Design

What if buildings were created in relation to each other like ecosystems that regulate the complex life within air, earth and water?  How would our cities change?  How might we begin the process of transformation? 

Design as a human activity may trace its origins all the way back to the emergence of human consciousness in concert with the opposable thumb.  As humanity interacts with the environment in the here and now, design pervades every activity from architecture to package design, automobiles to microelectronics.  

The opportunity available now is to take up a thread within the design disciplines that ties directly to local ecosystems whether still in place or extirpated decades previous.  Designers make continuous choices in design’s early stages.  During this time the basic palette of form takes shape.  To use the local ecosystem as a point of origin for design choices allows the emerging work to absorb the sensibility of life in the immediate surroundings.  For example, little of the original ecosystem in an urban setting remains.  This condition requires designers to research a site’s ecology prior to human intervention.  Central Indiana was old growth forest 200 years ago.   As we look to nature, the land suggests that the most successful ecosystem available then and now is old growth forest. We fully absorb the ecological history of the land.  Thus, as we look to the creation of a living architecture, a living city, the underlying net of design choices is firstly nested within the ecosystem or bioregion of the site.

Our communities hold the knowledge of institutions, traditions and patterns of living.  Design’s threads are inevitably composed of anthropological memory where we uphold the traditions of place.   We do this most often with little careful reflection.  As designs emerge, choices are made automatically.  This is not a criticism; experienced designers use their accumulated work as a well whose conceptual water is drawn quickly and efficiently, applied with dexterity to solving a given problem.  Residential design is a perfect example.  How many designers give more than a second thought to placing public, semi-public and private spaces in a home?  The answer is obvious:  placing these spaces is second nature.  However, from the moment we consciously take up the knowledge associated with an ecology of place, the design process takes on a topology that requires the designer to return to a process that again is new and not fully formed.  This new land finds us somewhat uncomfortable, thrown out of the easy, tacitly made choices that have served us for perhaps decades.  The opportunity for lasting value in our design of buildings, spaces and communities lies in the fusion of ecological knowledge with our cultural traditions. 

The term holistic design is occasionally used to envision a process that infuses the totality of the design process and integrates the various elements of a building and site.  An evolved design process would ask us to relate architecture, land and interior environments at a level of integration never seen before.  In addition, as new structures were created, each would be considered in the context of its neighbors and inquire after opportunities for added synergism, diversity, energy production, and increased delight. 

This environment may take many forms.  No prescription in terms of aesthetics is suggested here.  What is suggested is a methodology to engage the design process with fundamentally different questions from the norm.  In answering these queries, the process is enriched and the results evolve beyond typical practice.  Each place with its unique history, people and ecologies will produce remarkable solutions that enrich us all.  To summarize, if we were to employ only two broad principles to ground this process we would seek a steady increase in local sources of energy, food, materials and skill.  Second, we would actively seek to emulate the natural processes native to a place. 

To test and prove our thesis we must locate pioneers who will take risks with us to explore an intentional design process, develop new technologies, blend ancient principles and regenerate a respect for the sacred act of making space for human beings to be fully alive. 

With this in mind, what if the boundary between building and land was blurred?  What if a building made its own energy?  What if the site and structure contributed to the diversity of life?  What if a building, in concert with its site and interior, excited joy in the hearts of the owners, visitors and users?  What if we thought of our built environment as being alive?