Eco-Design Cultural Context - Essay Example

?Eco-Design’s Cultural Context Introduction Built environment design has evolved over the years as influenced by changing client requirements, trends, political, social, and most recently, environmental factors. The demands of ecological, environmental and sustainable developments have dictated the need to adjust design especially for long-term built environment. The ever-increasing world population, decreasing and depleted natural resources, problematic waste disposal and pollution drove governments, policy-makers, planners and designers to adopt ways to address these concerns. In addition, social problems have also added complication to design as individual and community developments are incorporated in sustainable design. All these factors have merged together to enforce a more compliant design of built environments and human processes. This paper will present the cultural context of “eco design” or ecological design as presented by Ken Yeang and other proponents of green or eco design. Discussion Ecological design emerged from the threat of industrialism as towns turn to cities and populations exploded. Social problems escalated as natural resources become depleted or damaged beyond repair. This called for emergency actions that pushed considerations for life outside of the earth. An early advocate for ecological design was African ecologist John Phillips who coined “the biotic community” as a holistic approach to ecology (1968, 17). It further provided links between individual actions and the dynamics of an entire biotic community. Philips introduced the holistic approach to architects and planners and the need to include ecology and all forms of life in their designs. It was said that Ian McHarg who wrote Design with Nature (1969) was influenced by Phillips and the lectures of Walter Gropius in Harvard who warned his students of the human greed that has interfered with the biological cycle of human community and the organic social structure (29). Gropius told his students to “love and respect the land almost religiously,” (Gropius, 1945, p20). He stressed that humans must act appropriately for survival and as true agent in evolution. Phillips enumerated the causes of the ecological crisis as the reckless laissez-faire economy, individualism, Western capitalist greed, chaotic urbanization, fragmentation of social structures, and lack of planning. His proposal was the oriental approach: non-anthropocentric, implicit but orderly planning, and respect for the biotic community. From here, McHarg promoted science-based modernist architecture and planning that integrated respect for nature such as that of the Tennessee Valley Authority in a time when space exploration was the trend globally, linking the moon traveller’s perspective of the Earth as a whole and not the westernized compartmentalism. McHarg’s proposal was for a landscape design of an organic community of plants, insects, fish, animals and birds that would allow human consumption based on the self-sustained capacity of the capsule equivalent to the self-sustained cabin. It mandates an inventory of the environment with energy as the currency thereby determining limitations, allowable and prohibited changes, and determination of stability and instability (McHarg, 1968, 93). He advocated a need for designers and architects to fit in well with the ecological system through their landscapes and buildings with design adjusted on the basic human needs. Enlightened but guided by space explorations, the 1970s had ecological designers adopted space technologies, analytical tools, and ways of living for a respite from the doomed industrial society: space cabin-like structures that could allow men to survive once Earth has become a dead planet like Mars. It was an ecological future outside of Earth exemplified by closed, artificial, liveable environments in space (Anker, 2005, 529). By 1969, the New Alchemy inspired by McHarg was launched with the slogan, “To Restore the Lands, Protect the Seas, and Inform the Earth’s Stewards,” (Todd, 1976, 252). Their back-to-the-land commune integrated political anarchism, environmentalism, and even anti-urbanism (Rozak, 1977, 85). Their various arks mimic the earth but representing Biblical Noah’s with the Ark on Prince Edward the most ideal. The self-reliant building followed diagrams for the movement of energy, matter, food, sewage, plants, and humans (Page and Clark, 1975, 12). Ecological design is “inspired by a biologically informed vision of humankind embedded in an Arcadian dream of building in harmony with nature, according to its admirers, who do not draw connections to space exploration,” (Anker, 2005, 527) based on several observations (Hawkes, 1996, 54; Porteus, 2002, 67; Macy and Bonnemaison, 2003, 90) after encapsulated ecological design heavily influenced by human settlements in space subsided amongst designers. Ken Yeang Kenneth Yeang was an ecological architect student of Frazer in Cambridge and became well-known in the field during the building boom in Malaysia in the 1980s and 1990s. He proposed back then bionics that mimic natural processes in nature in order to secure optimum survival as problems of over-population, habitat destruction or deterioration, and suburban sprawl. He revived McHarg’s concept of the space capsule and used it to measure a building’s energy and material inputs and outputs and their total impact on the environment (Yeang, 1972, 435). Ken Young challenged designers to design for a sustainable future integrating all best practices since the emergence of eco-design beyond the use of photovoltaic systems, wind generators, compliance to certification systems, or planning as new urbanism (Yeang, 2010, 208). He insisted that green infrastructure is essential to every masterplan with the goal to achieve cleaner air, reduced heat-island effect in urban areas, moderate impact of climate change, increased energy efficiency, and protection of source water (Yeang, 2010). Yeang called for linear wildlife corridors that connect existing green spaces and larger green areas that may evolve into new larger habitats or form newly linked existing woodland belts or wetlands. New infrastructure must complement and enhance the natural landscape and its functions. Below is a summary of Yeang’s recommendation for eco-design in architecture and the built environment (209). Understanding the Environment The process starts with the identification of existing green routes and areas, and then, creation of additional green functional landscape elements. It creates, improves and rehabilitates ecological connectivity of the environment for plant and animal species. He highlighted for the need to adopt vertical (for multi-storeys) and horizontal (local and regional planning) approaches towards landscaping. In addition, impervious surfaces can provide connectivity using ecological bridges, undercrofts, and ramps, whilst upwards, the use of vertical ecological corridors with greenery that starts from the foundation towards the rooftop gardens. Yeang classified infrastructure as grey, blue, and red. Grey includes urban engineering of roads, drains, sewerage, water reticulation, telecommunications, energy and electric power distribution systems. Up until recently, these had been separate entities that excluded natural means but which today should incorporate green and sustainable infrastructure instead of waiting for nature to take its course. Blue on the other hand is water infrastructure, where Yeang recommended a closed loop management although he acknowledged low rainfall areas as problematic. He suggested harvesting of rainfall for recycling where surface water retained within the site, returned to the land for recharging of groundwater through filtration beds, pervious roadways, and built surfaces as well as retention ponds and bioswales. Surface water should be used in maximum to generate other environmental benefits. Instead of closed culverts for waterways, wetlands, meadows, and ecological buffer strips should be used. The red infrastructure is the human community and its built environment as well as regulatory systems, the social dimension. Yeang suggested that human lifestyles, economies, industries, mobility, diet and food, production, and all other activities be improved to become sustainable practices (Yeang, 2010, 211). Seamless & Benign Integration Yeang also recommended seamless and benign integration of green design on manmade and natural environment. This makes eco-design an act that integrates artificial systems mechanically and organically with the ecosystems hosting. Bio-integration is applied physically, systematically, and temporally. It should be applied based on surgical design such that failure to integrate well dislocates both the organic host and the device. It requires full understanding of the site, the natural environment and the ecosystem, as well as the objectives of the structure. Humans should start avoiding imposition on the environment and should consider its ecological capacity in order to limit localised impact as well as irreversible, wider area devastation usually resulting from clearing of trees and vegetation, levelling of topography, and diversion of existing waterways. He suggested the use of sieve-mapping for landscaping although its limitation should be considered: static treatment of the ecosystem that ignores the dynamic forces and complex interactions between the layers and within the ecosystem. Systemic integration of built forms and its operational systems and internal processes should not remain disparate as they will end up as pollutants if not biodegraded. Temporal integration is adopted for renewable and non-renewable resources to leave behind for future generations. Energy systems should use low energy and less dependent on non-renewable sources (Yeang, 2010, 2016). Ecomimesis In addition to the above, Yeang recommended ecomimesis that imitates the processing, structures, features and functions of nature: “recycling, using energy from the sun through photosynthesis, systems that heads towards increasing energy efficiency, holistic balance of biotic and abiotic constituents in the ecosystem,” (Yeang, 2010, 218). He noted that nature without humans exists in balance so that it should be the human who will adjust in nature’s processes, structure and functions and not the other way around. He emphasised the lack of waste on the natural ecosystems as everything is recycled within. The humans should therefore strive to minimise if not eliminate waste and that emissions are reused and recycled and eventually reintegrated with the natural environment. This system complements efficient uses of energy and material resources. The biosphere, Yeang observed, has biotic and abiotic components that act together as a whole which humans should learn from. Architecture should therefore be operational and integrated with nature using both organic and inorganic materials to balance the biosphere. A move towards use of organic materials should therefore be a goal of architects and designers. Most importantly, humans and design itself should learn from the ecosystem where the waste of one species is the food of another so that there is a continual web of life closing the loop through reuse, recycling, and reintegration back to nature (Yeang, 2010, 218). Restoration of Impaired Ecosystem It is the obligation of design to work beyond creating new artificial living urban ecosystems or even rehabilitating them. It should strive to restore and rehabilitate the impaired and devastated ecosystem not only in the most immediate but also the wider landscape. This will ensure species connectivity, interaction, mobility, and sharing of resources. It will enhance biodiversity and increase habitat resilience (Yeang, 2010, 220). Clearly, the adoption that Yeang proposes is a well-researched integration of best and available practices. Conclusion Green or eco-design is today a widely embraced practice not only in manufacturing and supply chain but also in engineering, design, and built environment. There was a time when green, or natural, and the manmade structure, which is grey, red or blue were separated. In the cultural context, green or eco-design was for a long time pushed away by designers and builders as if it was a world apart, a nuisance or a danger to the built structure. However, nature has its own way of teaching humanity, whether to their liking or not. It has been mostly a devastating process where irreversible damages not only to nature but to mankind himself were wrought. Through the traditional practices of many cultures respecting nature as co-inhabitants of this earth and through science, various bodies of disciplines including architecture and design have finally came into terms with the reality that the natural environment is where humans dwell first and foremost, and he, with all his astronomical and scientific powers and exploits cannot live without earth’s natural assistance. Through the systematic adoption of best practices that Yeang and other ecological architects, designers, and educators advocate, humans should not only continue and enhance what are already available. As already acknowledge, there are many more to be explored and adoption and expansion of existing practices are only the start towards a liveable earth composed of natural and manmade structures. It is man’s, as the most intelligent of beings, duty to enhance not only his life for himself, but also nature and his surrounding for his own sake and survival. After all, the earth might remain the only liveable capsule, or planet man and its co-inhabitants may ever find. Words: 2004 Reference: Anker, Peder. 2005. The closed world of ecological architecture. Journal of Architecture 10 (5), 527-551 Hawkes, Dean. 1996. The Environmental Tradition: Studies in the Architecture of Environment. Spon Press. Macy, Christine and Sarah Bonnemaison. 2003. Architecture and Nature. Routledge. McHarg, Ian. 1968. Values, Process and Form, in The Fitness of Man’s Environment. Smithsonian Institution Press. 207-227. McHarg, Ian. 1969. Design With Nature. Doubleday. Page, James Jr and Wilson Clark. 1975. The New Alchemy: How to Survive in Your Space Time, Smithsonian 5, Febraury, 8-29. Phillips, John. 1968. Ecology and the Ecological Approach. Via 1, 17-18. Porteus, Colin. 2002. The New Eco-Architecture: Alternatives from the Modern Movement. Spon Press. Rozak, Betty. 1977. Forward, in Nancy Todd and John Todd (eds) The Book of the New Alchemist, 74-106. EP Dutton. Todd, John. 1976. Pioneering for the 21st Century: A New Alchemist’s Perspective. The Ecologist 6, 252-257 Yeang, Kenneth. 1972. Bases for ecosystem design. Architectural Design 42, 434-436 Yeang, K. (2010) Strategies for Designing our Green Built Environment. Taylor & Sons. Read More