attempts to ensure the
protection and management of biodiversity, natural resources, and/or the environment
through controlled, sustainable development. Conservation design planning often aims
to preserve water quality, the habitats of wildlife, and scenic landscapes and vistas.
Following a surge in reports and literature advocating the protection of American
wildlife and landscapes, efforts to preserve natural wilderness found legislative footing
in 1864, with the precedent-setting bill that designated Yosemite Valley a public park
in the state of California.
1866—Ecology—German zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) first used the word
oekologie to refer to the “relation of the animal both to its organic as well as its
inorganic environment” in his 1866 book Die Generelle Morphologie der Organismen
(The General Morphology of Organisms). Oekologie is derived from the Greek word
oikos, meaning “household,” “home,” or “place of dwelling” (Coleman, 1978). Thus,
Haeckel’s view of ecology is that it is the study of the relationships between living
organisms and the biotic and abiotic environment that they inhabit. Various definitions
and reinterpretations of Haeckel’s ecology have since emerged (notably Herbert
Andrewartha and Louis Charles Birch’s 1954 definition, which considers the distribution
and abundance of organisms as an important addendum), although all recognize
ecology as the study of interrelationships between organism and environment
(Andrewartha & Birch, 1986).
1911—Holism—The philosophy that systems should be understood in their entirety as
interconnected wholes rather than through their constituent parts. Ecologist John
Phillips and architects Ian McHarg and Robert and Brenda Vale disseminated holistic
thinking to planners and designers of the late 20th century, advocating design
intervention with the whole of nature in mind.
1955—Air quality management—Strategies for assessing, analyzing, and reducing
the concentration of air contaminants such as carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone,
nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter. Design strategies involve minimizing behaviors
and processes that contribute contaminants to the air, such as driving automobiles and
using materials that release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during the
construction of buildings.
1969—Biomimetic design—A design approach in which natural phenomena
(structures, forms, and behaviors) are applied to creative design and problem-solving
in art, architecture, engineering, medicine, and other fields. Applications of biomimetic

Page 43 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

design are as varied as are the sources of inspiration, ranging from autonomous
military robots inspired by insects to cosmetics made iridescent through studying and
replicating the glossy property of certain algae.
1970—Environmentalism—A broad scientific/social movement and ideology that
advocates the protection and improvement of the health of the environment. Issues of
interest to environmentalists include, but are not limited to, climate change,
overpopulation, and genetic engineering.
1973—Arcology—Design principles proposed by Paolo Soleri that aim to establish and
maintain large, self-sufficient communities of people. He intended for arcology (the
term, a portmanteau of architecture and ecology, was coined in his 1969 book The City
in the Image of Man) to reduce the ecological impact of human inhabitation.
1973—Deep ecology—The philosophy that all living beings are inherently equal and
of significant value, and that human disruption of ecosystems is detrimental not only to
the disturbed organisms, but also to humans themselves due to the upset of the
natural order. Deep ecology, therefore, often advocates simple living, human
population control, and abstinence from designed intervention in the natural
environment. This term was coined by Arne Naess in the 1973 article “The Shallow and
the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary,” in which “deep” ecology was
proposed as a holistic worldview to remedy the “shallow” paradigm of ecological
thought and study.
1973—Resilience—The capacity of an ecosystem to recover from disturbance to a
stable state of a similar identity to its original state. Conceptualized by C. S. Holling in
the 1973 article “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems” as the ability of an
ecosystem to return to an equilibrium state, resilience has since come to acknowledge
multiple potential steady-states. Building ecological resilience is achieved through
analysis and management of the interactions between human societies and the
environment.
1975—Adaptive reuse—The process of modifying an old building or site for present
use. This practice recycles existing material and land, aiding in historical and
environmental conservation and reducing urban sprawl.
1975—Green—An ambiguous term used often and interchangeably in the popular
media with sustainable and ecological when referring to environmentally conscious
design and development. Peter Buchanan’s exhibition “Ten Shades of Green” in 2000,
sponsored by the Architectural League of New York, elucidates the various dimensions
of greenness by identifying 10 key issues to consider when designing fully green
architecture: low-energy/high-performance, replenishable sources; recycling;
embodied energy; long life, loose fit; total life-cycle cost; being embedded in place;
access and urban context; health and happiness; and community and connection.
1981—Critical regionalism—In architecture, a design approach to achieve a balance
between homogeneous, global forms and practices of architecture and heterogeneous
vernacular, local forms and practices. Proposed by Kenneth Frampton in his 1981
“Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” critical

Page 44 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

regionalism seeks to marry new architectural and urban paradigms to the unique
qualities of place.
1983—Systems theory—The broad study of a system as a whole made of
interconnected components. Systems theory emerged in ecological design as a type of
thinking that acknowledged individuals’ responsibility to recognize the implications of
their actions in the context of the greater world/ecosystem. Buckminster Fuller
pursued synergetics as the study of dynamic, interrelated systems, and he argued
alongside Stewart Brand in his Whole Earth Catalog for the fair and efficient
management of global resources.
1987—Sustainability—Defined in the 1987 Brundtland Report as “development that
meets the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs,” sustainable development is a framework
for designing and developing systems that ensure certain living conditions for future
generations of life on Earth. As a set of principles, the term sustainability lends itself to
an evolving ecological discourse and has come to encompass many strategies of
achieving enduring life for humans and the planet, including the pursuit of alternative
renewable energies, life-cycle assessment techniques in manufacturing, and ensuring
potable water and sanitation for all. Sustainable design is the act of creating the built
environment, products, and services in ways that align with principles of sustainable
development.
1987—Building biology—Also known as Baubiologie, a subdiscipline of building
science originating in Germany that studies the indoor environment for air pollutants
and radiation under the premise that the quality of the indoor environment is directly
related to occupant well-being. Building biologists believe that the environment of
residential, commercial and public buildings can affect the health of occupants,
producing a restful or stressful environment. A total of 25 principles of building
biology were instituted to govern the decision-making process in this area.
1990—Adaptable buildings—Adaptable buildings are inhabitable structures
designed for longevity in the present and beyond. Durability in the present and
adaptability for future use are often achieved through careful material selection and
the incorporation of flexible systems and layout into a building’s design.
1992—Ecological footprint—A measure of the rate at which humans consume
resources and generate waste compared to how quickly the planet absorbs human
waste and generates new resources. According to the Global Footprint Network, since
the 1970s, humanity’s annual demand on natural resources has exceeded that which
Earth can regenerate each year.
1993—Integrated design—An approach to the design process in which
conventionally disparate subjects are considered together and specialists are involved
in all stages of design activity. In 1993, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) developed
the C-2000 program for high-performance buildings. This program comprised energy
performance, environmental impacts, water consumption, and airtightness, as well as
the functionality of a building. This process came to be known as the Integrated Design

Page 45 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Process, in which all components of the project came together in the early stages of
design.
1993—Transit-oriented development—The planning of mixed-use residential and
commercial communities featuring a highly walkable, open-space environment that
encourages residents and employees to travel by transit, bicycle, and foot. Peter
Calthorpe developed this concept of urban ecological planning in “The Next American
Metropolis” in 1993, and since then, policymakers and planners around the world have
adopted this approach.
1996—Ecological design—Defined by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan as “any
form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself
with living processes.” Ecological design is a broad term that aids in encompassing
sustainable efforts in architecture, agriculture, engineering, industry, planning,
restoration, and other fields.
1999—Net zero building—A building whose total amount of energy consumed is
equivalent to or less than the amount of renewable energy created on site or used by
the building. The design of net zero buildings aims to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and dependency on nonrenewable resources and requires a holistic design
approach that recognizes features and systems including solar orientation, natural
ventilation, and site-specific geological and climactic characteristics.
2000—Anthropocene—The epoch in which human influence on the Earth’s
ecosystems has become significant, rivaling the influence of natural Earth processes.
First discussed by chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000, the Anthropocene enlists architecture
as a geological force, inspiring design and discourse that address the role of
architectural design in the changing atmosphere, morphology, and ecosystems of the
Earth.
2002—Cradle-to-cradle—Also known as regenerative design, a design method that
considers the materials and products of human industry to have cyclical life cycles
much like natural water and nutrient cycles. Proposed in 2002 by architect William
McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart, cradle-to-cradle design challenges the
prior concept of cradle-to-grave design, in which sustainable responsibility ended after
a material’s or product’s ultimate disposal.
2010—Dark ecology—The philosophical counterpart to the Anthropocene, as coined
by Timothy Morton in “The Ecological Thought.” Dark ecology advocates an ecological
worldview that is not detached—an external observance of nature and Earth—but
rather a “darker” position, in which human existence is implicated within nature’s fate
and existence. It aims to avoid prioritizing human existence over nature.

Appendix 2: Environmental Policy

Page 46 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

1894—The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-conditioning

Engineers (ASHRAE) is founded, with the goal to advance human well-being through
sustainable technology, focusing on the energy efficiency of building systems, as well
as indoor air quality and refrigeration.
1898—The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) is founded, with the
goal to develop and publish technical standards on materials, products, and systems.
The leader of the creation of ASTM standards was Charles Benjamin Dudley, and the
organization’s headquarters are in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
1918—The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is founded as a private
organization formed by merging five engineering societies and three government
agencies. The organization developed voluntary consensus standards for products
systems, processes, and services for the United States.
1964—U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Wilderness Act, formally written by
Howard Zahniser of the Wilderness Society. Passing this act secured 9.1 million acres
of federal land and allowed the designation of areas specifically for wilderness.
1969—The National Environmental Protection Act is signed into law, which
established requirements for federal agencies to produce assessments of their actions’
environmental consequences. The law continues to form the foundation for
governmental environmental protection in the United States.
1970—The United States celebrates Earth Day for the first time on April 22, marking a
shift from “conservation” to “environmentalism.”
1972—The Clean Water Act is passed by legislative mandate after it is vetoed by U.S.
president Richard M. Nixon. This act establishes regulations to protect against water
pollution and empowers federal and state agencies to enforce these regulations. It
directs attention toward source points of pollution, and in some cases empowers
agencies to develop water standards.
1973—In response to the global energy crisis, the American Institute of Architects
(AIA) formed an energy task force, which became the AIA Committee on Energy.
1977—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was created to address energy usage
and conservation. The Solar Energy Research Institute (later the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory) was founded in Golden, Colorado. President Jimmy Carter signed
the Department of Energy Organization Act.
1979—Carter installed 32 solar panels on the roof of the White House in response to
the Arab oil embargo, which had caused a national energy crisis. The president called
for a campaign to conserve energy and hoped this installation would set an example
for the American people.
1980—Founded in 1980 as the Passive Solar Industries Council, the organization later
became the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC), a pioneering organization
of the whole building approach to sustainable facilities. The council focuses on
achieving high-performance buildings through efficient energy use and material
selection.
1986—U.S. president Ronald Reagan took down the solar panels that his predecessor,
Carter, installed in the White House and shipped them to Unity College in Unity,

Page 47 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Maine, an environmentally oriented college. The panels are still installed atop the roof
of the school’s cafeteria.
1987—The Brundtland Commission coins the term SUSTAINABILITY as part of the mass
lexicon, defining sustainable development as “that which meets all the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.”
1990—The AIA Energy Committee formed into the AIA Committee on the Environment
(COTE). The goal of the organization is to enhance the environmental performance of
buildings and to serve as a voice of the public. While in the 1970s the AIA Energy
committee focused on energy, today COTE frames the process of sustainable design as
one that includes the full range of human settlement and ecological issues.
1990—The Talloires Declaration was composed at an international conference in
France, as a ten-point action plan for incorporating sustainability and environmental
literacy in teaching, research, operations and outreach at colleges and universities. It
has since been signed by over 500 university leaders in over 50 countries.
1992—The UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as
the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, was a major United Nations (UN) conference held in
June 1992. Agenda 21 is a publication produced during the summit that deals with the
management of human settlements. It is also a comprehensive plan of action to be
taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the UN System, governments,
and major groups in every area in which humans affect the environment.
1992—Energy Star, the focus of which is to minimize building energy and water use to
protect the environment, is created by the EPA under the authority of the Clean Air
Act. Today, the program is managed by the EPA and DOE.
1993—Following the release of Agenda 21 from the Rio Earth Summit, several
members of the AIA, together with others representing the Union internationale des
Architectes (UIA), or International Union of Architects, issued an addendum to it,
published as part of the AIA Environmental Resource Guide. The addendum proposed
an extension of the view of the built environment beyond shelter, to include energy
harvesting, waste management and reuse, food production and distribution, and water
harvesting and handling, as well as facilities for recreation, health, education, and
commerce. AIA president Susan Maxman and UIA president Olufemi Majekodunmi
signed a declaration of Interdependence for a Sustainable Future by Today, recognized
as a turning point in the history of the green building movement.
1993—President Bill Clinton announced plans to make the White House “a model for
efficiency and waste reduction.” This encouraged participants to green other
properties as well: the Pentagon, the Presidio, and the DOE headquarters.
1993—The U.S. Green Building Council was founded by Rick Fedrizzi, David Gottfried,
and Mike Italiano. Its mission is to promote sustainable methods within the
construction and building industries.
1993—William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel established the “Ecological Footprint,”
defined as the impact that one person or a community of people has on the
environment. This is measured through the use of electricity, water, transportation,

Page 48 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

materials, and other resources, and allows one to realize the amount of negative
impact that an entity is having on the environment.
1996—Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan presented a vision of how the living world
and the human world can be rejoined by taking ecology as the basis for design.
Ecological design intelligence can be applied at all levels of scale, creating
revolutionary forms of buildings, landscapes, cities, and technologies.
1997—The Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement linked to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11. The
major feature of the protocol is that it set binding targets for 37 industrialized
countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These
amount to an average of 5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008–2012.
Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high
levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150
years of industrial activity, Kyoto placed a heavier burden on developed nations under
the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” In 2001, the detailed
rules for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in
Marrakesh and were dubbed the “Marrakesh Accords.” On February 16, 2005, Kyoto
entered into force, although a number of countries have still not ratified it including
the US.
1998—The Green Building Challenge was launched, in which representatives from 14
nations met to create an international assessment tool that takes into account regional
and national environmental, economic, and social equity conditions.
2000—The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) began giving
awards to buildings that have adopted sustainable techniques, systems, and practices.
The rankings of points range from silver to platinum.
2003—The Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG Sustainable Committee) is a complete
Internet resource to a wide range of building-related design guidance, criteria and
technology. The guide is based on the premise that to create a successful high-
performance building, one must apply an integrated design and team approach in all
phases of a project, including planning, design, construction, operations, and
maintenance. It is managed by the National Institute of Building Sciences.
2005—The Energy Policy Act was passed by the United States Congress and signed
into law by President George W. Bush. The act attempts to combat growing energy
problems and has changed U.S. energy policy by providing tax incentives and loan
guarantees for energy production of various types.
2005—Jason F. McLennan created the Living Building Challenge, turning a collection
of theoretical ideas into codified standards. He presented Living Building Challenge
version 1.0 to the Cascadia Green Building Council in August 2006, and three months
later, it was formally introduced to the public.
2009—The International Green Construction Code (IgCC) became the first model code
to include sustainability measures for entire construction projects and their sites—
from design through construction, certificate of occupancy, and beyond. The new code

Page 49 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

is expected to make buildings more efficient, reduce waste, and have a positive impact
on health, safety, and community welfare.

Appendix 3: Selected Publications

1962—Rachel Carson published the groundbreaking book Silent Spring, leading to a
U.S. ban on dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). This direct challenge toward what
was then considered an uncontroversial technological boon signaled a change in
environmental thinking—an understanding that the short-term utility of certain
technologies may in fact hide long-term consequences for the ecosystem.
1963—Victor Olgyay published Design with Climate, arguing for a bioclimatic
approach to architectural design.
1964—Leo Marx released The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral
Ideal in America, a major work of literary criticism that identifies a major theme in
19th-century literature—the dialectical tension between the pastoral ideal in the
United States and the rapid and sweeping transformations wrought by machine
technology.
1967—Buckminster Fuller published Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, opening a
discussion on the management of global resources and the expansion of spatial
perception beyond terrestrial space.
1968—The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released the
famous Earthrise series, photographs of the Earth taken from Apollo 8. Suddenly,
mankind could witness its setting from the outside as a collective mirror image, a
spectacle which fundamentally destabilized previous perceptions of space and brought
to the fore the necessity for a discourse of managing, harnessing and utilizing global
currents of a now finite “spaceship-Earth.”
1968—Stewart Brand published the first issue of the Whole Earth Catalog, which drew
its inspiration (and readership) from the individualist, back-to-the-land backpacking
culture of the late 1960s, but embraced whole systems thinking, intellectual rigor, and
exploration of new technology at a time when these concepts were a deviation from
the counterculture orthodoxy. Brand revived and popularized the do-it-yourself ethic
and disseminated notions of holistic thinking.
1969—Ian McHarg published Design with Nature, a seminal book that urges designers
to familiarize with ecological planetary processes by analyzing climate, hydrology, and
other scientific areas.
1969—Reyner Banham wrote The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment,
arguing for the revision of architectural history due to the significant disciplinary
impact of mechanical devices integrated into building design to regulate climate.

Page 50 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

1970—John McHale published The Ecological Context, a continuation of Buckminster

Fuller’s Design Science Decade, advocating for the strategic management and
redistribution of global resources.
1972—The Club of Rome released The Limits to Growth, which pioneered the use of
computer models to illustrate the Malthusian consequences of exponential population
growth on a planet with finite resources.
1975—Brenda and Robert Vale published their influential book The Autonomous
House: Design and Planning for Self-sufficiency, documenting the architects’ building
in the British Midlands based on the principles of sustainable consumption of
resources. The authors intended to demonstrate, through their example, a building
that operates off the grid for energy, water, and waste.
1991—Brenda and Robert Vale published the book Green Architecture: Design for a
Sustainable Future, establishing six principles for green architecture: conserving
energy, working with climate, minimizing new resources, respect for users, respect for
site, and holism.
1993—Peter Calthorpe wrote The Next American Metropolis, further developing his
ideas on transit-oriented developments, an idea that originated from his Pedestrian
Pocket Book in 1986.
1995—Sim van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan published the book Ecological Design,
presenting a vision of ecological design intelligence as an effective adaptation and
integration with nature’s processes.
1997—Kenneth Yeang compiled his theories on bioclimatic skyscrapers in the book
The Skyscraper, Bioclimatically Considered. He is credited as the inventor of the
“bioclimatic skyscraper” as a genre.
2000—Peter Buchanan curated an exhibition entitled “Ten Shades of Green” at the
Architectural League of New York, which stated that green design is not only about
energy efficiency, and it is not purely a technical matter. Instead, it involves a whole
nexus of interrelated issues, the social, cultural, psychological and economic
dimensions. “Ten Shades” refers to 10 key issues that need to be considered to create
a fully green architecture: low-energy/high-performance, replenishable sources;
recycling; embodied energy; long life, loose fit; total life cycle cost; being embedded in
place; access and urban context; health and happiness; and community and
connection.
2002—Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, a nonfiction book by
German chemist Michael Braungart and U.S. architect William McDonough, is
released. It calls for a radical change in industry: a switch from a cradle-to-grave
pattern to a cradle-to-cradle pattern. It also suggests that the “reduce, reuse, recycle”
method perpetuates this cradle-to-grave strategy, and that more changes need to be
made.
2002—David W. Orr published the book The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture, and
Human Intention, arguing for an ecological design revolution that changes how
humans provide food, shelter, energy, materials, and livelihood, and deal with waste.
He conceptualizes “design” in a larger framework that engages as much with politics

Page 51 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

and ethics as with buildings and technology. The book combines theory, practicality,
and a call to action.
2008—The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal (CCA) curated the influential
exhibition “Sorry, Out of Gas,” which reflected on architecture’s response to the 1973
energy crisis and prognosticating forthcoming energy crises.

Acknowledgments
This work has been conducted in collaboration with Emily Klein, an undergraduate
student at the School of Architecture of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a research
assistant for this project. Emily’s has been a research assistant for the project, whose
insights and contributions to the text have been vital.

References
Adams, R. (2010). Approaching the end: Eden and the catastrophe. Log, 19(Spring–
Summer), 87–97.

Adams, R. (2016). An ecology of bodies. In Climates: Architecture and the planetary

imaginary. New York: The Avery Review and Lars Müller Publishers. Retrieved from
http://www.averyreview.com/issues/14/an-ecology-of-bodies.

Andrewartha, H. G., & Birch, L. C. (1954). The distribution and abundance of animals.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Andrewartha, H. G., & Birch, L. C. (1986). The ecological web: More on the distribution
and abundance of animals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Anker, P. (2001). Imperial ecology: Environmental order in the British Empire, 1895–1945.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Anker, P. (2010). From Bauhaus to Ecohouse: A history of ecological design. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press.

AntFarm. (1971). Inflatocookbook. San Francisco: Antfarm Inc.

Ayub, Z. (2011). Classifications in ecology: From Linnaeus onward. Research paper for
the course “EcoRedux,” taught by Lydia Kallipoliti in the spring of 2011. New York: Irwin
S. Chanin School of Architecture, Cooper Union.

Baer, S. (Ed.). (1968). Dome cookbook. Corrales, NM: Lama Foundation’s Cookbook Fund.

Baer, S. (Ed.). (1970). Zome primer. Albuquerque, NM: Zomeworks Corporation.

Page 52 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Baer, S. (1975). Sunspots: An exploration of solar energy through fact and fiction.
Albuquerque, NM: Zomeworks.

Banham, R., & Dallegret, F. (Illustrator). (1965). A home is not a house. Art in America,
53(April).

Banham, R. (1969). The architecture of the well-tempered environment. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Barber, D. (2014). The thermoheliodon. A.R.P.A Journal, (1). Retrieved from http://
www.arpajournal.net/thermoheliodon/.

Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press Books.

Bentley, C. (2016). Landscape architect Bradley Cantrell on “cyborg ecologies” and new
ways to look at nature. Architect’s Newspaper (July 21, 2016). Retrieved from https://
archpaper.com/2016/07/bradley-cantrell-landscape-architecture/.

Blauvelt, A. (Ed.). (2015). Hippie modernism: The struggle for utopia. Minneapolis:
Walker Art Center.

Botar, O. A. I. (2010). László Moholy-Nagy: A biocentric artist? Hungarian Studies Review,

XXXVII(1–2), 47–59.

Botar, O. A. I. (2017). Biocentrism and the Bauhaus. In C. N. Terranova & M. Tromble

(Eds.), Routledge companion to biology in art and architecture (pp. 54–61). New York:
Routledge.

Botar, O. A. I., & Wünsche, I. (Eds.). (2011). Biocentrism and modernism. Surrey, UK:
Ashgate.

Bowker, G. (1990). How to be universal: Some cybernetic strategies. Social Studies of

Science, 23(1), 107–127.

Brand, S. (Ed.). (1968–1972). Whole Earth catalog. Menlo Park, CA: Portola Institute.

Buckminster Fuller Institute. (2012). “World game.” Retrieved from https://www.bfi.org/

about-fuller/big-ideas/world-game.

Butlin, J. (1989). Our common future. Journal of International Development, 1(2), 284–
287. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.

Callicott, J., & Froderman, R. (2009). Deep ecology from Encyclopedia of environmental
ethics and philosophy. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA/Gale Cengage
Learning. Retrieved from http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/Readings/
240%20-%20Reading%20-%20Deep%20Ecology.pdf.

Page 53 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Calvillo, N. (2017). In the air. Retrieved from http://intheair.es/.

Cantrell, B. (2014). How mega-landscaping might reshape the world, according to one
TED Fellow. TED Blog (December 12, 2014). Available online https://blog.ted.com/ted-
fellow-bradley-contrell-on-computational-landscape-architecture/.

Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Cogdell, C. (2004). Eugenic design: Streamlining America in the 1930s. Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press.

Cogdell, C. (2015). Breeding ideology: Parametricism and biological architecture. In M.

Poole & M. Shvartzberg (Eds.), The politics of parametricism: Digital technologies in
architecture. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Coleman, W. (1978). Biology in the nineteenth century: Problems of form, function, and
transformation. New York: Wiley.

Cruz, M. (2009). NeoArch; neoplasmatic architecture. The blog of Marcus Cruz. Retrieved
from http://marcoscruzarchitect.blogspot.com/.

Danitz, B., Zelov, C. (Director), & Cousineau, P. (Writer). (1994). Ecological design:
Inventing the future (documentary film).

Darwin, C. (1859). The origin of species by means of natural selection of the preservation
of favored races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray.

Derrida, J., & Kamuf, P. (1994). Specters of Marx: The state of the debt, the work of
mourning, and the new international. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Routledge.

Drew, P. (2001). Touch this earth lightly: Glenn Murcutt in his own words. Sydney: Duffy
& Snellgrove.

Dyson, F. (2009). Freeman Dyson takes on the climate establishment. Interviewed by

Michael D. Lemonick, Yale Environment 360, June 4. Retrieved from http://
e360.yale.edu/features/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_climate_establishment.

Farallones Institute, & Ryn, S. V. (1971). Farallones scrapbook. Point Reyes Station, CA:
Farallones Designs.

Farallones Institute, & Ryn, S. V. (1979). The integral urban house: Self-reliant living in
the city. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

Foucault, M. (1966). The order of things. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.

Frampton, K. (2002). The architecture of Glenn Marcus Murcutt. The Pritzker

Architecture Prize, sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation. Retrieved from https://
www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2002.

Page 54 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Francé, R. H. (1920). Die Pflanze als Erfinder. Stuttgart, Germany: Kosmos.

Frearson, E. (2014). Future architecture will be built from energy, says researcher Sean
Lally. Dezeen (November 3). Retrieved from https://www.dezeen.com/2014/11/03/new-
energy-landscapes-sean-lally-istanbul-design-biennial-2014/.

Gattegno, N., & Johnson, J. K. (2012). HYDRAMAX port machines. Future Cities Lab. San
Francisco. Retrieved from http://www.future-cities-lab.net/projects/#/hydramax/.

Geddes, P. (1915). Cities in evolution: An introduction to the town planning movement and
to the study of civics. London: Williams & Norgate.

Gissen, D. (2009). Subnature: Architecture’s other environments. New York: Princeton

Architectural Press.

Goethe, J. W. V. (2009). The metamorphosis of plants. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Griffa, C. (2012). The Lillies: Algal design. Cesare Griffa Architecture Lab, Cesare Griffa
Architetto, Torino, Italy. Retrieved from https://cesaregriffa.com/waterlilly/.

Haeckel, E. (1866). Generelle Morphologie der Organismen: Allgemeine Grundzüge der

Organischen Formen-Wissenschaft; mechanisch begründet durch die von Charles Darwin
reformirte Descendenz. Berlin: Druck und Verlag von Georg Reimer.

Haeckel, E. (1891). Plankton Studien, Jena Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft, 25, 232–
336. (Trans. G.W. Field in Report of United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries,
1889–1891, pp. 565–641.)

Haeckel, E. (1904). Kunstformen der Natur. Leipzig, Germany, and Vienna:

Bibliographisches Institut.

Haraway, D. (2015) Tentacular thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene. e-flux,

75. Retrieved from http://www.e-flux.com/journal/75/67125/tentacular-thinking-
anthropocene-capitalocene-chthulucene/.

Harrison, A. L. (2013). Architectural theories of the environment: Posthuman territory.

New York: Routledge.

Hartman, E. (2014). Tour a new building made of corn and mushrooms at MoMA PS1. The
New York Times Style magazine (June 25, 2014). Retrieved from https://
www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/t-magazine/moma-young-architects-program.html
on February 20, 2017.

Humboldt, A. (1849). Cosmos: Essai d’une description physique du monde. Milan, Italy:
Chez Charles Turati Imprimeur Librarie.

Page 55 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Humboldt, A. V., & Bonpland, A. (1805). Essai sur la géographie des plantes: Accompagné
d’un tableau physique des régions équinoxiales, fondé sur des mesures exécutées, depuis
le dixième degré de latitude boréale jusqu’au dixième degré de latitude australe, pendant
les années 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, et 1803. Paris: Chez Levrault, Schoell et Companie
Libraries.

Kahn, L. (Ed.). (1970–1972). Domebook 1–2. Bolinas, CA: Shelter Publications.

Kallipoliti, L. (2012). EcoRedux: Environmental architecture from “object” to “system” to

“cloud.” PRAXIS: A Journal of Writing + Building, 13, 5–17.

Kallipoliti, L. (2013). Mission Galactic Household: The resurgence of cosmological

imagination in the architecture of the 1960s and 1970s (Doctoral dissertation). Princeton,
NJ: School of Architecture, Princeton University.

Kallipoliti, L. (2015). Closed worlds: The rise and fall of dirty physiology. Architectural
Theory Review, 20, 1.

Kepes, G. (1972). Art and ecological consciousness. In G. Kepes (Ed.), Arts of the
environment (pp. 1–12). New York: George Braziller.

Kiesler, F. (1934). Notes on architecture: The Space-House. Annotations at random.

Hound and Horn, 7(2), 293–297.

Kiesler, F. (1939). On correalism and biotechnique: A definition and test of a new

approach to building design. Architectural Record, 86(September), 60–75.

Kim, J., & Carver, E. (2015). The Underdome guide to energy reform. New York: Princeton
Architectural Press.

Korody, N. (2016). Putting the planet to paper: The monumental geographies of DESIGN
EARTH. Archinect (October 19). Retrieved from http://archinect.com/features/article/
149974257/putting-the-planet-to-paper-the-monumental-geographies-of-design-
earth on February 21, 2017.

Kwa, C. (2011). Styles of knowing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Lalueta, I (2017). Yellow dust. Much more than measuring air. Metalocus (October 17).
Retrieved from https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/yellow-dust-much-more-
measuring-air.

Lateral Office & Infranet Lab. (2010). COUPLING: Strategies for infrastructural
opportunism. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Leplastrier, R. (2009). Richard Leplastrier profile. The Architecture Foundation Australia.

Citation of the 2009 Dreyer Foundation prize. Retrieved from http://
www.ozetecture.org/category/tutors/richard-leplastrier-projects/.

Page 56 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Linnæus, C. (1735). Systema naturae; sive, Regna tria naturae: Systematice proposita per
classes, ordines, genera, & species. Leiden: Lugduni Batavorum.

Lynn, G. (1998). Folds, bodies, & blobs: Collected essays. Brussels: La Lettre volée.

Lynn, G. (1999). Animate form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Manaugh, G. (2011). Infrastructural opportunism. BLDGBLOG (April 26).

Manaugh, G. (2012). Primary landscapes: An interview with Edward Burtynsky (June

2012). Nevada Museum of Art and Center for Art + Environment. Retrieved from http://
v-e-n-u-e.com/Primary-Landscapes-An-Interview-with-Edward-Burtynsky.

Marx, L. (1964). The machine in the garden. New York: Oxford University Press.

Massey, J. (2013). Risk design. The Aggregate website. Retrieved from http://we-
aggregate.org/piece/risk-design.

McDonough, W., & Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make
things. New York: North Point Press.

McHale, J. (1969). The future of the future. New York: George Braziller.

McHarg, I. L. (1969). Design with nature. New York: Natural History Press.

McHarg, I. L. (1970). The ecological context. New York: G. Braziller.

McIntosh, P. R. (1985). The background of ecology: Concept and theory. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.

McKnight, J. (2015). Andrés Jaque’s giant water purifier unveiled in MoMA PS1
courtyard. Dezeen (June 24). Retrieved from https://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/24/
andres-jaque-giant-water-purifier-moma-ps1-courtyard-new-york-yap/.

Migayrou, F. (2003). Extensions of the Oikos. In M. Brayer & B. Simonot (Eds.),

ArchiLab’s Earth buildings: Radical experiments in land architecture (pp. 20–27). London:
Thames & Hudson.

Moore, N., & Lopez-Durand, F. (2010). Utopiates: Rethinking nature. Architectural design,
80(6), 44–49.

Moreno, C. D., & Grinda, E. G. (2014). Third natures: A micropedia. London: Architectural
Association. Retrieved from http://aabookshop.net/?wpsc-product=third-natures.

Morton, T. (2010). The ecological thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Morton, T. (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and ecology after the end of the world.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Page 57 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Naess, A. (1973). The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movements: A summary,
Inquiry, 16, 95–100.

Ndubisi, F. (2014). The ecological design and planning reader. Washington, DC: Island
Press.

O’Donnell, C. (2015). Niche tactics: Generative relationships between architecture and

site. New York: Routledge.

Odum, H. T. (1956). Primary Production in Flowing Waters. Limnology and Oceanography,

1(2), 102–118.

Odum, E. P. (1967). Fundamentals of ecology. Philadelphia: Saunders.

Odum, E. P. (1977). The emergence of ecology as a new integrative discipline. Science,

195, 1289–1293.

Odum, E. P. (1989). Ecology and our endangered life-support systems. Sunderland, MA:
Sinauer Associates.

Olgyay, V. (1963). Design with climate: Bioclimatic approach to architectural regionalism.

New York: Princeton University Press.

Ortega, A. (Ed.). (1975). Ecol operation: Ecology + building + common sense. Montreal:
Minimum Cost Housing Group, McGill University.

Pawley, M. (1971). Garbage housing. Architectural Design, 41(2), 86–95.

Pawley, M. (1973a). Chile and the Cornell Programme. Architectural Design, 43(12), 777–
784.

Pawley, M. (1973b). Garbage Housing. Architectural Design, 43(12), 764–776.

Pawley, M. (1975). Garbage housing. London: Architectural Press.

Peeples, J. (2011). Toxic sublime: Imaging contaminated landscapes. Environmental

Communication, 5(4), 373–392.

Phillips, S, J. (2017). Elastic architecture: Frederick Kiesler and design research in the
first age of robotic culture. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Poletto, M., & Pasquero, C. (2015). Urban algae folly. ecoLogicStudio. Retrieved from
http://www.ecologicstudio.com/v2/project.php?
idcat=3&idsubcat=71&id%20proj=148.

Quick, T. (2004). American transcendentalism and deep ecology in the history of ideas.
Victoria, Australia: University of Victoria Archival Theses. Retrieved from http://
hdl.handle.net/1828/728.

Page 58 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Rahm, P. Philippe Rahm Architectes. (2009). Retrieved from http://

www.philipperahm.com/.

Rajagopal, A. (2014). Susannah Drake: Ecology as architecture. Metropolis (November

18). Retrieved from http://www.metropolismag.com/cities/landscape/susannah-
drake-ecology-as-architecture/.

Reinhold, M. (2001). Organicism’s other. Grey Room, (4) (Summer), 34–51.

Ross, R. (1991). Strange weather: Culture, science, and technology in the age of limits.
New York: Verso.

Ruiz-Geli, E., & Cloud 9. Clusters of Research. Retrieved from http://www.ruiz-

geli.com/.

Ryn, S. V., & Cowan, S. (1996). Ecological design. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Sabin, J. (2014). Jenny E. Sabin. Datascapes. Retrieved from https://aap.cornell.edu/

news-events/jenny-e-sabin-datascapes.

SCAPE/Landscape Architecture PLLC. (2014). The Hudson Riverport. Retrieved from

http://www.scapestudio.com/projects/the-hudson-riverport/.

Scott, D. F. (2007). Architecture or techno-utopia: Politics after modernism. Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press.

Scott, D. F. (2016). Outlaw territories: Environments of insecurity/architectures of

counterinsurgency. New York: Zone Books.

Cameron, S. D. (2012). Sir Tim Smit: The Eden Project. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/
Q5B4FFTGouQ.

Soleri, P. (1973). Arcology: The city in the image of man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Stevens, P. F. (1994). The development of biological systematics: Antoine-Laurent de

Jussieu and the natural system. New York: Columbia University Press.

Sullivan, L. H. (1924). A system of architectural ornament according with a philosophy of

man’s powers. New York: Press of the American Institute of Architects.

Tabas, B. (2015). Dark places: Ecology, place, and the metaphysics of horror fiction. In
Miranda, 11. Expressions of environment in Euroamerican culture/antique bodies in
nineteenth-century British literature and culture. Retrieved from https://
miranda.revues.org/7012.

Thompson, D. A. W. (1917). On growth and form. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

Press.

Thoreau, H. D. (1854). Walden, or, Life in the woods. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

Page 59 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

History of Ecological Design

Turner, F. (2006). From counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart brand, the Whole Earth
Network, and the rise of digital utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Turner, F. (2013). The democratic surround: Multimedia & American liberalism from
World War II to the psychedelic sixties. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Uexküll, J. V. (2010). A foray into the worlds of animals and humans: With a theory of
meaning. Trans by J. D. O’Neill. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Voorhees, D. W. (Ed.). (1983). Concise dictionary of American science. New York:

Scribner’s.

Waste Management and Control, US National Academy of Science (1966). National

Academy of Science, National Research Council publication 1400.

Welter, V. (2003). Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the city of life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Wright, F. L. (1939). An organic architecture: The architecture of democracy. London:

Lund Humphries.

Wright, F. L. (1957). The Mike Wallace interview. Interview by M. Wallace. In Harry

Ransom Center. New York. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/Y0Yo2e-kRWM.

Wulf, A. (2016). The invention of nature. Alexander von Humboldt’s new world. New York:
Vintage.

Žižek, S. (2008). Censorship today: violence, or ecology as a new opium for the masses.
Lacan.com, 18, 42–43.

Zurr, I., & Catts, O. (2002). The emergence of the semi-living. Thresholds, No. 24 (July),
MIT Press, pp. 54–59.

Lydia Kallipoliti

Assistant Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Page 60 of 60

PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ENVIRONMENTAL

Subscriber: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; date: 27 April 2018

Anne Spirn - Ecological - Urbanism-2011
No ratings yet
Anne Spirn - Ecological - Urbanism-2011
36 pages
The Natural Design Movement Design For H
No ratings yet
The Natural Design Movement Design For H
113 pages
Design With Nature 2014
No ratings yet
Design With Nature 2014
42 pages
The Environment and Its Components
No ratings yet
The Environment and Its Components
24 pages
2022 Ellective Affinities, de Las Rivas
No ratings yet
2022 Ellective Affinities, de Las Rivas
11 pages
The Ecosystem Concept: A Search For Order
No ratings yet
The Ecosystem Concept: A Search For Order
10 pages
EBSCO-FullText-28 04 2025
No ratings yet
EBSCO-FullText-28 04 2025
32 pages
Naveh, Z. and Lieberman, A.S. 1984. Landscape Ecology - Theory
No ratings yet
Naveh, Z. and Lieberman, A.S. 1984. Landscape Ecology - Theory
12 pages
Environmental Design: History
No ratings yet
Environmental Design: History
2 pages
Ecological Design Issues and The Role of Designers
No ratings yet
Ecological Design Issues and The Role of Designers
2 pages
Life and The Geometry
No ratings yet
Life and The Geometry
19 pages
Central University of Karnataka Department of Geography Lecture Notes For Environmentalism
No ratings yet
Central University of Karnataka Department of Geography Lecture Notes For Environmentalism
10 pages
Bringing Design To Life
No ratings yet
Bringing Design To Life
13 pages
AAGWiley InternationalEncyclopediapfGeography EnvHist PawsonandChristensen Acceptedmanuscript
No ratings yet
AAGWiley InternationalEncyclopediapfGeography EnvHist PawsonandChristensen Acceptedmanuscript
15 pages
Ecological Urbanism As A Means To Consider The New City, The Older City and The Shrinking City
100% (1)
Ecological Urbanism As A Means To Consider The New City, The Older City and The Shrinking City
23 pages
Ecology of Vulnerability
No ratings yet
Ecology of Vulnerability
54 pages
2010 Reed The Agency of Ecology
No ratings yet
2010 Reed The Agency of Ecology
1 page
Landscape Ecology: Second Edition
No ratings yet
Landscape Ecology: Second Edition
452 pages
1 Environmental Interrelationship
No ratings yet
1 Environmental Interrelationship
66 pages
Biologically Inspired Design: Reading Again. If You'd Like To Give Uncomfortable Reading A Try, Proceed Further
No ratings yet
Biologically Inspired Design: Reading Again. If You'd Like To Give Uncomfortable Reading A Try, Proceed Further
7 pages
AEB 211 Environmental Ecology - Section 1
No ratings yet
AEB 211 Environmental Ecology - Section 1
19 pages
Design in The Anthropocene - Intentions For The Unintentional Digicom2020
No ratings yet
Design in The Anthropocene - Intentions For The Unintentional Digicom2020
11 pages
Landscape Architecture
No ratings yet
Landscape Architecture
10 pages
Lister - Industrial Ecology
No ratings yet
Lister - Industrial Ecology
14 pages
The Pedagogy of Bio-Design
No ratings yet
The Pedagogy of Bio-Design
14 pages
1.1 Environmental Value System
No ratings yet
1.1 Environmental Value System
25 pages
Chapter 11 Environmental Ethics
No ratings yet
Chapter 11 Environmental Ethics
7 pages
Feral Design Final Manuscript
No ratings yet
Feral Design Final Manuscript
11 pages
Biogeochemistry Its Origins and Development
No ratings yet
Biogeochemistry Its Origins and Development
41 pages
Permaculture and Eco Architecture PDF
No ratings yet
Permaculture and Eco Architecture PDF
11 pages
Principles of Sustainable Design
100% (1)
Principles of Sustainable Design
55 pages
Sustainable Urban Design Solutions Through Biomimicry: An Islamic Perspective
No ratings yet
Sustainable Urban Design Solutions Through Biomimicry: An Islamic Perspective
8 pages
Envi
No ratings yet
Envi
3 pages
Towards Ecopedagogy Weaving A Broad Base
No ratings yet
Towards Ecopedagogy Weaving A Broad Base
22 pages
Ecoceno 702
No ratings yet
Ecoceno 702
16 pages
IDSA Okala Guide Web
No ratings yet
IDSA Okala Guide Web
8 pages
URP103 Note-1
No ratings yet
URP103 Note-1
34 pages
Interwoven Landscape: Procedia Engineering
No ratings yet
Interwoven Landscape: Procedia Engineering
9 pages
Philosophy, Environemnt and Development The Nexus
No ratings yet
Philosophy, Environemnt and Development The Nexus
35 pages
Thsyn Albyyt Almbnyt Bmsadt Alanzmt Albyyyt Almstd
No ratings yet
Thsyn Albyyt Almbnyt Bmsadt Alanzmt Albyyyt Almstd
11 pages
Green Design. in Ceramic
No ratings yet
Green Design. in Ceramic
5 pages
Env-107-Spring-2013 - L-1&2
No ratings yet
Env-107-Spring-2013 - L-1&2
15 pages
Ecological Narratives Unveiled
100% (1)
Ecological Narratives Unveiled
7 pages
Sim 1-3
No ratings yet
Sim 1-3
12 pages
Chapter 1 Environmental Science
No ratings yet
Chapter 1 Environmental Science
6 pages
Ecology As An Independent Science 58ea44bf
No ratings yet
Ecology As An Independent Science 58ea44bf
2 pages
GIS As A Planning Support System For The Planning of Harmonious Cities, No. 3
No ratings yet
GIS As A Planning Support System For The Planning of Harmonious Cities, No. 3
36 pages
Boudiaf - PHD Thesis
No ratings yet
Boudiaf - PHD Thesis
297 pages
Ecological Anthropology Trends Overview
No ratings yet
Ecological Anthropology Trends Overview
33 pages
Envt Ethics Hand Out CH 3
No ratings yet
Envt Ethics Hand Out CH 3
20 pages
308 Reed PA333
No ratings yet
308 Reed PA333
10 pages
Introduction: The Formation of Deep Ecology
No ratings yet
Introduction: The Formation of Deep Ecology
48 pages
Gregory Bateson, Critical Cybernetics and Ecological Aesthetics of Dwelling Jon Goodbun
No ratings yet
Gregory Bateson, Critical Cybernetics and Ecological Aesthetics of Dwelling Jon Goodbun
12 pages
Lesson 2 Sustainable Development An Evolving Paradigm For The 21st Century
50% (2)
Lesson 2 Sustainable Development An Evolving Paradigm For The 21st Century
35 pages
ENVISAFE - (1) Introduction
No ratings yet
ENVISAFE - (1) Introduction
69 pages
Rispoli - Planetary Environing - The Biosphere and The Earth System
No ratings yet
Rispoli - Planetary Environing - The Biosphere and The Earth System
22 pages
Vastu Purusha Mandala Academic Paper
No ratings yet
Vastu Purusha Mandala Academic Paper
10 pages
19 Environmenta WPS Office
No ratings yet
19 Environmenta WPS Office
17 pages
Design Thinking Methodology Book
88% (25)
Design Thinking Methodology Book
119 pages
(Architecture Ebook) Architectural Thought - The Design Process and The Expectant Eye
100% (10)
(Architecture Ebook) Architectural Thought - The Design Process and The Expectant Eye
191 pages
Landscape Architecture
98% (60)
Landscape Architecture
209 pages
TIME SAVER STANDARDS FOR INTERIOR DESIGN - Text PDF
90% (103)
TIME SAVER STANDARDS FOR INTERIOR DESIGN - Text PDF
1,172 pages
Academy, Skill Valley - PMI PMP PMBOK 7 Practice Exam Book_ Over 3 Full Practice Tests, Offering 540+ Realistic PMP Questions Aligned With PMBOK Guide, 7th Edition and 2021 ECO With Detailed Explanati
100% (21)
Academy, Skill Valley - PMI PMP PMBOK 7 Practice Exam Book_ Over 3 Full Practice Tests, Offering 540+ Realistic PMP Questions Aligned With PMBOK Guide, 7th Edition and 2021 ECO With Detailed Explanati
460 pages
Design Thinking Guide for Innovators
100% (17)
Design Thinking Guide for Innovators
124 pages
Residential Interior Design - A Guide To Planning Spaces
100% (36)
Residential Interior Design - A Guide To Planning Spaces
289 pages
PMBOK 6 + Agile
100% (25)
PMBOK 6 + Agile
976 pages
Site Analysis - Edward T White
87% (54)
Site Analysis - Edward T White
163 pages
Modern Construction Handbook
89% (54)
Modern Construction Handbook
498 pages
Graphic Thinking For Architects &amp Designers
96% (77)
Graphic Thinking For Architects &amp Designers
258 pages
DesignThinking MindsetSkillsetToolset v1
100% (11)
DesignThinking MindsetSkillsetToolset v1
101 pages
Design Thinking
100% (18)
Design Thinking
29 pages
Creating A Brand Identity A Guide For Designers (Graphic Design Books, Logo Design, Marketing) PDF
100% (28)
Creating A Brand Identity A Guide For Designers (Graphic Design Books, Logo Design, Marketing) PDF
161 pages
PMP Exam Prep Summary
100% (23)
PMP Exam Prep Summary
5 pages
Interior Architecture
100% (20)
Interior Architecture
178 pages
Design Thinking A Guide To Creative Problem Solving For Everyone PDF
100% (10)
Design Thinking A Guide To Creative Problem Solving For Everyone PDF
177 pages
Zero To One
95% (58)
Zero To One
200 pages
100 Site Analysis Essentials
100% (8)
100 Site Analysis Essentials
273 pages
Dry Construction
100% (6)
Dry Construction
114 pages
Design Management
75% (8)
Design Management
217 pages
PMP Exam Prep - 2023 11th Edition (Rita Mulcahy, PMP With Margo Kirwin)
93% (82)
PMP Exam Prep - 2023 11th Edition (Rita Mulcahy, PMP With Margo Kirwin)
456 pages
Facade Construction Manual PDF
100% (17)
Facade Construction Manual PDF
352 pages
Design Thinking Toolkit
100% (10)
Design Thinking Toolkit
50 pages
IDEO Toolkit
91% (11)
IDEO Toolkit
105 pages
The Interior Design Reference and Specif
100% (11)
The Interior Design Reference and Specif
291 pages
PMP Exam Prep Skyrocket Your Career by Becoming A Certified Project
75% (12)
PMP Exam Prep Skyrocket Your Career by Becoming A Certified Project
110 pages
Handbook of Building Construction
93% (41)
Handbook of Building Construction
507 pages
Thinking in Systems and Mental Models Think Like A Super Thinker by Marcus P. Dawson
92% (13)
Thinking in Systems and Mental Models Think Like A Super Thinker by Marcus P. Dawson
271 pages
Poplar LEED v4 GA Study Guide 1.8.102414 (Original)
93% (14)
Poplar LEED v4 GA Study Guide 1.8.102414 (Original)
137 pages
On
No ratings yet
On
5 pages
Biology Lab Report
No ratings yet
Biology Lab Report
4 pages
Copyright Law of The Philippines
No ratings yet
Copyright Law of The Philippines
3 pages
Development Skills Lesson 1 PDF
No ratings yet
Development Skills Lesson 1 PDF
20 pages
Pop Party Vibes for Teens
No ratings yet
Pop Party Vibes for Teens
2 pages
Jesus Christ Is Not God: Introduction (Excerpt)
No ratings yet
Jesus Christ Is Not God: Introduction (Excerpt)
2 pages
The Use of Calculators During A Physics: Pro and Contra
No ratings yet
The Use of Calculators During A Physics: Pro and Contra
19 pages
Unit V Folktale and Myth
No ratings yet
Unit V Folktale and Myth
42 pages
Magnetic Flux: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
No ratings yet
Magnetic Flux: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
2 pages
Gestalt Principles
No ratings yet
Gestalt Principles
23 pages
Experimental Research and Non-Experimental Research
No ratings yet
Experimental Research and Non-Experimental Research
14 pages
Comm 231 Final Synthesis Paper
No ratings yet
Comm 231 Final Synthesis Paper
9 pages
Value Realization and Business Case Guide
No ratings yet
Value Realization and Business Case Guide
129 pages
Consumer Decision-Making Models Within The Discipl
No ratings yet
Consumer Decision-Making Models Within The Discipl
10 pages
Abhav
No ratings yet
Abhav
18 pages
Argumentative Essay
No ratings yet
Argumentative Essay
6 pages
BORANG C - English For Frontliners
No ratings yet
BORANG C - English For Frontliners
4 pages
Lords Prayer
No ratings yet
Lords Prayer
2 pages
Lawrence University Suggests Student Group Could Be Punished For Screening Comedy Documentary
No ratings yet
Lawrence University Suggests Student Group Could Be Punished For Screening Comedy Documentary
1 page
Faith Over Works: A Spiritual Guide
No ratings yet
Faith Over Works: A Spiritual Guide
8 pages
Western Philosophy - Wikipedia PDF
No ratings yet
Western Philosophy - Wikipedia PDF
22 pages
A Comparative Grammar of The South African Bantu Languages
No ratings yet
A Comparative Grammar of The South African Bantu Languages
399 pages
Hiromasa Moriuchi - A Table of Handcuff Graphs With Up To Seven Crossings
100% (1)
Hiromasa Moriuchi - A Table of Handcuff Graphs With Up To Seven Crossings
22 pages
1001 Ways of Leadership
No ratings yet
1001 Ways of Leadership
5 pages
Compliant Flexure Mechanisms Study
No ratings yet
Compliant Flexure Mechanisms Study
133 pages
Ted Talk With David Sumner To Win You Must Lose Answers 2
No ratings yet
Ted Talk With David Sumner To Win You Must Lose Answers 2
3 pages
The Dyslexic Reader 2008 - Issue 50
No ratings yet
The Dyslexic Reader 2008 - Issue 50
28 pages
Therapeutic Religion and The Nova Effect
No ratings yet
Therapeutic Religion and The Nova Effect
10 pages
Jamie's Journey of Love & Loss
No ratings yet
Jamie's Journey of Love & Loss
3 pages
Atharvanavedha
No ratings yet
Atharvanavedha
7 pages