Ecology and Design

Frameworks For Learning

Bart Johnson, Kristina Hill, Bart Johnson, Kristina Hill

• Publisher: Island Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781597268653
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Professionals, faculty, and students are aware of the pressing need to integrate ecological principles into environmental design and planning education, but few materials exist to facilitate that development.

Ecology and Design addresses that shortcoming by articulating priorities and approaches for incorporating ecological principles in the teaching of landscape design and planning. The book explains why landscape architecture and design and planning faculty should include ecology as a standard part of their courses and curricula, provides insights on how that can be done, and offers models from successful programs. The book:

• examines the need for change in the education and practice of landscape architecture and in the physical planning and design professions as a whole
• asks what designers and physical planners need to know about ecology and what applied ecologists can learn from design and planning
• develops conceptual frameworks needed to realize an ecologically based approach to design and planning
• offers recommendations for the integration of ecology within a landscape architecture curriculum, as an example for other design fields such as civil engineering and architecture
• considers the implications for professional practice
• explores innovative approaches to collaboration among designers and ecologists

In addition to the editors, contributors include Carolyn Adams, Jack Ahern, Richard T. T. Forman, Michael Hough, James Karr, Joan Iverson Nassauer, David Orr, Kathy Poole, H. Ronald Pulliam, Anne Whiston Spirn, Sandra Steingraber, Carl Steinitz, Ken Tamminga, and William Wenk. Ecology and Design represents an important guidepost and source of ideas for faculty, students, and professionals in landscape architecture, urban design, planning and architecture, landscape ecology, conservation biology and restoration ecology, civil and environmental engineering, and related fields.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Toward Landscape Realism

Bart R. Johnson and Kristina Hill

Ecology, the study of interactions between organisms and their environments, has long been a compelling theme for faculty, practitioners, and students of landscape design and planning.¹ Frederick Law Olmsted’s visionary public designs, Jens Jensen’s native plantings, May Watt’s observations of vernacular landscapes, and Ian McHarg’s book, Design with Nature, are all milestones of ecological thinking in landscape design and planning. Many contemporary designers and planners identify an understanding of ecology as crucial to their work (Spirn 1984; Lyle 1985; Hough 1995; Thompson and Steiner 1997; Nassauer 1997). Yet ecology is a rapidly evolving field that has undergone major paradigm shifts in the past two decades. It no longer presupposes a “balance of nature,” but instead describes the natural world in terms of flux and change. Moreover, new fields of applied ecology such as conservation biology and restoration ecology have emerged in response to the global biodiversity crisis, a crisis inherently linked to the need to provide burgeoning human populations a reasonable quality of life. How can designers and planners respond to these increasingly global challenges, which require an integrated understanding of human societies and ecosystems? How will new theories of nature affect the theory and practice of landscape design and the collaborations that take place between scientists and designers?

Designers and planners are not alone in grappling with the interdependence of humans and natural systems. Many ecologists have come to recognize humans as keystone species in most, if not all, ecosystems. In a key development, some are beginning to emphasize urban ecosystems as critical landscape features (Pickett et al. 1997; Parlange 1998; Collins et al. 2000). Other ecologists have identified training in human dimensions of landscape change as an emerging need in conservation science education (e.g., Jacobson and McDuff 1998). Scientific practitioners are looking for new ways to collaborate as well.

Landscape designers, planners, and applied ecologists belong to a diverse group of disciplines that face common needs to integrate cultural and ecological understanding toward prescriptions for land protection and change. The extent to which they succeed in this endeavor depends not only on how scholars and professionals rethink their research and practice, but also on the priorities they establish for the next generation of scholars and practitioners through education.

That education, particularly its foundations and methods, is the subject of this book. We intend to stimulate faculty to think broadly and creatively about how they incorporate ecological knowledge in design and physical planning curricula, and to offer specific approaches to teaching. We ask what conceptual foundation and practical skills are needed for practitioners to develop ecologically responsible practices, and how they can adapt to a regulatory environment that is increasingly shaped by technical debates about environmental trends and impacts. How can we initiate collaborations with colleagues from the natural sciences to stimulate mutual learning and improved design and planning? How can we bring ecological accountability to design education while supporting our traditions of innovation and inspiration through art?

Common Ground for Dialogue

Within the last two decades, new ecological subdisciplines that seek to use ecological science as a foundation for solving environmental problems have gained prominence. Each has its own focus and approaches, and each is rapidly evolving (Boxes 1-1 to 1-4). New ideas for design subdisciplines have also emerged, including ecological engineering and ecorevelatory design. Meanwhile the established design professions have increasingly recognized the need for ecological awareness and responsibility, and have begun to adopt ecological guidelines for professional practice (Boxes 1-5 to 1-8). Whether these fields choose to learn from one another at this critical time, and whether they build collaborative approaches to land development and conservation, could have impacts that resonate throughout this century. One thing is abundantly clear—no single discipline possesses sufficient knowledge or skills to address the combined complexities of cultural and ecological issues across the diverse set of contexts and scales in which they occur.

This book project began with the idea that educational restructuring can be a means to plant the seeds of future professional and research collaborations among many fields, including landscape architecture, urban design, planning, architecture, civil and environmental engineering, landscape ecology, conservation biology, and restoration ecology. There are significant opportunities for these fields to learn from each other and, in so doing, to increase their relevance to contemporary issues. We feel that the core of such collaborations is twofold: first, to develop deep and meaningful understandings of places, including how each place is imbued with interdependent cultural and ecological attributes; and second, to assist individuals, organizations, communities, and regions to envision new courses of action and select from among alternatives. The essays contained in this book focus on identifying practical strategies for teaching these concepts and skills.

BOX 1-1. Conservation Biology

Conservation biology is a multidisciplinary science that has developed in response to the biodiversity crisis.

—Michael Soulé, What is conservation biology?

Conservation biology is the field of biology that studies the dynamics of diversity, scarcity and extinction.

—Reed F. Noss and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving nature’s legacy: Protecting and restoring biodiversity

ORGANIZATION NAME: Society for Conservation Biology (SCB)

ESTABLISHED: 1985

PRINCIPAL PUBLICATION: Conservation Biology

MEMBERSHIP: 5,200 members worldwide include resource managers, educators, government and private conservation workers, and students.

PURPOSE: SCB is “dedicated to promoting the scientific study of the phenomena that affect the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biological diversity . . . the Society was formed to help develop the scientific and technical means for the protection, maintenance, and restoration of life on this planet—its species, its ecological and evolutionary processes, and its particular and total environment.” To this end, members “encourage communication and collaboration between conservation biology and other disciplines (including other biological and physical sciences, the behavioral and social sciences, economics, law, and philosophy) that study and advise on conservation and natural resources issues.” <http://conbio.rice.edu/scb/info/>

Meffe and Carroll (1997, p. 22—25) suggest that conservation biology has a number of key characteristics that differentiate it from many other sciences. They arise from its goal of preserving “the evolutionary potential and ecological viability of a vast array of biodiversity,” which itself is necessitated by human predilections to attempt to “control, simplify and conquer” inherently complex and dynamic native ecological systems. In particular, it is a crisis discipline, based in science that is multidisciplinary, is necessarily inexact, is explicitly based in values, and requires both an evolutionary time scale and eternal vigilance.

BOX 1-2. Landscape Ecology

Landscape ecology is the study of spatial variation in landscapes at a variety of scales. It includes the biophysical and societal causes and consequences of landscape heterogeneity. Above all, it is broadly interdisciplinary.

—International Association for Landscape Ecology Web site <http://www.crle.uoguelph.ca/iale/>

ORGANIZATION NAME: International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE)

ESTABLISHED: 1982

PRINCIPAL PUBLICATION: Landscape Ecology

MEMBERSHIP: 1,500 members worldwide include landscape architects, ecologists, land/nature managers, conservation biologists, land-use planners, biogeographers, GIS specialists, spatial statisticians, wildlife biologists, and ecosystem modelers.

PURPOSE: The mission of IALE is to “develop landscape ecology as a scientific basis for analysis, planning and management of the landscapes of the world. IALE advances international co-operation and interdisciplinary synergism within the field, through scientific, scholarly, educational and communication activities.” IALE “encourages landscape ecologists to transcend boundaries and to work together building theory and developing knowledge of landscape pattern and process, developing integrative tools, and making them applicable to real landscape situations and applying them to solve problems.” Its core themes include the spatial pattern or structure of landscapes ranging from wilderness to cities, the relationship between pattern and process in landscapes, the relationship of human activity to landscape pattern, process, and change, and the effect of scale and disturbance on the landscape. <http://www.crle.uoguelph.ca/iale/>

BOX 1-3. Restoration Ecology

Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery and management of ecological integrity. Ecological integrity includes a critical range of variability in biodiversity, ecological processes and structures, regional and historical context, and sustainable cultural practices.

—Society for Ecological Restoration Web site <http://ser.org/>

ORGANIZATION NAME: Society for Ecological Restoration (SER)

ESTABLISHED: 1988

PRINCIPAL PUBLICATIONS: Restoration Ecology and Ecological Restoration

MEMBERSHIP: 2,300 members worldwide include scientists, planners, administrators, ecological consultants, first peoples, landscape architects, philosophers, teachers, engineers, natural areas managers, writers, growers, community activists, and volunteers, among others.

PURPOSE: The mission of SER is “to promote ecological restoration as a means of sustaining the diversity of life on Earth and reestablishing an ecologically healthy relationship between nature and culture.” To this end, SER encourages “the development of restoration, including restorative management, as a scientific and technical discipline, as a strategy for environmental conservation, as a technique for ecological research, and as a means of developing a mutually beneficial relationship between human beings and the rest of nature.” The society has endorsed nine Environmental Policies and seven Project Policies that offer specific guidelines for restoration efforts and their evaluation. <http://wwwser.org/>

Debates about the scope and nature of restoration and its sometimes imprecise or divergent usage have led to distinctions of the five Rs of restoration ecology: restoration, rehabilitation, reclamation, re-creation, and recovery (MacMahon 1997). When considering restorative approaches, it is important to recognize differences among these and to see the entire set as a toolbox of approaches, with “restoration” to some previous state as one among a continuum of possibilities.

BOX 1-4. Ecosystem Management

Ecosystem management integrates scientific knowledge of ecological relationships within a complex sociopolitical and values framework toward the general goal of protecting native ecosystem integrity over the long term.

—R. Edward Grumbine, What is ecosystem management?

Ecosystem management is management driven by explicit goals, executed by policies, protocols, and practices, and made adaptable by monitoring and research based on our best understanding of the ecological interactions and processes necessary to sustain ecosystem structure and function.

—Norman L. Christensen et al., The report of the Ecological Society of America committee on the scientific basis for ecosystem management

Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that there is no organization dedicated to its development, ecosystem management has become the primary paradigm of federal land management agencies. At the same time, it is clear that different agencies, organizations, and individuals use the term in very different ways. Most definitions rely on some concept of sustainability that includes ideas of ecological health or integrity as well as the delivery of goods and services for humans, but the relative emphasis on those qualities varies, as does the level of confidence that they can be jointly optimized. The Ecological Society of America report emphasizes that ecosystem management focuses primarily on the sustainability of ecosystem structures and processes necessary to deliver goods and services, rather than on the “deliverables.” To do so, it must incorporate eight key factors: long-term sustainability; clear operational goals; sound ecological models and understanding; complexity and interconnectedness; the dynamic character of ecosystems; attention to context and scale; humans as ecosystem components; and adaptability and accountability (Christensen et al. 1996).

In addition to a desire to encourage collaboration, our motivation for this book was to explore and debate the idea that all designs should be held accountable for their ecological impacts. We wanted to address the philosophical divide between designers who want to inspire through art and designers who want to sustain ...

Table of contents

• About Island Press
• About The Shire
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• CHAPTER 1 - Introduction: Toward Landscape Realism
• PART I - Theories of Nature in Ecology and Design
• PART II - Perspectives on Theory and Practice
• PART III - Education for Practice
• PART IV - Prescriptions for Change
• Notes on Primary Authors
• List of Contributors
• Index
• Island Press Board of Directors