Ecologies Design: Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism 9780367234478, 9780429279904

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Ecologies Design

The notion of ecology has become central to contemporary design discourse. This reflects contemporary concerns for our planet and a new understanding of the primary entanglement of the human species with the rest of the world. The use of the term ‘ecology’ with design tends to refer to how to integrate ecologies into design and cities and be understood in a biologically scientific and technical sense. In practice, this scientific-technical knowledge tends to be only loosely employed. The notion of ecology is also often used metaphorically in relation to the social use of space and cities. This book argues that what it calls the ‘biological’ and ‘social’ senses of ecology are both important and require distinctly different types of knowledge and practice. It proposes that science needs to be taken much more seriously in ‘biological ecologies’, and that ‘social ecologies’ can now be understood non-metaphorically as assemblages. Furthermore, this book argues that design practice itself can be understood much more rigorously, productively, and relevantly if understood ecologically. The plural term ‘ecologies design’ refers to these three types of ecological design. This book is unique in bringing these three perspectives on ecological design together in one place. It is significant in proposing that a strong sense of ecologies design practice will only follow from the interconnection of these three types of practice. Ecologies Design brings together leading international experts and relevant case studies in the form of edited research essays, case studies, and project work. It provides an overarching critique of current ecologically oriented approaches and offers evidence and exploration of emerging and effective methods, techniques, and concepts. It will be of great interest to academics, professionals, and students in the built environment disciplines. Maibritt Pedersen Zari is Senior Lecturer, and co-founder of the Ecologies Design Lab at the Wellington School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her expertise includes architectural biomimicry, biophilic design, ecosystem-based adaptation, urban climate change resilience and adaptation, particularly in the Pacific, and design for urban biodiversity. Pedersen Zari is author of Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry (2018). Peter Connolly is Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and co-founder of the Ecologies Design Lab at the Wellington School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. His work is focused on technique and theorising technique, in landscape architectural design and urbanism, design research, design representation, fieldwork, and aesthetic practices. He is co-author, with Rene Van Der Velde, of Technique (2004). Mark Southcombe is Senior Lecturer and co-founder of the Ecologies Design Lab at the Wellington School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, and Director of Southcombe Architects. His expertise includes design praxis, collective urban housing, ecologically and socially sustainable urban redevelopment, and prefabrication. Southcombe is co-author of Crossing Boundaries: Reflections on Collaborative Architectural Research (2017), [Re]Cuba: Renegotiating Seismic Resilience in Cuba Street Wellington (2014) and Kiwi Prefab: From Cottage to Cutting Edge (2013).

Routledge Research in Sustainable Urbanism

This series offers a forum for original and innovative research that engages with key debates and concepts in the field. Titles within the series range from empirical investigations to theoretical engagements, offering international perspectives and multidisciplinary dialogues across the social sciences. Co-Producing Knowledge for Sustainable Cities Joining Forces for Change Edited by Merritt Polk Global Garbage Urban Imaginaries of Waste, Excess, and Abandonment Edited by Christoph Lindner and Miriam Meissner The Experimental City Edited by James Evans, Andrew Karvonen and Rob Raven Imagining Sustainability Creative Urban Environmental Governance in Chicago and Melbourne Julie L. Cidell Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry Maibritt Pedersen Zari The Politics of Urban Sustainability Transitions Knowledge, Power and Governance Edited by Jens Stissing Jensen, Philipp Späth and Matthew Cashmore Ecologies Design Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism Edited by Maibritt Pedersen Zari, Peter Connolly and Mark Southcombe www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Sustainable-Urbanism/book-series/ RRSU

Ecologies Design

Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism Edited by Maibritt Pedersen Zari, Peter Connolly and Mark Southcombe

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Maibritt Pedersen Zari, Peter Connolly and Mark Southcombe; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Maibritt Pedersen Zari, Peter Connolly and Mark Southcombe to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-23447-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-27990-4 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For Tenzin, Pema, Tashi, and Rinchen. And for all of those to come across all species and places. May we live well together. For Kate, Caspar, Ruby, and Lydia. I cherish our shared history and know that I will love our shared future. For Gwen and Dorothy, Terry and Val, Carolyn, Luke and Joshua, Leah, Lachlan, Charlie and those to come. May we live with great love for each other and the places we inhabit, live humbly, with a generosity of spirit, and an awareness that our actions affect others.

Contents

List of figuresxi Notes on contributors xiv Foreword xxv Acknowledgements xxviii   1 Introduction: towards an ecologies design practice

1

PETER CONNOLLY, MAIBRITT PEDERSEN ZARI, AND MARK SOUTHCOMBE

PART 1

Biological ecologies design and regeneration11   2 Introduction: a shifting paradigm in ecologically focused design

13

MAIBRITT PEDERSEN ZARI

  3 Engaging with life: the developmental practice of regenerative development and design

17

BILL REED AND BEN HAGGARD

  4 Designing for living environments using regenerative development: a case study of The Paddock

26

DOMINIQUE HES AND JUDY BUSH

  5 The paradox of metrics: setting goals for regenerative design and development RICHARD GRAVES

34

viii

Contents

6 Ecological design as the biointegration of a set of ‘infrastructures’: the ‘quatrobrid’ constructed ecosystem

44

KEN YEANG

7 Creating and restoring urban ecologies: case studies in China

49

KONGJIAN YU

8 Towards wildlife-supportive green space design in metropolitan areas: lessons from an experimental study

62

AMIN RASTANDEH

9 The new design with nature

74

NAN ELLIN

10 Biomimicry: an opportunity for buildings to relate to place

85

DAYNA BAUMEISTER, MAIBRITT PEDERSEN ZARI, AND SAMANTHA HAYES

11 The emergence of biophilic design and planning: re-envisioning cities and city life

96

TIMOTHY BEATLEY

PART 2

Documenting social ecologies

107

12 Introduction: how to document urban/landscape assemblages

109

PETER CONNOLLY

13 City boids: diagramming molecular urbanism

111

SABINE MÜLLER AND ANDREAS QUEDNAU

14 Why would we spend time drawing with people doing their washing in a Chinese village?

121

NIGEL BERTRAM AND MARIKA NEUSTUPNY

15 Object-led interview: documenting geographical ideas

130

VICTORIA MARSHALL

16 Mapping informal settlements: a process for action DIEGO RAMÍREZ-LOVERING, DAŠA SPASOJEVIĆ, AND MICHAELA F. PRESCOTT

138

Contents ix 17 Ethnographic drawings and the benefits of using a sketchbook for fieldwork

149

KARINA KUSCHNIR

18 A landscape anthropology of green in Bahrain

158

GARETH DOHERTY

19 Valparaiso Publico: a graphic inventory of urban spaces in a Chilean city

165

MARIE COMBETTE, THOMAS BATZENSCHLAGER, AND CLÉMENCE PYBARO

20 Being with Hellersdorf: performative counter-mapping as a reflexive practice between architecture and anthropology

174

DIANA LUCAS-DROGAN AND HOLGER BRAUN-THÜRMANN

21 The happy city: an actor-network-theory manifesto

181

ALBENA YANEVA

22 The aesthetics of documenting urban and landscape assemblages

188

PETER CONNOLLY

PART 3

Ecologies design practices

199

23 Introduction: on the need for and potentials of ecological design practice

201

MARK SOUTHCOMBE

24 Indigenous ecological design

204

REBECCA KIDDLE

25 Ngāi Tūhoe’s Te Kura Whare: our living building

212

JEROME PARTINGTON AND MAIBRITT PEDERSEN ZARI

26 Design in relationship with an ecological entity

222

BRIDGET BUXTON

27 On the rise: a coastal planning strategy for adaptation in response to climate change KIERAN IBELL

231

x  Contents 28 There are no sustainable buildings without sustainable people

239

FABRICIO CHICCA

29 Labour, ecology, and architecture

246

PEGGY DEAMER

30 Integrating design teaching and practices

252

RAINER HIRTH, MARK SOUTHCOMBE, AND ROSANGELA TENORIO

31 Stranded assets

260

DANIEL A. BARBER

32 (Hybrid) architecture in and over time

268

SOFIE PELSMAKERS, JENNI POUTANEN, AND SINI SAARIMAA

33 Conclusion: a call to ecologies design action

276

PETER CONNOLLY, MAIBRITT PEDERSEN ZARI, AND MARK SOUTHCOMBE

Index

286

Figures

3.1 Life is nested: no boundaries. 3.2 Left: ineffective relationship (transactional). Right: effective relationship (mutually beneficial, reciprocal). 3.3 Left: general state of city from 1900 to 1980. Right: the current overall state of Viña del Mar. 4.1 The Paddock’s design, showing housing for humans and space for food growing as well as habitat for biodiversity. 5.1 A process for regenerative social-ecological design. 5.2 Social-ecological metrics for development. 7.1 Ecotones of Sanya Mangrove Park. 7.2 The preexisting site, site under construction, and the established Mangrove Park. 7.3 Puyangjiang Greenway River Corridor site plan. 7.4 Ecological buffers. 7.5 Meishe River Greenway and Fengxiang Park site plan. 7.6 Terraced sewage treatment. 8.1 Ecological aspects of Ganjnameh Valley (GV). 8.2 Hedgehog and rodent footprints. 8.3 Micro-ecological patterns in RG1 and mammals detected. 8.4 Micro-ecological patterns in RG2 and mammals detected. 9.1 Pervious paving surfaces. 9.2 Desert Broom Library. 9.3 Boeri Studio’s Bosco Verticale in Milan. 10.1 Genius of Place. 10.2 Ecological Performance Standards. 10.3 Life’s Principles. 11.1 Interface Headquarters. 11.2 The Nature Pyramid. 11.3 The Eastern Wildlands Map. 13.1 23 de Enero, topographical map of Caracas, 2000.

19 21 22 29 36 40 51 52 54 55 57 59 64 66 68 69 77 78 79 86 87 88 98 100 103 114

xii  Figures 13.2 Top: City Boids diagram of a barrio, drawing and collage. Middle: City Boids diagram of street marketing, drawing and collage. Bottom: City Boids diagram of stop-and-go vendors on the highway, drawing and collage. 13.3 City Boid diagram. 14.1 Xixinan: representation of the wider village environment. 14.2 Drawn map of overall Xixinan water network. 14.3 Xixinan: representation of the immediate environment around the water inlet. 15.1 Documenting the object-led interview. 15.2 Two maps showing peri-urban-rural settlement change. 16.1 24 RISE Communities in Suva, Fiji and Makassar, Indonesia. 16.2 A physical model as a space for socio-technical discussion. 16.3 Community map: spatial representation of socio-material interactions and the start of the action-plan. 17.1 Drawings by Luisa Machado and Tomás Meireles. 17.2 Sketches by student Diana Mello. 17.3 Drawings produced by student Rosa Richter. 19.1 Top: location of spaces documented. Bottom: view of Valparaiso city. 19.2 Documentation of Escalera Cummimarca. 19.3 Documentation of Terrazas Rudolph. 19.4 Documentation of Escalera Pasteur–Espiritu Santo. 20.1 Meeting at Art in the Underground/nGbK Hellersdorf. 20.2 Detail of recording dress. 20.3 Performance at the supermarket, Hellersdorf. 22.1 Fieldwork studies. 22.2 Documentation of ‘relays’. 22.3 Temporary squatters appropriating an area outside school gates and section showing synergies between the informal and formal households outside the school. 25.1 Te Kura Whare, Dawn Opening. 25.2 Te Kura Whare making of Earth Blocks. 26.1 Design experiment 1: the Watchtower from the banks of the Awa. 26.2 Design experiment 2: the Bridge from the banks of the Awa. 26.3 Design experiment 4: map of imagined future once River Mouth Release has been implemented. 27.1 Proposed Master Plan, South Otaki Beach. 30.1 Rainer Hirth, workshop with students from India, China and Germany in Bangalore, India at the Tata Institute. 30.2 Rainer Hirth, practical design build project with students in Coburg, Germany.

117 118 122 125 126 132 135 141 144 145 151 153 155 167 168 170 171 176 178 179 191 193 195 213 217 224 226 228 234 257 258

Figures xiii 31.1 Aladar Olgyay, “Thermal Economics of Curtain Walls”, from Architectural Forum, October 1957. 31.2 Victor and Aladar Olgyay, the façade as ‘environmental filter’ from Solar Control and Shading Devices (New York: Reinhold, 1957), reproduced with permission. 32.1 Summary overview of ecological, spatial, and mixed-use adaptability approaches, with time dimension.

264 265 270

Notes on contributors

Part 1: biological ecologies design and regeneration Dayna Baumeister Biomimicry 3.8, United States of America With a background in biology, a devotion to applied natural history, and a passion for sharing the wonders of nature with others, Dayna has worked in the field of biomimicry with Janine Benyus since 1998 as a business catalyst, educator, researcher, and design consultant. Together they founded the Biomimicry Guild, the Biomimicry Institute, and Biomimicry 3.8, collectively fertilising the movement of biomimicry as an innovative practice and philosophy to meet the world’s sustainability challenges. Dayna designed and teaches the world’s first MS in Biomimicry as Professor of Practice at Arizona State University (ASU); she co-founded the Biomimicry Center at ASU; and compiled more than 20 years of experience in biomimicry into the Biomimicry Resource Handbook: A Seed Bank of Knowledge and Best Practices (2013). Timothy Beatley University of Virginia, United States of America Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia (UVA), where he has taught for the last 30 years. Beatley is the author or co-author of more than 15 books, including Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities (recently translated into Chinese), Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age, and Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning.  Beatley directs the Biophilic Cities Project at UVA (http://bio philiccities.org/) and co-founded UVA’s Center for Design and Health within the School of Architecture. Judy Bush University of Melbourne, Australia Dr Judy Bush is Lecturer in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on urban environmental policy and governance; her current focus includes governance and policy approaches for urban green space, biodiversity, urban ecology, and climate change perspectives. She completed her

Notes on contributors  xv PhD on ‘Cooling cities with green space: policy perspectives’ at the University of Melbourne. Prior to undertaking her PhD she worked with alliances of local government on climate change action, community engagement, and waterways restoration in Melbourne, Australia. Nan Ellin University of Colorado Denver, United States of America Nan Ellin is Dean of the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado, Denver. Ellin’s scholarship and practice have contributed to the creation of vital and vibrant places, with particular focus on revitalising large swathes of urban fabric along waterways and rail corridors. She spearheaded Canalscape for the Phoenix region, the 9 Line in Salt Lake City, and the Trinity Innovation District for North Texas. Ellin holds a PhD in urban design from Columbia University and her writings  – including Postmodern Urbanism, Integral Urbanism, and Good Urbanism  – have been translated into 13 languages. Richard Graves University of Minnesota, United States of America Richard is Director of the Center for Sustainable Building Research and Associate Professor in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. From 2012 to 2014, he was Executive Director of the International Living Future Institute, leading the operations and strategic efforts around all of the Institute’s signature programmes. His research focuses on regenerative design as a fundamentally new approach that must be required of architecture across scales (from the building to the neighbourhood to the city) to achieve sustainable and resilient urban development in a dynamic world. Ben Haggard Regenesis Group, United States of America Ben Haggard is an author, educator, visual artist, and founding member of Regenesis Group, which has pioneered the theory and practice of Regenerative Development. He is the co-author, with Pamela Mang, of Regenerative Development & Design: A Framework for Evolving Sustainability. He currently divides his time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Berlin, Germany. Samantha Hayes Griffith University, Australia Samantha Hayes is a PhD researcher within the Cities Research Institute at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. Her research focuses on opportunities for biomimicry to support regenerative design in the built environment. This includes learning from nature to inform innovative engineering approaches to resilience, sustainability, and adaptation. She is also a senior sustainability professional with extensive experience in delivering organisational and project level sustainability outcomes across infrastructure and built environment, telecommunications, education, and government sectors.

xvi  Notes on contributors Dominique Hes University of Melbourne, Australia Dominique is a longtime lover of nature, with degrees in botany, engineering, and architecture. Her passion has always focused on supporting nature and people to thrive. Her three recent books talk about aspects of this concept: Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability (2015), Enabling EcoCities (2018) and Placemaking Fundamentals for the Built Environment (2019). Dominique was a founding director of the Living Future Institute Australia, an organisation challenging the building industry to leave a positive legacy through every project. She is currently on the board of Greenfleet who offset carbon by planting and restoring ecosystems. Dominique is a firm believer in the view that we need nature in our lives, cities, and homes to be our best selves, to be healthy both physically and mentally. Amin Rastandeh Tarbiat Modares University, Iran Amin Rastandeh received his PhD in landscape architecture from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. During his PhD, he examined how landscape patterns can safeguard or undermine indigenous biodiversity in the face of climate change. Since 2008, Amin has been active in several interdisciplinary research projects specialising in urban ecology, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem services analysis. In research, his greatest passion is to tackle some of the most difficult problems facing our world in the next century, by anticipating new discoveries that can help improve our local and global communities. Bill Reed Regenesis Inc., United States of America Bill is an internationally recognised proponent, author, and practitioner in sustainability and regeneration, and is a principal in Regenesis, Inc., a living system design and education organisation working with the built environment as an instrument to develop a co-evolutionary relationship between people and place. This work centres on developing the capability of participants to engage in a mutually beneficial relationship with life and each other. The purpose: to regenerate the physical, social, natural, and spiritual life in our communities and the planet. Bill is an author of the seminal work Integrative Design Guide to Green Building.  He is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the US Green Building Council and one of the co-founders of the LEED Green Building Rating System. Ken Yeang T. R. Hamzah and Yeang Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia Ken Yeang is both architect and ecologist, known for his authentic and innovative ecology-based signature ecoarchitecture and ecomasterplans with a distinctive verdant green aesthetic, going beyond conventional accreditation. In 2008, he was named by The Guardian as one of the ‘50 people who could save

Notes on contributors  xvii the planet’. He trained at the Architectural Association School (UK). With a doctorate from Cambridge University on ecological architecture and planning, he holds the Plym Distinguished Professorship (Illinois University). He has authored over 12 books on green architecture. Awards received include the Aga Khan Award, Malaysian Institute of Architects Gold Medal, and Malaysian Government’s Merdeka Award. Kongjian Yu Peking University, China Kongjian Yu received his doctor of design degree at Harvard, and is Professor and founding Dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape at Peking University. He founded Turenscape. His projects have won numerous international awards including 12 ASLA Excellence and Honor Awards and five WAF World Best Landscape of the Year Awards. His pioneering research on ecological security and sponge cities has been adopted by the Chinese government as guiding theory for nationwide ecological campaigns. He was elected to be Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016, and received the Doctor Honoris Causa from the Sapienza University of Rome in 2017. 

Part 2: social ecologies Thomas Batzenschlager Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Grass+Batz+, Chile Graduated from Nancy´s architecture school in 2011 with a thesis in social housing transformation, in collaboration with Clémence Pybaro, he was awarded the ‘Prix d’Architecture’ of the ‘Académie de Stanislas’. After a journey of collaborations with architecture offices in France, China, and Chile, where he worked on various types and scales of architecture projects, he has developed a series of projects and research, from an academic perspective as a teacher in different architecture schools in Chile (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2015), and from a professional perspective as co-founder of an architecture office together with Chilean architect Diego Grass Puga. Nigel Bertram Monash University and NMBW Architecture Studio, Australia Nigel Bertram is a founding director of NMBW Architecture Studio, established with Lucinda McLean in Melbourne in 1997. He is Practice Professor of Architecture at Monash University, where his current research with the Monash Urban Laboratory tests design-led processes for suburban regeneration and infill redevelopment, seeking new relationships between natural and humanmade systems. Holger Braun-Thürmann Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin, Germany Dr Holger Braun works as a lecturer at Alice Salomon Hochschule, Berlin, and is also affiliated to the Institute of Sociology of the University of Hamburg.

xviii  Notes on contributors Her PhD studies were within the field of science and technology studies. Her latest publications are devoted to virtual reality and the concept of social innovation. Marie Combette Marie Combette Architecture, Ecuador She holds a masters in architecture, with a specialisation in philosophy, from the ENSANancy, France (2010) on the experience of collective housing in Mexico and is accredited HMONP from the ENSAGrenoble, France (2016) on a cumulative research project ‘Archisanat: the relationship between architecture and crafts’. Marie’s professional experiences includes various types and scales of architecture projects in France, Switzerland, Chile, Paraguay, Mexico, and Ecuador. Her practice involves construction, architectural investigation and analysis, artisanal pedagogies, illustration, graphic design, and art curation. Currently, she resides and works in Quito, Ecuador, where she has her office of architecture: Marie Combette, ARCHISANAT in ‘La Ortiga, ideario urbano’, a collective of architects, urbanists, makers and artists. Gareth Doherty Harvard University, United States of America Gareth Doherty is Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of the Masters in Landscape Architecture programme at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Doherty’s research and teaching focus on the intersections between landscape architecture and anthropology. His recent research projects have centred on the relationship between people and the landscapes they inhabit and make in various sites across the postcolonial and Islamic worlds, specifically in the Arabian peninsula, West Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Karina Kuschnir Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Karina Kuschnir has a PhD in social anthropology. She works as Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology of the Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she coordinates the Urban Anthropology Laboratory. She is currently developing the project ‘Ethnographic Drawings: explorations of recording and research techniques in anthropology’. Diana Lucas-Drogan MetroZones, Germany Diana Lucas Drogan is a member of MetroZones, and works as a freelance mapping-artist and architect. She works as a lecturer and associated assistant in Berlin and Brunswick. Her focus on counter mapping as practice challenges hegemonic spatial knowledge production in it’s visual and performative manifestation. Her work has been exhibited in numerous institutions.

Notes on contributors xix Victoria Marshall National University of Singapore, ETH Future Cities Lab, Singapore, and Till Design Victoria Marshall is a president’s graduate fellow at the National University of Singapore in the Department of Geography. She is also a researcher in the Urban-rural Systems group at the ETH Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore. Marshall teaches at Yale-NUS and has previously taught at many wellregarded design schools in the northeast United States. Marshall is the founder of Till Design and is a licensed landscape architect. She received a masters of landscape architecture and a certificate in urban design from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor of landscape architecture degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Sabine Müller The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway and SMAQ, Germany Sabine Müller is Professor of Urbanism at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and founding partner of the architecture, urban design, and research practice SMAQ (Berlin). She received a diploma in architecture from Kassel University and a masters in advanced architectural design from Columbia University, Graduate School for Architecture Planning and Preservation in New York. She worked for West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture (Rotterdam) before establishing SMAQ with Andreas Quednau. With SMAQ she has conducted numerous urban research projects in Africa, Latin America, and Germany. Michaela F. Prescott Monash University, Australia Dr  Michaela F. Prescott’s research focuses on the socio-spatial dimensions of landscapes and urban environments, and the evolving relation of landscape, infrastructure, and urbanisation. Michaela is a landscape architect and research fellow in the Informal Cities Lab in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University. Prior to joining Monash University, she worked as a researcher at the Future Cities Laboratory (Singapore ETH Centre) and RMIT University. She has been involved in various research projects related to the urbanisation of water and river systems, the impact of infrastructure on neighbourhoods and communities, and delivery and sustainability of communitybased projects. Clémence Pybaro Elemental, Chile Clémence Pybaro (1987, Reims, France), studied at the National Superior School of Architecture in Nancy, France, and graduated in 2011. After living and working in Beijing, China from 2011 to 2013, she now currently lives in Santiago de Chile, working at ELEMENTAL, the architecture office led by Pritzer Prize laureate Alejandro Aravena.

xx  Notes on contributors Andreas Quednau Leibniz University and SMAQ, Germany Andreas Quednau is Professor of Urban Design at Leibniz University, Hannover and founding partner of the architecture, urban design and research practice SMAQ (Berlin). He received a diploma in architecture from Berlin University of Technology and a masters in advanced architectural design (hons) from Columbia University, Graduate School for Architecture Planning and Preservation in New York. He worked for Diller Scofidio + Renfro (New York), KCAP (Rotterdam), and Arata Isozaki (Berlin) before establishing SMAQ with Sabine Müller. Among other awards, he has received the Architectural Review Award for Emerging Architects and the Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction. Diego Ramírez-Lovering Monash University, Australia Professor Diego Ramírez-Lovering’s research examines the contributory role that architecture and urbanism can play in addressing the significant challenges facing contemporary urban environments: climate change, resource limitations, and rapid population growth, with a key focus on the Global South and through a lens of planetary health. Diego is the director of the Informal Cities Lab (ICL) in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University. The Lab undertakes design-based research exploring and speculating on the conditions of informality in developing cities. ICL research  – designed and conducted in collaboration with government and industry – strives for impact, purposefully and strategically targeting implementation at the intersection of academic research and international development. Daša Spasojević Monash University, Australia Daša Spasojević is a PhD researcher in architecture and urban planning at Monash University. Her research investigates how social and technical dimensions come together through design, and how participatory processes generate sustainable design outcomes. At Monash University, she is currently working on the design and implementation of co-design processes for communities involved in green infrastructure projects in  Indonesia. Albena Yaneva University of Manchester, United Kingdom and Lund University, Sweden Albena Yaneva is Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Manchester, UK. She has worked at Princeton School of Architecture and Parsons. She currently holds the prestigious Lise Meitner Visiting Chair at Lund, Sweden. She is the author of The Making of a Building (2009), Made by the OMA: An Ethnography of Design (2009), Mapping Controversies in Architecture (2012), and Five Ways to Make Architecture Political: An Introduction to the Politics of Design Practice (2017). Her work has been translated into German, Italian,

Notes on contributors xxi Spanish, French, Portuguese, Thai, Polish, Turkish, and Japanese. Yaneva is the recipient of the RIBA President’s award for research. 

Part 3: ecologies practices Daniel A. Barber Studio Pacific Architecture, New Zealand Daniel A. Barber is Associate Professor of Architecture and Chair of the PhD programme at the University of Pennsylvania. He researches historical relationships between architecture and global environmental culture, reframing the means and ends of architectural expertise towards a more robust engagement with the climate crisis. His second book Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning will be published in 2020. He has held fellowships at the Harvard Center for the Environment, the Princeton Environmental Institute, and currently is an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research fellow. Daniel edits the Accumulation series on the e-flux Architecture online platform. Bridget Buxton University of Pennsylvania, United States of America Bridget is an architectural graduate with a passion for interdisciplinary approaches to architecture, landscape, and urbanism inspired by a strong attention to context. Her interest in cultural landscapes and indigenous design was influenced by study abroad at the University of British Columbia. As her research thesis for her masters of architecture studies at Victoria University of Wellington, she explored ways design and planning can facilitate respect and recognition of ecological entities, responding to the Te Awa Tupua legislation which granted the Whanganui River legal personhood. Bridget is now collaborating on a variety of architectural projects at Studio Pacific Architecture, Wellington. Fabricio Chicca Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand Fabricio Chicca is an architect, urban and landscape designer. He has vast experience in the real estate market and has worked in different countries as a developer. He has a master’s in architecture and urban design from Mackenzie University in Brazil. In 2009, Fabricio studied towards a PhD concluded in 2013 at Victoria University of Wellington where he currently works as a senior lecturer teaching sustainability and project management. Fabricio won the national student graduation work competition (Opera Prima – 97), one of the largest student competitions in the world.  Peggy Deamer Deamer, Studio Peggy Deamer is Professor Emerita of Yale University’s School of Architecture and principal in the firm of Deamer, Studio.  She is the founding member and

xxii  Notes on contributors the research coordinator of the Architecture Lobby, a group advocating for the value of architectural design and labor. She is the editor of Architecture and Capitalism: 1845 to the Present and The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design and the forthcoming Architecture and Labor. Her theory work explores the relationship between subjectivity, design, and labour. She received the Architectural Record 2018 Women in Architecture Activist Award.  Rainer Hirth Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany Prof. Rainer Hirth has been teaching design and construction at Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Germany, Department of Architecture since 2008. He has a research and teaching focus on sustainable and rural architecture. He is a practicing and independent architect and principal of Hirth Vogel Architects, Frankfurt and Bensheim. His practice has an emphasis on social housing, apartment buildings, and residential homes for elderly people. Rainer is also a consultant for the GIZ – German Development Agency. He has lectured in New Zealand and conducted design workshops in many different places including Mexico, China, India, Jordan, and Turkey. Kieran Ibell Kieran Ibell obtained his masters of architecture from Victoria University of Wellington in 2019, receiving a distinction for his research and response to climate change implications for coastal communities in New Zealand.  Kieran’s current interests include coastal housing, site specific design, and ecological design. Rebecca Kiddle Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand Becky is Ngāti Porou and Ngā Puhi and is a senior lecturer at the Architecture School, Victoria University of Wellington. Her research focuses on Māori identity and placemaking in Aotearoa New Zealand and the nexus between community creation, social processes, and urban design. She also works to develop better participatory design processes to ensure rangatahi and tamariki voices are heard in built environment decision-making processes. She has a PhD and MA in urban design from Oxford Brookes University, UK and undergraduate degrees in politics and Māori studies. She is co-editor of the Our Voices series along with Professor Kevin O’Brien (Australia) and Dr  Luugigyoo Patrick Stewart (Turtle Island) which includes Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture (2018) and the forthcoming (2020) Our Voices II: The Decolonial Project. Jerome Partington Jasmax, New Zealand Jerome is Sustainability Manager + Associate Principle at Jasmax. He is a leading specialist in Aotearoa  – promoting a strategic approach to green design using integrated process and regenerative development. Additionally, as Chair of Living Future NZ Rākeiora, home of the Living Building Challenge, he is

Notes on contributors xxiii working with industry to advocate systems thinking, to educate and transform our industry to one that can create our living future. His 25 years of professional practice created many leading edge green projects in NZ. By helping others see potential beyond the brief, he works to ensure the project actively engages all stakeholders to achieve value adding outcomes and intergenerational social and ecological value. He provided the sustainable framework for Te Kura Whare, which achieved Living Building Challenge certification. This is NZ’s most advanced sustainable building. Jenni Poutanen Tampere University, Finland Jenni Poutanen is an architect (MSc.) and a university teacher in architectural design, School of Architecture, Tampere University. She is preparing her PhD on learning spaces in higher education. Her research focuses on user-centric design, socio-spatial qualities and retrofitting of the existing facilities for current and future needs of learning in order to support the life cycle of campus buildings. She is also working with spatial interventions, knowledge work environments, and innovation areas. Alongside her research work, she has both consulted and designed learning space retrofits. Prior to joining academia, she worked as a designer in architectural practices for several years. Sofie Pelsmakers Tampere University, Finland Sofie Pelsmakers is Assistant Professor (tenure track) at Tampere University (Finland), where she chairs the Sustainable Housing Design research group. Her passion is for practice and research that makes a difference and responds to current societal and environmental challenges and she is particularly interested in how buildings and spaces work in reality, and how buildings are used and change over time. She attempts to bridge the information gap between research and architectural practice and authored The Environmental Design Pocketbook, a comprehensive publication which distils environmental science, legislation, and guidance into one easy-to-use single source. Sini Saarimaa Tampere University, Finland Sini Saarimaa is an architect (MSc), working as a doctoral researcher in the Sustainable Housing Design research group, the School of Architecture in Tampere University. Her research focuses on user-centric housing solutions and modularity in industrial housing production. As a project manager she has been responsible for implementing development and research projects which operate in between academia and practice. Currently, her ongoing doctoral study looks to enrich the understanding of design characteristics of adaptive apartments in order to support person–environment fit. She has worked in several architectural offices alongside academic work during the last ten years.

xxiv  Notes on contributors Rosangela Tenorio University of Western Australia, Australia Associate Professor Rosangela Tenorio joined the School of Design, University of Western Australia in 2018. She has held previous positions as an academic in New Zealand, China, and Brazil and has led a number of collaborative research and design projects (e.g. India, Italy, Chile, Mexico, Japan, USA). She lectures environmental design courses and design studio and has research expertise in sustainable design for rural development, with a focus on countries within the tropical belt. She has co-founded the Bio-Based Materials Design Lab (BBmD-Lab), a collaborative platform for enhanced integration of product design and architecture practices, with a focus on affordability and circular ecological economies.

Foreword

How soon is NOW? Klaus Klaas Loenhart Terrain: Integral Designs, Germany and TU Graz, Austria

Environmental controversies Slowly, we are beginning to realise that we are living in a world in which we are fundamentally influencing and changing the rhythms, dynamics, and workings of the natural world. We ourselves have become a force upon Nature and have arrived at the reality of a new and challenging climate regime. Within an utmost intermingling of humans, their environs, and atmosphere, societal controversies concerning the current socio-economic state of the planet and the environment are becoming increasingly visible. This calls for action; a remarkable cognitive path from ‘a matter of fact to a matter of concern’. It seems that for so long, we have so powerfully neglected the effects of the couplings of our societal and living systems. It is our now concerned eye that renders the enlarged agency of anthropogenic forces and processes at work, to be not only distinct subjects of scientific inquiry, but also reveals them to be immediately conditioning and interacting with our own lives and all life on this planet. The rather short narrative of the environmentally separative social and economic agencies of our modern world now folds into the deep time of our planetary ecologies. And our maps then no longer define the territory. Suddenly we find ourselves under a common sky with all life on this planet, as the Anthropocene changes climates or ocean acidification occurs, along with numerous other effects. These effects are revealed as quasi-subjects, as acting nature-cultures that emerge as a condition of networks and of pervasive assemblages.

Ecological thought as vantage point It is NOW, when the modern myth of unlimited growth and success exhibits visible ruptures that other vantage points emerge. Urged on by environmental

xxvi  Foreword controversies of the new climate regime, we are forced to contemplate and reconceive the ecological dimensions of our being in the world. Our civilisation has now entered the process of moving beyond modern categories of the discrete and opposing spheres of ‘culture versus nature’. A consensus is growing that the natural domain is no longer to be objectified as ‘outside’ of Culture; to become easily manipulated and exploited without obvious consequences. Within this fundamental realisation, the ecological domain reappears twofold, as signifier and as medium, of the mixing and propagating of artificial and natural elements, of processes that are never limited to the conception of either the Cultural or the Natural. Ecology then appears as a looking glass of a sort. As ecologic entanglement dissolves the contours of modernist dialectics (Latour, 2004), it foregrounds the characteristics of a performative “workingsystem” (Bennett, 2004) where human and non-human agents – all life – meet and ­interact. In contemplating upon the deep societal entanglement of ecologic systems, it lays bare those realities that intermingle politics, science, technology, and the natural commons. This all embodied ‘inter-subjective’ and ‘interobjective’ life-world demonstrates the ontological impossibility of extracting a human body from the vastness of messy relations of our planetary all. It becomes obvious that not only the human being but ecology as well is a ‘political animal’. The task thus arises to reconceptualise modernist ontologies of ‘being-inthe-world’ through ecological thinking as an integral part of our society-related ambitions and decision making. Stories undo stories; and in this, it is the imaginary of ecological thought that carries those stories for a profound reconception of the ecologically interwoven conditioning of the living planetary biosphere.

Design politics As a collective awareness is developing for ‘what it means to act now’ one might ask: how soon then is NOW, for the design disciplines to fundamentally explore the ecological imaginary? We all must agree that the NOW has begun. Now more than ever, the design disciplines are confronted with the primordial task of addressing seemingly contradictory facets of our environmentally embedded future. A first step then is to rediscover our actual entanglement; not just relating to, but becoming the environment (in our actions). In re-imagining an integrative ecology of our own thinking process, we may challenge the convenience of our modernist separatist conditioning of thought itself. The essential metabolic truth of deepest ecological integration then may be put to work in our practices to negotiate between the individual, the ecological, and the political. Designing ecologies then becomes a projective practice. The profound cultural emergence of ecological thought provides tremendous potential for a significant re-conception of designing and acting as part of our living planetary biomes. This in no way connotes a path back to nature, but more the need to allude to a network of dynamic, material, and performative relationships of non-dystopian visions that embrace natural processes of truly living ecologies.

Foreword  xxvii Designing interdependencies between humans connected with other beings – animals, plants, or minerals – makes their domains porous, and in doing so, our societal ambitions could vigorously give way to a new imaginary of cultural and aesthetic responses that inextricably enmesh with the aliveness of nonhuman agencies beyond any scale. It is the proposal for a new kind of ‘in der Welt sein’; of a falling into the living world. Such a co-relation ignites tremendous space for creativity that can be modeled on the laws of ecological entanglement, continuously engaging natural and societal organisms and built systems. It is NOW that it becomes palpable to render these pervasive assemblages of living agencies as an integral part of our own existence; now in a societal dimension, to engage in an ecological reformation in design, environmental aesthetics, and our societies as such. Let us collectively begin this imaginative journey! Klaus Klaas Loenhart January 2020

References Bennett, J. 2004. “The force of things: Steps toward an ecology of matter.” Political Theory 32: 3, 347–372. Latour, B. 2004. Politics of Nature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Acknowledgements

The authors/editors would like to thank Klaus Loenhart for his insightful foreword. We would also like to thank all of the contributors to this book. Without them it would not have been possible: Daniel Barber, Thomas Batzenschlager, Dayna Baumeister, Timothy Beatley, Nigel Bertram, Holger Braun-Thürmann, Judy Bush, Bridget Buxton, Fabricio Chicca, Marie Combette, Peggy Deamer, Gareth Doherty, Nan Ellin, Richard Graves, Ben Haggard, Samantha Hayes, Dominique Hes, Rainer Hirth, Kieran Ibell, Rebecca Kiddle, Karen Kuschnir, Diana LucasDrogan, Victoria Marshall, Sabine Müller, Marika Neustupny, Jerome Partington, Sofie Pelsmakers, Jenni Poutanen, Michaela Prescott, Clémence Pybaro, Andreas Quednau, Diego Ramírez-Lovering, Amin Rastandeh, Bill Reed, Sini Saarimaa, Daša Spasojević, Roseangela Tenorio, Albena Yaneva, Ken Yeang, Kongjin Yu. Seed funding for this project was gratefully received from the Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The insights of anonymous reviewers as part of the peer review process for this book are also acknowledged. Thank you to our colleagues, and Ecologies Design Lab students at the Wellington School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand for their ongoing interest and assistance in this project. Finally, thank you to our families for their support.

1 Introduction Towards an ecologies design practice Peter Connolly, Maibritt Pedersen Zari, and Mark Southcombe Introduction The title of this book, Ecologies Design: Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism, was carefully chosen. Our shared focus is to fully embrace design practices that are ecologically oriented. To mention ‘ecology’ and ‘design’ together however, tends to imply designers working with or applying biologically technical or scientific types of knowledge and practices. This is certainly vital at present, and is an important focus of this book. We refer to this realm of ecology as ‘biological ecologies’, to reflect that this term refers to a range of ways of thinking and practicing. In Part 1 of this book, ‘Biological ecologies design and regeneration’, we argue that professionals of the built environment, including designers, need to take biological ecology, and human factors as part of it, much more seriously. We are also focused on a realm of ecology that involves human–space relations relevant to designers. We refer to this realm, to distinguish it from ‘biological ecologies’, as ‘social ecologies’. Designers have recently been exploring various approaches to these human-space and human-non-human ecologies or ‘social ecologies’ and we argue these approaches contribute to a strong non-metaphorical conception of ‘social ecologies’. This is examined and discussed in Part 2 of the book, ‘Documenting social ecologies’. The third of the types of ecologies we focus on in this book relates to design practice itself. There is a tendency to see practice, in opposition to academic research, as something compromised by the imperatives of professional reality, and somehow less rigorous. Design practice has recently been embraced as a serious academic realm, through design and practice-based or design-led research. This has been an important step. In this book we embrace the potential of practices as ecological; as fully real and vitally engaged in our increasingly complex world. Practice is about doing, and the powers of doing, in often fraught and complex situations, as evident in the range of examples of ecological design practices in Part 3: ‘Ecologies design practices’. Ecologies design involves each of these three realms of ecology: the biological, the social, and design practices. What distinguishes this book is not just that it includes these three kinds of interdependent ecologies, but that there are

2  Peter Connolly et al. powerful synergies between them, that are really only starting to be explored and experimented with. It is the potential of these synergies that draws together the collection of essays, discourse, case studies, and research within Ecologies Design: Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism. Together they form a set of provocations and precedents designed to shift thinking and practices.

A single living realm: reconciling design practice with ecological reality There is an obvious greater context to our interest in these three types of ecologies. Cities, regions, and nations are experiencing and will continue to experience momentous impacts caused by climate change, the decline of ecological health, rapid population growth, urbanisation, and other significant converging drivers of change (Grainger, 2017). These changes are already affecting and will continue to affect the physical fabric and infrastructure of cities as well as the social and economic context they exist in. The changes are impacting other life on the planet, as well as humans; biologically, physically, culturally, and emotionally. It is clear that the way we build and live in cities must change rapidly. This requires not just strategies to more effectively employ existing appropriate technologies and techniques (Mitchell, 2012; Pedersen Zari and Hecht, 2019), or to develop new ones (Gebeshuber et al., 2009), but also requires design professionals and researchers to fundamentally alter how they comprehend and work with complex biological and social ecologies of neighbourhoods, cities, and whole regions. Before we can find the right answers to ecological architecture, landscape, and urban design issues we must first be able to ask the right questions. Converging ecological and climatic drivers of global change, increasing scientific and technical knowledge, current experimentation in many fields, and new philosophies, along with ideas of interconnected ecologies suggest that it is problematic to approach design through the creation of isolated and discrete objects, spaces, buildings, and landscapes. Understandings of relationships to context and time can too often be superficial, ill considered, or even absent (Pedersen Zari, 2012). Contemporary spatial design must urgently understand and integrate with wider living contexts, systems and networks that are unfolding, and changing in time and space. To consider an interior, building, site, or larger landscape as a static, separate entity is to remove it from the world that enlivens it, and neglect or even destroy opportunities for human living that is a part of, not apart from a constantly changing living world. These seemingly separate entities are parts of ecologies that are continuous in both time and space. They are interrelated, connected to, and part of a single larger living realm: that of Nature or the planet Earth. Humans are dependent on, affected by, affect, and are part of this realm, rather than simply observers and manipulators of it. As professionals of the built environment our actions have significant consequences both individually and collectively.

Introduction 3

Nature as resource and the Anthropocene ‘Nature’, and with it ecology, is often understood, both technically and in an economic sense, as simply a pool of resources or services for human use. The purpose and meaning of ecology can therefore become reduced to understanding and maximising the eco-technical and financial benefits humans derive from Nature (Heal et al., 2005). Some ecological design concepts and methods explicitly try to avoid this conception of ecology, and the political implications of affirming the economic and technical value of Nature in the contemporary economically rational world should be examined. This view that has been cemented in westernised cultures over the past 500 years (Bosworth et al., 2011). Wahl (2006) traces the advent of the ‘reductionist science of detached objectivism’ to several key figures such as: Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) who regarded the measurable quantitative aspects of an understanding of nature as more important than qualitative ones; Francis Bacon (1561–1626) who advocated that humans should be masters of nature; and René Descartes (1596–1650) who created a philosophical separation of humans and nature, body and mind, and subject and object, thus transforming these into dualistic mutually exclusive categories (Pedersen Zari, 2018). Nature was seen as wild, dangerous, hostile and in need of taming and civilising (Wahl, 2006). This way of relating to the living world can be termed the anthropocentric view. ‘The Anthropocene’, defined as the ‘current epoch in which humans and our societies have become a global geophysical force’ (Steffen et al., 2007), relates to the converging drivers of rapid and non-linear environmental changes caused by human activities that characterise the time from 1800 to the present (Grainger, 2017). Perhaps paradoxically, naming the current era of human-induced degradation and disruption of ecosystems and climate ‘The Anthropocene’ may actually reinforce the idea that humans (‘anthropos’) are the most important species on the planet because of their absolute dominance and ability to influence global systems. This is a time however, when humans must become aware of, and urgently act upon, the intrinsically interdependent and vital nature of relationships between living organisms for the ongoing viability of all species, including humans. In order for ‘anthropos’ to survive the Anthropocene with civil society intact, there must be a swift move away from understanding humans as more important than, and therefore separate to Nature, and Nature simply as an endless supply of resources for humans. Nature and ecology do much more than just the quantifiable technical functions that are useful to human economic activity or even to an agenda of increasing human wellbeing through contact with Nature (Soderlund and Newman, 2015; Louv, 2005). Studies of introduced water-sensitive ecologies in new suburban developments in Melbourne for example, reveal that introduced ecologies are always doing more than the techno-ecological things that they tend to be championed for (Connolly, 1992). They variously perform urbanistically, experientially, culturally, socially, and neighbourly, and perhaps even spiritually. The inattention to such ‘functionings’ points to an inattention to the everyday world and to the

4  Peter Connolly et al. limitations of contemporary notions of performance, which tend to regard only certain kinds of performance as correct or proper (Connolly, 2004).

The techno-science-oriented version of ecologies design A common assumption is that what we understand as ecology can be understood solely in scientific terms (or quasi-scientific or technical ways as is sometimes the case with designers (Gruber, 2008)) and can be operationalised in terms of ‘systems designing’. The notion of systems designing is directly inspired by ‘open’ and ‘complex systems’ thinking (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988; Gunderson and Holling, 2002). It is often assumed in the design world that systems designing is the way to engage with complex ecological systems involving human life. In practice however, the resulting systems can be more akin to engineered closed quantitative and technical systems. Biological science is certainly important for understanding human-related and non-human ecologies, yet to assume that quantitatively understood closed systems are akin to, or can replace open and complex systems directly involving humans is a significant and prevalent problem. The emphasis on systems has been important in recent progressive design discourse. Architectural theorist Simone Brott (2016) argues that this emphasis on systems, quantities, and extensive or spatially understood ideas of change over time comes directly from a specific way that east coast United States of America architectural discourse interpreted Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas, from the late 1970s onwards. She refers to the way that these ideas were and still are largely comprehended through a ‘techno-science’ understanding of Deleuze and Guattari. This techno-science mode of understanding generated a range of powerful and productive lines of inquiry but deferred away from a strong embrace of human– environment relations or social ecologies; and also led to an anti-theory pragmatism which in turn legitimised a particular style of practice in a self-reinforcing and self-protecting feedback loop of thinking (Frichot, 2009). This techno-science theory, which denies itself as a theory in the name of practice, has had the powerful effect of closing down criticism and other forms of practice and theory in favour of working with realities that tend to be understood in terms of quantitative metrics or numbers, or where these metrics are strongly privileged over other ways of knowing (Connolly, 2012). Rem Koolhaas, among others, has also been important in the unfolding of the techno-science story. His early work opened up a powerful ecological perspective by embracing what the world ‘does itself’, beyond designer ideas or metaphors, and had much to do with the new interest in ‘how things work’. He began to invent ways to see and understand the ‘anonymous’ workings of the world (Koolhaas and Mau, 1995). These new perceptual capabilities and his emphasis on ‘how things work’, however, tended to defer to the quantitative and the ‘performative’ understood quantitatively. In progressive landscape architecture and in architectural engagements with the landscape, most conspicuously associated with the term ‘landscape urbanism’, what we are calling social ecologies are almost completely obscured behind the

Introduction 5 quantitatively technical (Connolly, 2004). These practices are dominated by the techno-science version of ecological understanding.

Biological ecologies and regeneration ‘Ecology’, as it is applied to design, is a rapidly growing field of interest, but its meaning varies greatly (Mostafavi and Doherty, 2016). Ecological design, which can be thought of as an umbrella term for many other kinds of ecologically oriented practices, often has a motivation (alongside others) to restore biodiversity or the health of ecosystems through various built environment design methods (Van der Ryn and Cowan, 2013). Like social ecologies, ‘biological ecologies’ also however focuses on and encompasses relationships between humans and ecosystems, from a different perspective. We, like many others, champion the need for a shift to understanding that humans live within ecosystems as integral parts, and that we are entirely dependent upon them (Daily and Matson, 2008). Along with this, we call for a less mechanistic understanding of how Life works, and therefore how to design with and for it. In architecture this emerging shift might be represented as a move away from the modernist ‘blank slate’, or the metaphor of a house as a machine for living in (Le Corbusier, 1923), to an ideal of design where human built environments and landscapes are symbiotically integrated with ecosystems (in an expanded sense) and contribute to, rather than harm, ecosystem health. Professionals of the built environment of all disciplines must consider how this notion could be better reflected in ecological design practices. Efforts towards the practical positive integration of humans and nature can be recognised in the regenerative design approach (and Birkeland’s (2008) related ‘positive development’ concept). In regenerative design, the goal is an increase in the health of people, communities, and biological ecosystems through the functioning of a building or wider built environment, along with the initial (and ongoing) processes of conceiving and creating it. This is in contrast to the depletion of ecosystems (even at reduced rates) which is typically a consequence of conventional ‘sustainable’ architectural and urban design (Cole, 2012). A  regenerative approach is useful because while aiming to return biological ecosystem health to levels where ecosystems thrive and are self-managing, it also challenges traditional dichotomous human–nature relationships, because of the focus on human health and wellbeing (physical, societal and cultural) as an indivisible and interdependent aspect of ecosystem health (Reed, 2007; Cole, 2012). Part 1 of this book, ‘Biological Ecologies and Regeneration’, investigates how architectural, urban, and landscape architectural design and practices can both integrate with and support the regeneration of biological ecologies in various ways. While many designers seek to be more sustainable, or ‘ecological’, there are those that push these boundaries and go beyond reducing negative impacts to designing places for humans that actually become contributors to the living networks of local and global ecologies and have benefits in terms of human wellbeing. They take the notion of ecological design beyond metaphor. A  series of

6

Peter Connolly et al.

critical essays and case studies of built, and proposed projects, at the leading edge of this shifting kind of design thinking are explored. Contributors to this section include: Bill Reed and Ben Haggard; Dominique Hes and Judy Bush; Richard Graves; Ken Yeang; Konjian Yu; Amin Rastandeh; Nan Ellin; Dayna Baumeister, Maibritt Pedersen Zari, and Samantha Hayes; and Timothy Beatley.

Documenting social ecologies Whilst bio-scientifically oriented ecological knowledge is quite well understood, and ecologies design practice is emerging and needs affirmation as a practice, human–environment ecologies in terms relevant to designers and human life itself, which we call social ecologies, needs significant attention. We argue that to really embrace and understand the potential of social ecologies, we must understand them or re-understand them in terms of what Deleuze and Guattari termed ‘assemblages’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988). On the one hand, the open and complex system notion of assemblage has been key to the emergence of a whole range of types of ecological thought and practice across a range of disciplines, such as: post-human ecologies, more-than-human geographies and ontologies, ActorNetwork-Theory, non-representational theory, affective ecologies, affective biophilias, new materialisms, relational aesthetics, and (certain) ecofeminisms. Yet, on the other, this influence has been obscured and some of the centrally important concepts and practices associated with assemblages have been somewhat ignored or collectively forgotten, especially by designers. It is timely then, for designers, to consider recent experimentation with documenting urban and landscape space ecologies, and to also consider this experimentation from the perspective of assemblages. In Part 2 of this book, we focus on spaces external to or separate from buildings, across cities and geographies, and focus on the documentation of the social ecologies of urban and landscape space. To do this we bring together a range of such approaches, by designers and social scientists, and draw out what each has to contribute to such an ecology. The social ecology of urban and landscape spaces, which has often not been framed in terms of ecologies, has been given significant attention in the last ten years, but we believe it has not received a critical review. Part 2 consciously selects a sample of these investigations from designers and social scientists for discussion and analysis. Each has something significantly different to offer the practice of documenting and understanding the social ecologies of urban and landscape space. Bringing them together explores various aspects of this practice, and provokes a range of questions. Examples of such documentation and discussion of the techniques involved are provided by: Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau; Diego Ramírez-Lovering, Daša Spasojevic and Michaela F. Prescott; Nigel Bertram and Marika Neustupny; Karina Kuschnir; Gareth Doherty; Marie Combette, Thomas Batzenschlager, and Clémence Pybaro; Victoria Marshall; Diana Lucas-Drogan and Holger Braun-Thürmann; Albena Yaneva and Peter Connolly.

Introduction 7

Ecologies design practices We have proposed that ecologies design is a practice that needs recognition and affirmation. Design practitioners have abilities to engage with ecologies that others do not. Ecologies design practices are where designers work with, and transform biological and social ecologies. Such ecologies are constantly evolving sets of processes and relationships active through time and space, with an array of participating actors and influences. A main question that arises is: how can this complex ecological reality be incorporated into spatial design practice and theory? A site or object is not an isolated entity. It is not in a state of ecological equilibrium at any time in its life cycle. It continues to be altered over time in association with its changing ecological contexts. Architectural and design practices have also changed significantly over the last 50 years and need to continue to change at a rapid rate. Architects and others once existed in an apparently much simpler world as primary consultants that coordinated and integrated a small range of other consultant services with their own. Today they are an ever-smaller part of an expanding team of built and specialist environmental consultants that collaborate to create a project team, often with participatory processes to engage social contexts. The urgency that climate change and associated challenges creates in terms of the need to change our practices, also exposes the complexity and sensitivity of ecologies we practice into and are part of. ‘An ecological understanding of the world links the wellbeing of the individual to the conditions of the surrounding environment. How can this understanding form the basis of an architectural practice?’ is a central question in the introduction to Towards an Ecology of Tectonics: The Need for Rethinking Construction in Architecture (Beim et al., 2014). It is an important and recurring question. While there is recognition of the need for changing built environment design and building practices, the interconnected character of practices and the living and built environments we practice into frustrates change. We are but tiny parts of a massive, complex, interconnected whole. Part 3 of this book, ‘Ecologies Design Practices’, investigates these issues and questions that emerge from them. What are the ways that architectural, urban, and landscape architectural practices are transforming to recognise, interface with, and become infused with and empowered by the ecologies they are part of? In the individualised separated project context of typical building processes, how can our built environment design practices integrate with wider environmental contexts? How can design practices be more effective in the manner they respond to, and interface with, their integral ecologies? And in what meaningful productive ways can design practices create ecological health? A series of critical essays by Rebecca Kiddle; Peggy Deamer; Daniel Barber; Fabricio Chicca; and Sofie Pelsmakers, Jenni Poutanen, and Sini Saarimaa, and critical case studies by Jerome Partington and Maibritt Pedersen Zari; Bridget Buxton, Kieran Ibell, and Rainer Hirth; Mark Southcombe and Roseangela Tenorio

8  Peter Connolly et al. will explore theoretical and practice contexts for, and implications of working in an ecological manner.

Ecologies design and the ecology of design practices The process of writing this book has been enlightening. Part of the editorial team is particularly driven by a dissatisfaction that biological ecologies have not been valued, understood, or taken seriously enough in design whilst another part is concerned with the way that human life has been treated in recent designing in the name of ecology. Another focuses on the problematic individualisation and compartmentalisation and lack of affirmation of design practices, their artificial separation from their ecological contexts, and how this separation might be addressed. Working with each of these aspects of ecologies designing seriously has been the source of energetic discussion and productive tension. Discovery of how they might work together concurrently is an ongoing adventure. This volume aims to take each realm or notion of ecology, as it relates to spatial design seriously and discover synergies between them in ways that only professionals and designers of the built environment can. What is clear from this process is that design practices are themselves ecological processes. Ecology in these various senses must become an integral driving force in design conceptualisation, decision making, actualisation, and evaluation. It must expand our understandings of ourselves and the ways we practice to create symbiotic relationships with the world around us. We must take the opportunity to rapidly and radically rethink, redo, and remake the spaces that we live in as a means to support and repair all of the ecologies that give us life, and discover, create, and foster new understandings of Life. After the sections devoted to biological ecologies, social ecologies, and ecologies design practices, the conclusion, a call to ecologies design action, presents the findings from each section and ends with a ‘Design Ecologies Manifesto for Built Environment Professionals’.

References Beim, A., U. S. Madsen, C. Bundgaard, K. Christiansen, and T. B. Jensen (eds.). 2014. Towards an Ecology of Tectonics: The Need for Rethinking Construction in Architecture. Stuttgart and London: Axel Menges. Bosworth, A., N. Chaipraditkul, M. M. Cheng, K. Junmookda, P. Kadam, D. Macer, C. Millet, J. Sangaroonthong, and A. Waller. 2011. Ethics and Biodiversity. Ethics and Climate Change in Asia and the Pacific (ECCAP) Project. Working Group 16 Report. Bangkok: UNESCO. Brott, S. 2016. Architecture for a Free Subjectivity: Deleuze and Guattari at the Horizon of the Real. Farnham: Routledge. Connolly, P. 1992. Fieldwork Focused on the Social Functioning of Suburbs and Subdivisions in Melbourne. Australia. Unpublished. Connolly, P. 2004. “Embracing Openness: Making Landscape Urbanism Landscape Architectural, Part 1.” In J. Raxworthy and J. Blood (eds.), The Mesh Book. Landscape/Infrastructure, 93–96. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing.

Introduction  9 Connolly, P. 2012. An Affirmative Open Systems Conception of how to Design Landscape. Doctor of Philosophy, RMIT University, Melbourne. Corbusier, L., and E. Claudius-Petit. 1923. Vers Une Architecture. Paris: Editions Crès et Cie. Daily, G. C., and P. A. Matson. 2008. “Ecosystem Services: From Theory to Implementation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105: 9455–9456. Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1988. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. Frichot, H. 2009. “On the Death of Architectural Theory and Other Spectres.” Design Principles & Practices: An International Journal, 3: 113–120. Gebeshuber, I., P. Gruber, and M. Drack. 2009. “A Gaze into the Crystal Ball: Biomimetics in the Year 2059.” Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, 223: 2899–2918. Grainger, A. 2017. “The Prospect of Global Environmental Relativities After an Anthropocene Tipping Point.” Forest Policy and Economics, 79: 36–49. Gruber, P. 2008. “The Signs of Life in Architecture.” Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, 3. Gunderson, L. H., and C. S. Holling. 2002. Panarchy. Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Washington, DC: Island Press. Heal, G. M., E. B. Barbier, K. J. Boyle, A. P. Covich, S. P. Gloss, C. H. Hershner, J. P. Hoehn, C. M. Pringle, S. Polasky, K. Segerson, and K. Shrader-Frechette. 2005. Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision-Making. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Koolhaas, R., and B. Mau. 1995. S, M, L, XL. New York: Monacelli Press. Louv, R. 2005. Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. New York: Algonquin Books. Mitchell, R. B. 2012. “Technology is not Enough.” The Journal of Environment & Development, 21: 24–27. Mostafavi, M., and G. Doherty. 2010. Ecological Urbanism. Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers. Pedersen Zari, M. 2012. “Ecosystem Services Analysis for the Design of Regenerative Built Environments.” Building Research & Information, 40: 54–64. Pedersen Zari, M. 2018. Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry. Oxon: Routledge. Pedersen Zari, M., and K. Hecht. 2019. “Biomimicry for Regenerative Built Environments: Mapping Design Strategies for Producing Ecosystem Services.” TensiNet Symposium – Softening the Habitat, Milan, Italy, June 3–5. Reed, Bill. 2007. “Shifting from ‘Sustainability’ to Regeneration.” Building Research and Information, 35 (6): 674–680. Soderlund, J., and P. Newman. 2015. “Biophilic Architecture: A Review of the Rationale and Outcomes.” AIMS Environmental Science, 2 (4): 950–969. Steffen, Will, Paul J. Crutzen, and John R. McNeill. 2007. “The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?” Ambio, 36 (8): 614. Van der Ryn, S., and S. Cowan. 2013. Ecological Design. Washington, DC: Island Press. Wahl, D. C. 2006. “Bionics vs. Biomimicry: From Control of Nature to Sustainable Participation in Nature.” In C. A. Brebbia (ed.), Design and Nature III: Comparing Design in Nature with Science and Engineering. Ashurst, UK: WIT Press.

Part 1

Biological ecologies design and regeneration

2 Introduction A shifting paradigm in ecologically focused design Maibritt Pedersen Zari

I wrote this introduction from an island in the South Pacific at the end of one of the warmest winters on record, while preparing for a rare sudden stratospheric warming over Antarctica that was to blast us with polar temperatures (Satherley, 2019; Morton, 2019). Unseasonably wild and heavy rain battered the tin roof as I worked, and on the same day a government report was released calling for urgent slowing of development in coastal areas, because sea levels will put 20 per cent of my nation’s population at direct risk of flooding (Paulik et al., 2019). At the same time Europe, on the other side of the world, was in the grip of a record hot summer for the second time in as many years (Kew et al., 2019). There is no denying that the time for urgent, innovative, and widespread change in terms of how we design and build our cities is now (Romero-Lankao et al., 2018). This is a unique period where multiple drivers of change such as climate change, global biodiversity loss, and urbanisation are converging and causing unexpected, rapid, and difficult changes to human society (Steffen et al., 2018; Hughes et al., 2013). The way we design our cities and buildings directly and substantially contributes to these drivers (McGranahan et al., 2005). We must therefore design to both mitigate the causes of these issues and ensure adaption to a rapidly changing world (Pedersen Zari, 2018). This book section, ‘Biological Ecologies Design and Regeneration’ tackles these issues and investigates how architectural, urban, and landscape architectural design can integrate with, understand, and support the regeneration of biological ecologies in tangible ways. The question that this section of Ecologies Design: Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism explores is: how can built environment design effectively contribute to biological ecological health and human wellbeing? While many designers seek to be more sustainable, there are those that push these boundaries and go beyond reducing negative ecological impacts to designing places for humans that actually become contributors to living networks of local and global ecologies, and have benefits in terms of human wellbeing. Some of the world’s leading thinkers in this area have contributed to this section to produce a series of essays and case studies at the cutting edge of a shift in design thinking. This thinking recognises, taps into, and leverages the fundamental inseparability of people from ecosystems in all senses; technical scientific, psychological, and

14  Maibritt Pedersen Zari cultural. Contributors to this section include: Bill Reed and Ben Haggard, who discuss regenerative design practice and precedents; Dominique Hes and Judy Bush, who present a case study of a living neighbourhood design with a focus on increasing biodiversity; Richard Graves, who argues for and defines regenerative design metrics; Ken Yeang with a discussion on an integrated infrastructures approach to ecological design; Konjian Yu, who presents a series of landscape and river restoration case studies in China; Amin Rastandeh, who presents research findings concerning how to strategically design for increased urban wildlife; Nan Ellin, who discusses a new kind of nature-influenced design; Dayna Baumeister, Maibritt Pedersen Zari, and Samantha Hayes with a call for buildings to relate more explicitly to site specific ecology and biology; and finally, Timothy Beatley, with a provocative essay on biophilic design, wellbeing, and the need to place contact with the natural world at the centre of design decision making across multiple scales. Several important themes emerge from the collection of essays and case studies in this section. We are already quite good at getting our buildings to shelter us from the heat of a hot sun, from rain, and wind, but our buildings and cities could be doing so much more, and should be as discussed by Reed and Haggard. They must become more than unresponsive unconnected objects, and both buildings and landscapes must be designed to support wildlife as discussed by Hes and Bush, Rastandeh, and Yu. We already have the means and technologies to ensure that buildings could be generating energy and growing food; that they could provide habitat to non-humans; that they could filter and remediate air, water, and soil; that they could cycle nutrients; and that they could contribute to meaningful cultural and societal experiences (Pedersen Zari and Hecht, 2019). We must also continue to look to whole ecosystems and the organisms within them for inspiration as explored by Ellin, and Baumeister, Pedersen Zari, and Hayes. What we lack is a coordinated sense that this breadth of regenerative performance is what we should aim for with built environment design. We will need new paradigms and new ways to understand and value what our buildings and urban settings do. Graves and Yeang explore this in depth. The nation I call home is isolated from the rest of the world physically, but with an internet connection I can contribute to the global revolution in ecological and regenerative design thinking, even in a small way. It is a marvel how digitally interconnected the world has become. We need to apply this same expectation of interconnectedness, this web of highly responsive relationships and feedback loops, to how we build our cities and how we expect our buildings to function over time. While the realm of the digital and online can almost be anywhere or everywhere, the realm of the physically built must become more site specific, more knowledgeable of local ecologies, climate, and peoples, and leverage this effectively for a new kind of design. We must (re)learn how to design our urban areas to be culture, climate, and ecologically specific, with a deep understanding and appreciation of real physical places and Indigenous knowledge. Beatley investigates these issues, and Part 3 of this book explores these subjects in more depth.

Introduction 15 Professionals of the built environment have a vital responsibility to ensure that what we design not only results in less ecological and cultural harm, but that our built environment begins to actually regenerate health; in all senses of the word (Mang and Haggard, 2016; Hes and Du Plessis, 2014). Concurrently, designers must grapple with more information than ever before, more digital tools and techniques to aid in design and construction, a plethora of new technologies to employ, but at the same time, have much less certainty about the future (Naboni and Havinga, 2019). How to create enduring, resilient, delightful human habitat and to live within it well, so that humanity thrives within healthy ecosystems they are a part of, rely upon, and contribute to, is perhaps the greatest collective challenge we face. We may not have long to get this right, and the task ahead is immense, but cause for optimism is perhaps demonstrated in a shifting paradigm of ecologically focused design that is discussed, illustrated, examined, and explored in this section.

References Hes, D., and C. Du Plessis. 2014. Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability. Oxon: Routledge. Hughes, T. P., S. Carpenter, J. Rockström, M. Scheffer, and B. Walker. 2013. “Multiscale Regime Shifts and Planetary Boundaries.” Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 28 (7): 389–395. Kew, S. F., S. Y. Philip, G. Jan van Oldenborgh, G. van der Schrier, F. Otto, and R. Vautard. 2019. “The Exceptional Summer Heat Wave in Southern Europe 2017.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 100 (1): S49–S53. Mang, P., and B. Haggard. 2016. Regenerative Development and Design: A Framework for Evolving Sustainability. New York: John Wiley & Sons. McGranahan, G., P. Marcotullio, X. Bai, D. Balk, T. Braga, I. Douglas, T. Elmqvist, W. Rees, D. Satterthwaite, J. Songsore, and H. Zlotnik. 2005. “Urban Systems.” In R. Hassan, R. Scholes, and N. Ash (eds.), Ecosystems and Human Well-being. Volume 1: Current State and Trends, 795–825. Washington, DC: Island Press and Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Morton, J. 2019. Climate Scientist: It’s Cold now, but NZ Region Just Saw its Warmest July. NZME Publishing Ltd. Date accessed August  2019. Available online: www.nzherald. co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12255458. Naboni, E., and L. Havinga. 2019. Regenerative Design in Digital Practice: A Handbook for the Built Environment. Bolzano: EURAC. Paulik, R., S. Stephens, S. Wadhwa, R. Bell, B. Popovich, and B. Robinson. 2019. Coastal Flooding Exposure Under Future Sea-level Rise for New Zealand. Wellington: National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research. Pedersen Zari, M. 2018. Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry. Oxon: Routledge. Pedersen Zari, M., and K. Hecht. 2019. “Biomimicry for Regenerative Built Environments: Mapping Design Strategies for Producing Ecosystem Services.” TensiNet Symposium – Softening the Habitat, Milan, Italy, June 3–5. Romero-Lankao, P., H. Bulkeley, M. Pelling, S. Burch, D. J. Gordon, J. Gupta, C. Johnson, P. Kurian, E. Lecavalier, and D. Simon. 2018. “Urban Transformative Potential in a Changing Climate.” Nature Climate Change, 8 (9): 754.

16  Maibritt Pedersen Zari Satherley, D. 2019. “Weather: NIWA Warns Rare ‘Sudden Stratospheric Warming’ to Blast NZ with Icy ‘Streamers’.” MediaWorks TV. Date accessed August 2019. Available online: www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/08/weather-niwa-warns-rare-sud den-stratospheric-warming-to-blast-nz-with-icy-streamers.html. Steffen, W., J. Rockström, K. Richardson, T. M. Lenton, C. Folke, D. Liverman, C. P. Summerhayes, A. D. Barnosky, S. E. Cornell, M. Crucifix, J. F. Donges, I. Fetzer, S. J. Lade, M. Scheffer, R. Winkelmann, and H. J. Schellnhuber. 2018. “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115 (33): 8252–8259.

3 Engaging with life The developmental practice of regenerative development and design Bill Reed and Ben Haggard Introduction Regenesis Group, in Santa Fe, New Mexico makes a significant distinction between the process of regenerative development and the deliverables of regenerative design. To design a continuing unfolding state of evolutionary health in a place or life-shed requires the development of capability for conscious engagement with evolutionary processes. In large part, regenerative design continues to be seen as a vehicle for reversing the damage caused by source-to-sink one-way flows, and creating selfrenewing resource systems, as articulated in John Tillman Lyle’s pioneering work. Narrowing the purpose of regenerative design to this, the first order or threshold work of sustainability, largely ignores wider [and long-term] applications (economic, agricultural, education, cultural, etc.) (Lyle, 1993, 1994). Additionally, this narrow scope is often defined within the boundaries of different professional disciplines rather than seeing these disciplines as parts of an integrated system that includes community engagement and stewardship. It is possible to characterise the work of regenerative development as having two interdependent aspects: 1) It determines the right phenomena to work on, or to give form to, in order to inform and provide direction for design solutions that can realise the greatest potential for evolving a system, and 2) It builds the capability and the field of commitment and caring in which stakeholders step forward as co-designers and ongoing stewards of those solutions. (Mang and Reed, 2012, 23–38) In practical terms, a regenerative project is undertaken as the means to evolve the generative and regenerative processes of the living systems of which it is a part. Regeneration is a system effect that results from the project and is always assessed in terms of the development of higher order capacities relating to the evolutionary health of the soil, water, habitat, and the human understanding and wisdom to carry this dynamic forward. This work can and should inform, but is not directly about, the making of material things.

18  Bill Reed and Ben Haggard This concept can at first feel a little alien to a culture that tends to evaluate success based on material results rather than the ongoing interaction of a multitude of mutually supporting relationships. From a regenerative perspective, the imperative in any design process should be to intentionally develop the understanding required to participate in living systems (including ecosystems, social systems, economies, businesses, families), nourishing their ability to add value to the world and thereby secure their future relevance. Without a process of continually adding value to living systems, sustainability is not possible (Reed, 2012). Designing to support and add value to life is a change from the dominant paradigm that seeks to control nature (including human nature). It requires new capabilities to work with dynamic, socio-ecological systems. It is no longer enough to aggregate a whole series of fragmented problems and responsive strategies and call it a whole system. Instead there is a need to learn how to understand these systems as living beings, with purposes and unexpressed potential of their own. This requires a profound shift of attitude. If humans are to play the co-evolutionary role for which they appear to be so well suited, then a relearning of humility will need to occur. Regenerative development is deeply informed by these concepts and ethics. To give form to processes that can generate new and healthier patterns in a place, applying mental technologies and strategies in order to understand and work with the inner dynamics of ecosystems is an effective, replicable, and transformational practice (Lyle, 1994). A diverse group of organisational consultants, applied ecologists, permaculture practitioners, and educators have contributed to the creation of this body of thought over the last few decades. Carol Sanford, a regenerative business expert, and Regenesis Group community planner and applied naturalist, offers seven fundamental principles that work together as a system to describe the characteristics of a regenerative approach. These principles can be used either to assess the quality of thinking already embedded in an initiative, or to stimulate new thinking about opportunities to regenerate living systems.

Seven first principles of regenerative development and design Work with wholes A whole is any living organism or entity that can self-organise and function independently. Embracing wholeness is the opposite of breaking life into pieces and fragments. After all, it is possible to dissect a frog and learn about its parts. But in the process, it has been robbed of its frog-ness. One might say that the way to engage an entity as a whole is to simply accept its right to be. It is a slight internal shift that changes forever the way people perceive the systems with which they are engaged. A building cannot be regenerative, since it cannot self-organise, evolve, and reproduce. However, it can generate opportunities for the regeneration of the living system of which it is a part (people, habitat, soil, etc.) so that life-giving, life-enhancing work can be expressed at higher and higher levels.

Engaging with life  19 Recognise nested systems All living systems are made up of smaller systems and are members of larger systems. In many coastal forests in temperate areas, bears play a critical role for example. They harvest salmon who have swum upstream to spawn. Nutrients, concentrated by the salmon in the deep cold waters of the ocean, are distributed by the bears into the forest, where they fertilise the soil. Healthy soil means healthy forests, which support healthy streams, and therefore provide habitat for salmon to spawn. Remove any of the key elements and the whole system begins to suffer. It is nonsensical to think of living things separately from their larger context. To remain viable, any living entity has to maintain reciprocal, nourishing relationships with all the levels of nested systems that it participates in. Humans are also nested in systems, and human actions if thoughtfully designed, have the potential to create benefits that ripple out through multiple levels, from individual, to organised groups, in service to the larger systems that people are integral to.  egin with essence, or the essential and unique patterns B of living entities Regenerative development starts by respecting the unique and singular in every person, every landscape, every community, every nation. This essential quality

Figure 3.1  Life is nested: no boundaries.

20  Bill Reed and Ben Haggard is often very evident in young children, before it has been covered over by formal education and socialisation. It can also be discerned in the qualitative differences among places. Why, for example, is New Orleans different from Auckland? A regenerative approach seeks to understand and reinforce the authentic nature of people, communities, or ecosystems, rather than diminishing them with one-sizefits-all, generic solutions and development programmes. This provides the basis for differentiated approaches that tap the local genius of places. Understanding essence also helps make it possible to hold and work with the seeming complexity of living systems and entities. Knowing what is essential and what is nonessential can focus thinking, facilitate understanding, and simplify decision-making processes (Haggard, 2017). Start from potential, not just problems Potential has to do with what doesn’t yet exist but could. As an approach, this is very different from starting with problems. When organised around solving problems, actions are narrowly dictated by decisions made in the past, rather like trying to steer a boat by looking backward at its wake. Regenerative development always starts from the inherent potential in living things, potential that is anchored in their uniqueness or essence. This is a major source of the hopefulness and inspiration associated with this approach. This is not to say that working on parts, subsystems, problems, or quantitative measurement is wrong. It’s just the wrong place to start. As Wendell Berry observes: ‘A good solution is good because it is in harmony with those larger patterns. . . . A good solution solves more than one problem and it does not make new problems . . . health as opposed to almost any cure, [and] coherence of pattern as opposed to almost any solution produced piecemeal or in isolation’ (Berry, 1981, 137, 141). Develop a field of reciprocity Regenerative development proposes reciprocity as an alternative to transactional relationships. Quid pro quo or transactional exchanges are oriented towards extracting as much value as possible from an exchange. Reciprocity, on the other hand, is based on the idea of mutual benefit, where our exchanges are intended to grow the vitality and productivity of a whole system. In general, nature ‘harmonises’, it doesn’t compromise. The oak tree does not negotiate the exchange of nutrients with the nearby hickory tree. Trees in a forest are linked together in symbiotic relationships with fungi, soil bacteria, and other trees. The resulting webs of mutual support make such trees healthy and longlived. They work together to benefit the whole, rather than competing to extract the most value for themselves. The development of a field of reciprocity is a key feature and outcome of this work. Just as a good party is an attractor, a field of mutual caring can energise and expand into a community. It only takes a few people, consistently engaged around

Engaging with life 21

Figure 3.2 Left: ineffective relationship (transactional). Right: effective relationship (mutually beneficial, reciprocal).

a common potential-filled purpose, to begin to shift community dynamics and set the stage for significant change. Discover nodal interventions Nodes are points of concentration within a system where an investment of effort produces transformative effects. The city of Curitiba offers a wonderful example. Like many Brazilian cities, it was experiencing rapid growth of informal settlements or favelas. Because these favelas had no formal roads, there was no way to collect garbage and it was piling up, creating serious health problems. The city organised residents to gather the trash and bring it to the edges of the favelas, where it could be exchanged for tokens. These tokens could be used on public transport or in the local farmers markets. Through a single nodal intervention, the favelas were cleaned up, very poor people gained access to food and transportation, and local farmers and public transportation were supported. Jaime Lerner, the mayor of the city, named this solution multiplying approach ‘urban acupuncture’ (Lerner, 2014). Engage in developmental processes Regenerative development depends on evolving the capacity of all members of a community, human and non-human. Regenerative projects, by definition, seek to develop the inherent potential in everyone they touch. This is how communities become regenerative; they learn to evolve what they are doing in response to continually changing circumstances. It is also how they become wealthy in a genuine way, not simply monetarily. Creating distributed, enduring wealth across an entire community or nation requires enabling every citizen (and every ecosystem) to deliver their best.

22  Bill Reed and Ben Haggard

Figure 3.3 Left: general state of city from 1900 to 1980. Right: the current overall state of Viña del Mar.

An example of a regenerative developmental process This case study describes an arc of progression: organised around the application of regenerative development and design principles. The work took place in 2016–2018.

Las Salinas, Viña del Mar, Chile Regenesis was invited to address the negative community response to the development by Inmobiliaria Las Salinas (ILS) of a 19-hectare, 450,000 square metre (47 acre, 4,500,000 square feet), mixed-use project on a brownfield site in Viña del Mar, Chile. At least 25 special interest groups (academics, neighbourhoods, social activists) expressed strongly negative views toward the project and its potential impact. Because this was the only large parcel of land left in the urban zone, the special interest groups saw this as a last-ditch opportunity to fight against the steep decline their garden city had suffered over the last 30 years. When confronted by community activists fighting their project, many developers seek transactional solutions, offering to provide community amenities or address local needs in return for support of those aspects of the project (such as density increase) that have proven controversial. They hire public relations firms, lawyers, and meeting facilitators. This time consuming and expensive approach often yields a pastiche of compromises with which no one feels satisfied.

Principles: start from potential; develop a field of reciprocity The developer was attracted by the idea that they might be able to harmonise complex and seemingly conflicting opinions in a community. Over an initial twoweek period, Regenesis investigated the patterns of life in the Viña del Mar and Valparaiso region. This process engaged the developer, local planning office,

Engaging with life 23 and most of the community activist groups in a collective effort to discover the dynamics and inter-relationships that helped create the city they love. It was an exploration of the essence of the place, a way to help people see its core patterns, its nested relationships (development, city, region), and how its systems work together as a whole.

Principles: work with wholes and nested systems to discover essence patterns To summarise the results of this research, the group learned that every major human interaction and intervention over the last 1200  years actually served to increase social and ecological diversity and stability. The more diversity of species and ecological niches and the more diversity of relationships among them, the greater the ability to respond and adapt to system changes. When this was demonstrated to the community members, and they contrasted it with the rapid downward spiral over the last 30 years, there was an almost immediate recognition that they should be able to do something about their condition. The unfolding of this story helped to establish a common foundation of understanding from which it became possible to help the citizens paint a vivid picture of the potential of their city.

Principles: discover nodal interventions; engage in developmental processes At first both the developer and the community were tentative, but as the process unfolded both sides began to realise that: 1) the developer was serious about the development process as a way to transform their own practice and relationship with the community; 2) the community stakeholders could effectively collaborate with each other and the developer; 3) ecological health could be improved with highly leveraged interventions; 4) the community would receive social, economic, and environmental benefits that would improve quality of life for the region; 5) a partnership of trust was being formed, along with a process that would reconcile additional concerns as they arose. The resulting collaborative projects included formation of a cultural foundation, fundraising to restore the ecological functions of a large and critical estuary, the recovery of natural beach formation dynamics along the adjoining coastline, improved public transportation, habitat connectivity, and re-establishing ocean access for communities neighbouring the project. The other side of this story is that the developer also had to be willing to adapt their master plan to respond to the new potential that was being seen. This required of them a willingness to release their attachment to work that had already been done and open new space for innovation. One core issue, made clear to all the stakeholders, was that the developer had to be able to make a fair profit, a criterion that community members could readily accept once the working relationship had been established.

24  Bill Reed and Ben Haggard The initial process took place over about six months and unfolded as a series of shifts in attitude and perspective. The developer was willing to engage with the community in a new and broadly purposeful way. Stakeholders experienced a new way of looking at the potential of their place as a way to address seemingly intractable problems. The developer brought activist groups together to explore the possibility of a collective endeavour. The focus of each activist group was honoured and integrated, making their efforts more effective and synergistic. By the fourth meeting, one of the university departments announced that they should be organising the integration, not the developer and consultants. This is exactly the type of developmental arc that occurs when a pattern of consistent practice can be established, within which participants grow new ways of thinking and working. Based on Regenesis’ experience in the field, it generally takes about a year’s worth of regular and meaningful interaction, at an average frequency of every six weeks, for people and groups to experience a new paradigm. It takes at least three years for new patterns arising from the adoption of this paradigm to be internalised in a consistent way.

A regenerative developmental practice In terms of changing the paradigm of design in its relation to ecology and urbanism, a regenerative approach redirects attention to the need to integrate and further the role of humans within their socio-ecological systems. It starts from the belief that humans can play (and in the case of many indigenous cultures, have played) an integral role in the amplification of evolutionary processes if they are willing to develop the systemic intelligence and humility required (Anderson, 2005). The need for us to step up to these challenges is paramount; especially as global warming and species collapse exacerbate the need for adaptation. The typical urban planning or restoration design process is vectored towards delivering an assemblage of built objects and living elements in structured relationship. In reality, any master plan design begins to change within weeks of its ‘completion’. There are always new considerations, economic issues, and stakeholder concerns that emerge. As a matter of course, these changes evolve new permutations of relationships and energies. This is a constant. Yet, it is remarkable how our culture assumes that designs and outcomes are static and predicable. Developing new capability to participate in evolutionary change might be the biggest obstacle and opportunity to reframe socio-ecological dynamics. The difficulty in any paradigm shift is that it requires an investment of energy and will to reconsider, shift perspective, and engage life in new ways. This is integral to the concept of regeneration. Success in regeneration means to evolve oneself, one’s process, and the value-generating capacity of systems. Regenerative practitioners continually seek to discover and develop new potential. The dictionary definition of regeneration addresses both the action and the source of this new potential: 1) to create anew and 2) to be born of a new spirit.

Engaging with life 25 Any change in human pattern takes time and conscious effort. There is no such thing as a ‘change management weekend’. Yes, one can have a profound experience in a moment but once the routines of daily life reassert themselves, things drop back into old patterns. Whether it is a physically fit body, proficiency with a musical instrument, or learning a language, a long period of practice is required. Learning to be in new relationship with each other and the ecosystems we are part of is no different. Without practice, people default to business-as-usual. On the other hand, when people engage in an ongoing developmental process, surprising and dramatic shifts become commonplace. Referring back to the Viña del Mar project example: The executive director of the Construction Chamber of Commerce originally refused to meet with Regenesis. However, ten months into the work he called the ILS general manager and said, ‘I don’t know what you guys are doing, but count us in. This is the first time in 30 years this city has been able to dream.’

References Anderson, M. K. 2005. Tending the Wild. Berkeley: University of California Press. Berry, W. 1981. The Gift of Good Land. Berkeley: Counterpoint. Haggard, B. 2017. Keynote. Commonwealth of Nations Conference on Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change. London, UK. May 18. Lerner, J. 2014. Urban Acupuncture. Washington, DC: Island Press. Lyle, J. T. 1993. “Urban Ecosystems.” Context, 35: 43. Lyle, J. T. 1994. Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Mang, P., and B. Reed. 2012. “Designing from Place: A  Regenerative Framework and Methodology.” Building Research & Information, 40 (1): 23–38. Reed, B. 2012. “Thought Piece: Regenerative Development and Design: Working with the Whole.” In C. J. Kibert (ed.), Sustainable Construction: Green Design and Delivery. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

4 Designing for living environments using regenerative development A case study of The Paddock Dominique Hes and Judy Bush Introduction The ‘environment’ and ecology exist not just in the wilderness beyond the city’s edge, untouched by humans, but also within the city; understandings of ecology have expanded to encompass cities and recognise the value of urban nature to both human and non-human urbanites (Schlosberg, 2013). The recognition of the importance – necessity – of incorporating nature in cities, both for human health and wellbeing, as well as for provision of essential urban ecosystem services, including cooling cities, cleaning and absorbing stormwater and air pollution, and mitigating storm damage (Bolund and Hunhammar, 1999; Lafortezza and Sanesi, 2019), points to new opportunities for designing cities, their neighbourhoods, and buildings with ecology (Birkeland, 2008). These new approaches have the potential to shift efforts from eco-efficiency approaches that strive to minimise negative impacts, towards regenerative approaches that provide positive benefit and contribute to repair and regeneration of ecological and social functions. How can ecology inform urban planning and design and the shape of our buildings, streets, and neighbourhoods? This chapter first discusses conceptions of urban ecology and social-ecological systems, and applies these to considerations of regenerative development, informed by ecological design thinking. The chapter then presents a case study of The Paddock, a regenerative development in Castlemaine, a small country town in south-east Australia. The chapter concludes by summarising how The Paddock case study1 can inform new approaches to regenerative development and ecological design.

Ecology and social-ecological systems Ecology is the study of the processes and patterns of the natural world (Parris, 2016). Urban ecology has grown from a focus on ecology in cities, based on small-scale studies of urban nature, to a larger focus on the ecology of cities (McDonnell, 2015). Evolving conceptual frameworks for urban ecology view cities as “heterogeneous, dynamic landscapes and as complex, adaptive, socioecological systems, in which the delivery of ecosystem services links society and ecosystems at multiple scales” (Grimm et al., 2008, 756). Social systems and ecological systems are intrinsically

Designing for living environments 27 linked, both affecting and being affected by each other, and can therefore be understood as social-ecological systems (Folke et al., 2005). Social-ecological systems are characterised by non-linearity and change, defined by flows and relationships (Hes and du Plessis, 2015). Social-ecological systems “represent the combination of the ‘exterior’, as created by biogeochemical processes and activities (in which humans and their technologies have come to play a disproportionate part), and the ‘interior’, as created by, and experienced through, processes of thought and shared cultural phenomena” (Hes and du Plessis, 2015, 27). Bringing a ‘systems thinking’ approach means incorporating a focus on the stocks and flows of materials, energy, ideas, and on their inter-relationships (Meadows, 2008). Understanding cities as social-ecological systems means that attention is paid to the interactions and co-dependencies of linked human and natural systems. It also means learning from ecology and key ecological concepts to understand and work with the city’s ecology in designing the form and function of urban areas. Ecological concepts of niches, the forces of competition and cooperation, circularity and co-dependency, biodiversity, and resilience are all relevant in urban planning and design. Planning and designing buildings, neighbourhoods and cities that are social-ecological systems necessitates a more transdisciplinary approach, spanning the work of ecologists, as well as social scientists, planners, designers, etc. (McDonnell, 2015).

Shifting worldviews and regenerative development In shifting how we understand and conceptualise cities and urban areas, from a technocratic or mechanistic view that sees cities as separate to nature, towards a more integrated and holistic view of cities as part of nature and social-ecological systems, there is an inherent shift in our ‘worldview’ (Hes and du Plessis, 2015; Wahl, 2016). While a mechanistic worldview seeks to understand and control, through rationalism, imperialism, reductionism, and separation from nature, an ‘ecological worldview’ sees humans as part of nature, and acknowledges complexity, dynamism, uncertainty, and the necessity for new ways to approach our relationship with nature, the environment, and each other (Hes and du Plessis, 2015; Wahl, 2016). It sees humans partnering with nature and ecology to build, function, and thrive. With an understanding that buildings, neighbourhoods, and cities are located within social-ecological systems, and a shift towards an ecological worldview, the principles and processes of regenerative design and development can guide new ways to approach the planning, design, and construction of urban environments (Birkeland, 2008; Cole, 2012; Mang and Reed, 2012; Lyle, 1994; Plaut et  al., 2012). Regenerative approaches seek to both reverse the destructive impacts and contribute to repairing, restoring, and regenerating social-ecological systems. Regenerative approaches are inherently place-based approaches. They are underpinned by a focus on developing a deep understanding of the place. Understanding the flows and relationships informs the approaches to development that will bring the place, its people, and nature, to life and allow it to thrive. The elements

28  Dominique Hes and Judy Bush of a regenerative approach include building an understanding of the site’s characteristics, that can then be used to develop and design responses that harness and regenerate the place’s potential (Hes and du Plessis, 2015; Mang et  al., 2016). A regenerative design approach requires a focus on: 1

2

3

Flows: how do resources, both tangible and intangible, move into and out of the place? Resources include both biophysical elements, including materials, water, energy and biodiversity, as well as ‘intangible’ resources of knowledge, social cohesion, cultural knowledges, stories. Relationships: who (and what) is involved in the site and the surrounding area, and how can they be linked to the regenerative design and development of the site, to allow the site and its social-ecological community to thrive? Relationships include those between different people, but also between all the resources that flow within the site. Relationships underpin ecological as well as social and economic spheres of activity. Developing designs that respond to the place’s unique combination of flows and relationships, that will build positive contributions and that will be adaptable to changing conditions in biophysical, social or economic spheres.

In adopting a regenerative approach to design and development, transdisciplinary input and participation from ecologists, designers, architects, landscape architects, engineers, planners, business owners, and local members of the community is essential. Regenerative designers foster and encourage engagement and participation, and elicit and draw forth the stories and knowledges, the opportunities and potential of place. Regenerative designers also ensure that the views are represented of those who might not otherwise have a voice, including those with less power or access to decision-making, and the non-human voices of nature and ecology (Benyus, 1997). The concepts and principles of regenerative development are made tangible through certification systems such as the Living Building Challenge (LBC), an ambitious approach that challenges construction and development to “reconcile the built environment with the natural environment” (Hes and du Plessis, 2015). The LBC sets the challenge: “What if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place?” The LBC is organised around seven ‘petals’ of performance: place, water, energy, health and happiness, materials, equity, and beauty. Each of the petals is divided into subcategories of ‘imperatives’ which address specific requirements for performance. The certification system provides an international process for designs to be verified as achieving ‘living building’ outcomes. The Paddock represents a case study of regenerative development that demonstrates one approach to meeting these challenges.

The Paddock: applying regenerative design to housing development The Paddock is a residential development in Castlemaine, Australia. It has been designed to encourage the return of biodiversity as well as providing a housing

Designing for living environments  29 development for people in the form of a small village of 26 homes (Figure 4.1). The design team started with three design intentions: 1 2 3

How do we design the development to bring back biodiversity? How do we design to create a net positive village (based on Living Building Challenge certification), including food security? How do we design a place where there is a role for contributive self-governance (everyone feels they have a responsibility to add value to the site and its management)?

The foundation of this project was an aim to make the non-human (nature) environment healthier. The designers and developers were driven by the question: Can we do ‘good development’, development that in the regenerative sense increases the vitality, viability, and adaptability of the whole system? A way to demonstrate the regenerative impacts for the environment was monitoring for the return of key species that are indicators of ecological health for the local area. Using data gathered by citizen scientists from three day-long visits over a 16-month period before design and construction began, a biodiversity ‘baseline’ was determined. This baseline mapped the site’s existing water, soil, vegetation, birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. With the input of the architect, landscape architect, and ecologists, a design was created determining where people would live; where they could grow food; and key locations for biodiversity habitat. This informed the design and the treatment of the development’s productive gardens and food growing areas, as well as the wetlands and lake, the trees that were planted, the old trees that were retained, the installation of insect hotels, the shrubs and grasses used, etc.

Figure 4.1 The Paddock’s design, showing housing for humans and space for food growing as well as habitat for biodiversity. Source: The Paddock

30  Dominique Hes and Judy Bush In addition to the regenerative development process that informed the project’s design, the developers also aimed to achieve certification with the Living Building Challenge (LBC). Architect Geoff Crosby from Crosby Architects, has always been committed to designing The Paddock so that it would contribute to the wellbeing of Castlemaine. He began working on the concepts for this development while working on his first LBC project in nearby Bull Street, Castlemaine. The aims of the Bull Street project were to challenge the low-density model for housing in the area, by producing homes that were beautiful and healthy, and that supported the local building industry and related businesses. This translated to The Paddock as it helped develop the building typology, the local materials palette and the local trades to be employed. As a result, the homes have been designed to be water and energy positive; carbon neutral; free of toxins and materials with potential negative ecological and human impacts; beautiful; educational; and affordable. The development was phased with the first group of homes occupied in 2019, and the remaining phases in 2020. Working regeneratively in social-ecological systems requires multiple disciplines; in the Castlemaine project, architects, engineers, landscape architects, academics, governance experts, artists, and ecologists all worked together to design a living system. Regenerative design and development approaches, which work within social-ecological systems, require the ongoing involvement of these disciplines and of community members, to monitor the results and to respond to ongoing change and opportunities as they arise. This continued attention – stewardship of the site’s ecology and wider social-ecological system  – has the potential to harness the site’s flows and relationships to continue to regenerate and restore the area. Some examples of aspects designed into the project are: •

• • • • •

Different sightlines are designed through the site celebrating different periods of the site’s cultural heritage: Indigenous, gold rush, agricultural, and artist. These evolving lines of sight include art works, sculptures, planting, and narratives that support the different cultural periods. Ongoing citizen science supported by the residents and the local enthusiasts, with research expertise and resourcing also being sought. The governance processes for the site reinforce residents’ specific responsibilities to care for aspects around the site. The micro-grid sets up a sharing economy for the electrical energy produced by the homes, which is shared with the community house, green house, and sheds. Workshops and site visits are organised for external people, to showcase the development and its approach. These initiatives continue to emerge and evolve as the residents settle in and determine how they want to contribute. It depends on their skills and passions and how the development itself is evolving within its surrounding context.

The regenerative design of this development creates the potential for these aspects to emerge over time. It creates the potential for the residents (and beyond) to

Designing for living environments 31 grow, learn, and increase their own vitality and viability. The regenerative design is the stone thrown into the pond; and the ripples that radiate outwards are the outcome of the regenerative development approach.

Conclusions The Paddock provides a demonstration of how to embed regenerative development principles into the design and construction of housing, to create thriving environments for both humans and non-human biodiversity. Applying these approaches builds understandings of the site’s social-ecological system, its flows that bring it to life and the relationships that nourish and enrich the site now and across time. The key aspects are highlighted in the following paragraphs. Regenerative approaches develop integrated environments in which buildings are embedded within thriving landscapes. Rather than separated phases and design tasks of building construction and landscape design, regenerative development seeks to bring together transdisciplinary teams that create thriving and interconnected ‘habitats’ for people and nature. Regenerative approaches are ambitious. Their aim is not simply maintaining existing habitat and environmental values and features, nor creating aesthetically pleasing landscapes. Regenerative approaches seek to provide the conditions in which biodiversity returns and flourishes within the development. Regenerative approaches aim to create thriving environments that identify and amplify the site’s potential, and the potential of its current and future inhabitants. That is, the focus extends beyond the design of an artefact, or building, to designing a system of relationships that enable humans and non-humans to move more effectively towards their potential. For example, if the site has a greenhouse, system of gardens and composting, and residents who know how to look after gardens, then the potential to grow food is created. Regenerative approaches underpin the development of stewardship for the local environment and broader environmental care. With ambitions to create and maintain the ecological conditions for the return and thriving of biodiversity, ongoing monitoring of the site’s environmental conditions is essential. This monitoring effort provides opportunities for developing connections between the site’s residents, for developing a sense of shared responsibility for the site’s ecological health and thriving, and for increasing a wider sense of stewardship for the biosphere (Elmqvist et al., 2013; Bennett et al., 2018). For this project this means integrating the story of the design for non-human species as central to the development and what this means for the governance of the site. In The Paddock these regenerative approaches have focused on actively designing niches for ecosystems and communities to evolve, to bring back biodiversity, and to provide a strong connection between social and ecological systems. The results of this will be a system that is stronger and more interconnected. The Paddock project aims to demonstrate how a regeneratively designed place will result in increased vitality, viability, and adaptability of the whole system.

32  Dominique Hes and Judy Bush

Note 1 For more information please see: https://thepaddock.com.au/about

References Bennett, N. J., T. S. Whitty, E. Finkbeiner, J. Pittman, H. Bassett, S. Gelcich, and E. H. Allison. 2018. “Environmental Stewardship: A Conceptual Review and Analytical Framework.” Environmental Management, 61 (4): 597–614. doi:10.1007/s00267-017-0993-2. Benyus, J. M. 1997. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York: Quill. Birkeland, Janis. 2008. Positive Development: From Vicious Circles to Virtuous Cycles Through Built Environment Design. London: Earthscan. Bolund, Per, and Sven Hunhammar. 1999. “Ecosystem Services in Urban Areas.” Ecological Economics, 29 (2): 293–301. doi:10.1016/S0921-8009(99)00013-0. Cole, R. J. 2012. “Transitioning from Green to Regenerative Design.” Building Research and Information, 40 (1): 39–53. doi:10.1080/09613218.2011.610608. Elmqvist, Thomas, Michail Fragkias, Julie Goodness, Burak Güneralp, Peter J. Marcotullio, Robert I. McDonald, Susan Parnell, Maria Schewenius, Marte Sendstad, Karen C. Seto, Cathy Wilkinson, Marina Alberti, Carl Folke, Niki Frantzeskaki, Dagmar Haase, Madhusudan Katti, Harini Nagendra, Jari Niemelä, Steward T. A. Pickett, Charles L. Redman, and Keith Tidball. 2013. “Stewardship of the Biosphere in the Urban Era.” In Thomas Elmqvist, Michail Fragkias, Julie Goodness, Burak Güneralp, Peter J. Marcotullio, Robert I. McDonald, Susan Parnell, Maria Schewenius, Marte Sendstad, Karen C. Seto, and Cathy Wilkinson (eds.), Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities. A Global Assessment, 719–746. Dordrecht: Springer. Folke, C., T. Hahn, P. Olsson, and J. Norberg. 2005. “Adaptive Governance of SocialEcological Systems.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 30: 441–473. doi:10.1146/annurev.energy.30.050504.144511. Grimm, Nancy B., Stanley H. Faeth, Nancy E. Golubiewski, Charles L. Redman, Jianguo Wu, Xuemei Bai, and John M. Briggs. 2008. “Global Change and the Ecology of Cities.” Science, 319 (5864): 756–760. doi:10.1126/science.1150195. Hes, Dominique, and Chrisna du Plessis. 2015. Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability. Abingdon: Routledge. Lafortezza, R., and G. Sanesi. 2019. “Nature-Based Solutions: Settling the Issue of Sustainable Urbanization.” Environmental Research, 172: 394–398. doi:10.1016/j. envres.2018.12.063. Lyle, John Tillman. 1994. Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development. New York: John Wiley. Mang, Pamela, Ben Haggard, and Regenesis. 2016. Regenerative Development and Design: A Framework for Evolving Sustainability. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Mang, Pamela, and Bill Reed. 2012. “Designing from Place: A Regenerative Framework and Methodology.” Building Research and Information, 40 (1): 23–38. doi:10.1080/09 613218.2012.621341. McDonnell, Mark J. 2015. “Journal of Urban Ecology: Linking and Promoting Research and Practice in the Evolving Discipline of Urban Ecology.” Journal of Urban Ecology, 1 (1): 1–6. doi:10.1093/jue/juv003. Meadows, Donella. 2008. Thinking in Systems: A Primer. London: Earthscan. Parris, Kirsten M. 2016. Ecology of Urban Environments. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley  & Sons.

Designing for living environments 33 Plaut, J. M., B. Dunbar, A. Wackerman, and S. Hodgin. 2012. “Regenerative Design: The LENSES Framework for Buildings and Communities.” Building Research and Information, 40 (1): 112–122. doi:10.1080/09613218.2012.619685. Schlosberg, D. 2013. “Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse.” Environmental Politics, 22 (1): 37–55. doi:10.1080/09644016.2013.755387. Wahl, Daniel Christian. 2016. Designing Regenerative Cultures. Bridport, UK: Triarchy Press Ltd.

5 The paradox of metrics Setting goals for regenerative design and development Richard Graves

Introduction Regenerative design is a transformative approach to architecture that catalyses the relationship between people and other living systems to build social and ecological health. When ecological systems are used to support social needs, complex relationships and interactions can begin to take place. Regenerative design evolved out of a reaction to the mechanistic methodology of green design, which assumes the impacts of a development can be dissected, quantified, and solved. Green building, architecture, and planning are incremental approaches to “solving” global ecological and social challenges. While green design and the assessment systems that evolved from it (LEED, BREEAM, etc.) have built significant awareness of global environmental challenges, the focus on merely mitigating impacts is myopic. As Cole (2015) points out, “green design is directed at reducing degenerative impacts . . . this is insufficient for an ecologically sustainable future and is an insufficient aspiration to motivate design professionals and their clients”.

What is regenerative design and why is it important? The foundation of regenerative design is built upon the belief that humanity and “nature” are one interconnected system. Regenerative design considers the role of designers as integrators of social, ecological, and technological systems to achieve the potential of a community and to provide a healthy environment for all people and living systems now and in a dynamic future of climate change, social upheaval, and technological disruption. Regenerative design favours a social-ecological view of design, not a mechanistic one (Cole et  al., 2013). A social-ecological view of the role of design does not separate design, development, and architecture from an idealised nature, but integrates buildings and neighbourhoods with living systems in time and space. The process involves not only designing systems of resource flows to be self-renewing, but also relates to understanding a new way of social, ecological, and technological systems thinking for design.

The paradox of metrics 35

A regenerative design process A number of processes have been developed to guide regenerative design (see for example: Regenesis, 2019; Hes and Du Plessis, 2015; Lyle, 1999). Regenerative design processes acknowledge that the built environment is where social and ecological systems intersect. A successful process analyses the flows of social and ecological systems for context, in order to discover opportunities for future health to “co-evolve”. A  regenerative social-ecological design process (Figure 5.1) developed by a team of architects and ecologists from the University of Minnesota (Graves et al., 2019), was inspired by theory on complex adaptive systems and resilience. Social-ecological systems, like all complex adaptive systems, are characterised by dynamic and emergent interactions across nested scales of time and place (Gunderson and Holling, 2002; Liu et al., 2007; Levin et al., 2013). A particular development is part of a bigger system, and is itself made up of multiple interacting subsystems. Resilience is the capacity of a social-ecological system to adapt or transform in the face of change, while continuing to support human well-being (Biggs et al., 2015; Folke et al., 2016). The goal of design is not a fictitious moment of sustainability, but the creation of emerging pathways of systemic resilience providing for social needs, while enhancing the health of all living systems. The process is iterative and has five aspects: place, needs and goals, scenario design, assessment, and implementation. In the assessment phase, different design scenarios are evaluated against the social needs, environmental limits, and social-ecological goals identified for a particular place with community collaboration. Social needs, environmental limits, and social-ecological goals (metrics) are used to evaluate and compare scenarios or potential futures.

Why we need to measure regenerative design For regenerative design to transform practice, it must demonstrate improvements in the health of people and ecosystems. This success must not only provide good stories and beautiful designs, but must also survive scientific review. Metrics link regenerative design to science, however this interpretation of science could be limited to counting and weighing and therefore arrive at a distorted understanding of performance (Bateson and Catherine, 2008). Fearing such a devolution into a mechanistic framework, regenerative design could simply avoid metrics. However, this would not provide the feedback loops integral to designing and evolving living systems. Scientific assessment can be rooted in the atomistic thinking of Newton, Bacon, and Darwin, which broke down the whole into parts and rendered their interactions into mathematical formulas; this is the predominant scientific thinking that dissects the living world into unrelated parts. Lamarck was a contemporary of Darwin, but rejected atomistic thinking as reductionist in a world that is made of flux and process (Chaney, 2017). Part of the paradox of advocating for and designing regenerative design metrics is that the complexity of life is difficult to predict and model (Beckage et al., 2011).

Figure 5.1  A process for regenerative social-ecological design.

36  Richard Graves

The paradox of metrics 37 Complexity science, ecology, and biology have built awareness of the structure of living systems. As John T. Lyle, one of the pioneers of regenerative design, advised: “One of the major conceptual divides that separates us from the designers of the past [is] the awareness of change and uncertainty. For all of the intricacy of our analytical methods, we know that none of them tells us anything for certain. To develop a model is to become aware of its crudity” (Lyle, 1999). Despite the difficulty of prediction, iterative modelling stands as one important method for optimising designs. Measurements from these models are a way to learn about the qualities of the living systems and compare options. Modelling however, dissects complex systems in order to understand them, establishing boundaries in space and time to provide information. Regenerative designers must understand that the bounded modelled system is still part of a larger whole. Despite the challenges of modelling complex living systems and the embedded bias in modern culture toward mechanistic thinking, designers need metrics to compare design scenarios where outcomes can be reviewed and then improved. Regenerative design requires metrics to be integrated into practice that embody living system thinking. This can seem to be a paradox, but is required of rigorous regenerative design to guide design methodology and compare development scenarios. Regenerative design must skilfully integrate metrics into design to build a more robust practice of developing social and ecological value, while avoiding the simplistic checklist mindset of measuring only that which is quantifiable. Measuring the success and failures of regenerative design provides a feedback loop to guide future practice to move beyond the flaws of the current paradigm of green design metrics, which can be understood to be: •

•

•

•

Time and space are fixed and the environmental impact of a building is measured at the end of construction. This limits the ability to acknowledge more complex system values to emerge that take time and have benefits outside of the project boundaries. For example, landscape restorations that have significant regional biodiversity benefits after a decade. Universal measurement, with the assumption that success can be measured in the same way in every place. Green building programmes generally have a static set of credits or goals that define social and ecological value. However, these systems are intimately connected to the place, culture, and specific situation, therefore goals/metrics should adapt to place. Externalises benefits and impacts. The popularity of “net zero” energy and water metrics can make a specific building during a particular year seem successful. However, did the design assess the potential to add or degrade value throughout the wider energy and water systems over time? Biases quantification over qualities of systems. Life cycle assessment is a good example of an assessment system that attempts to quantify a broad range of ecological impacts. However these tend to have significant data gaps in water use, renewable energy, and human toxicity. (Finkbeiner et al., 2014)

38  Richard Graves In contrast to this reductive approach to design, regenerative design is holistic and embraces the beauty of complex systems and the uniqueness of their expression in a particular place. Adaptive change depends upon feedback loops; meaning there must be a process of trial and error and a mechanism of comparison. This mechanism of comparison creates the imperative for regenerative metrics. Socialecological design has specific goals related to benefiting living systems. Some of these goals will always be qualitative, but some aspects can be measured to assess the success or failure of design methods.

How to measure regenerative design Regenerative design metrics should be methods of “measuring the capacity to enhance vitality, viability and adaptability when looking at the design of a living environment. It is not just about the quantification of increased species, social measures, food production, ecosystem services, etc. It is about the ability for a project to thrive and continue to evolve into the future” (Hes and Du Plessis, 2015). Some of the earliest examples of regenerative design attempted to use ecology as a method of comparison for design scenarios. Lyle quotes the ecologist E. Odum throughout his writings for example (Lyle, 1994, 1999). Lyle identified three types of order in a place: structure of the biological community, the flows of energy and materials, and the patterns of relationships (Lyle, 1999). The process is not linear, but acknowledges that the order exists before the design process begins, and that it will continue to evolve after the design is implemented. Building upon the unique patterns of a place, architecture can embody and catalyse elements of the living systems they inhabit. Designing in this way requires a mind-set and vision that Bateson and Catherine (2008) called “the ecology of mind”, an ecology of pattern, information, and ideas embodied in material forms. A building cannot be regenerative in isolation, but it can be the embodiment of regenerative thought and aspire to add value to social and ecological systems. This requires the capacity to process and self-correct the relationship between design and the living world. Creating the adaptive change that is characteristic of living systems is essential for regenerative development. Lyle integrated ecology into the practice of design and adapted metrics for each project. The measurements were often divided into natural and human processes impacted, and could be quantifiable or qualitative depending on the project. For example, the Aliso Creek Plan for a development near Los Angeles assesses policy scenarios based on a water budget calculation comparing water supply created to water demand. The San Dieguito Lagoon project for an area between Los Angeles and San Diego takes a more qualitative approach analysing the natural and human process impacts as either increased or decreased for a residential complex with an array of factors: organic matter decay, atmospheric pollution, traffic congestion, etc. (Lyle, 1999). A critical insight of his process was that metrics are not only used to assess design proposals to create a plan, but also to monitor the implementation process. This creates a feedback loop for adaptation as natural processes and patterns interact with human development. In living systems,

The paradox of metrics  39 change is controlled by internal mechanisms and relationships. These relationships are altered for development to serve human needs. This is in line with Cole et al. (2013), who state: “By their nature, regenerative design approaches imply an adaptive stance to building design and operations, which allows the combined human/technical systems of the building process to respond to change over time.” Regenerative design has begun to integrate emerging research in ecology and related fields about the science and policies required to document and measure the flow of ecosystem services supporting human well-being (Pedersen Zari, 2018). The growth in knowledge of ecosystem services has been rapid from early academic work by Daily to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005 (MEA, 2005; Daily et al., 2009; Ruckelshaus et al., 2015). The experience of scientists working with ecosystem services has aligned with some of the approaches of regenerative design (Regenesis, 2016). For example, The Natural Capital Project, which was created in 2006, developed the InVEST tool to guide decision-making. While the tool provides a basic template to be used anywhere, their approach needs to co-develop applications with decision makers to ensure inputs are tailored to local needs and outputs are credible and relevant to local stakeholders (Ruckelshaus et al., 2015). Urban design and planning communities have a growing interest in ecosystem services, particularly in the context of climate change and the potential of nature in cities to mitigate negative climate change impacts through strategies such as ecosystem-based adaptation (Geneletti and Zardo, 2016) and other naturebased solutions (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016). Significant future work is needed to explore the intersections of regenerative design and ecosystem services in an urban context (Keeler et  al., 2019). Pedersen Zari’s work creates a foundation for built environment ecosystem service goals and measures and brings rigor to the holistic thinking of regenerative design in terms of relationships with biological ecologies. She mapped and translated ecosystem processes and services into resources for design professionals (Pedersen Zari, 2012, 2015, 2018). Her research determined that buildings can contribute to climate regulation and the purification of air, provide habitat, cycle nutrients, and provide fresh water, fuel and food, and that success can be measured against baseline metrics derived from site specific past or current healthy ecosystems. The metrics of regenerative design and development also need to connect social needs to ecological restoration and limits more robustly. Ecological conditions and design goals should link with the self-determined social needs of the community and explore the role design can play in providing cultural ecosystem services, which is a category of often intangible ecosystem services that contribute to wellbeing aspects such as physical and mental health, recreation, spiritual and cultural practices, scenic beauty, social cohesion, and sense of place (Daniel et al., 2012). For regenerative development to emerge from the design phase, the linking of social needs to the biological ecosystem of a place must build relationships of supportive social infrastructure that will persist over time to realise future potential. There are many ways in which social and ecological benefits of a building or site development may be assessed. Communities may develop their own list of relevant

Source: Graves et al., 2019

Figure 5.2  Social-ecological metrics for development.

40  Richard Graves

The paradox of metrics 41 well-being metrics, specific to their context. On the ecological end of the spectrum of benefits, there exist numerous tools (e.g., Neugarten et al., 2018; Pascual et al., 2017) for assessing ecosystem services, but most rely on the same common elements of identifying ecological structures and processes that produce benefits for people, quantifying those benefits, and assigning various kinds of values to them. The value of an ecosystem service may be expressed in economic terms, but it may also be expressed as a non-monetary contribution to human well-being. The socialecological approach to design is oriented towards a future vision co-produced by the design team, community, and other stakeholders. This means the provision of benefits by onsite ecological systems is assessed against the social-ecological goals set for the development. Figure 5.2 shows a selection of metrics for a future-oriented social-ecological assessment of development benefits. Since a design is situated within a greater social-ecological system, these metrics are considered at different scales. For example, a vegetable garden producing food (an ecosystem service) contributes to meeting the basic need for food in the community and is a locally confined benefit. Trees and vegetation on the site may sequester and store carbon as they grow, which is an ecosystem service with global benefits. Similarly, the extent to which a development improves water quantity and quality depends on its location within the watershed. Benefits may only accrue to downstream communities.

Conclusion To achieve its full potential, regenerative design must evolve beyond just the next set of advanced green building strategies. It must develop a mind-set that designs with the beauty of the complexity of life, but also employs the next generation of regenerative design tools and metrics to assess the ability of a design to add to social and ecological health. Regenerative social-ecological design must accept that design and development occur within a milieu of complex systems in space and time. Therefore, things are always changing, and the needs, limits, and goals of the development should constantly be re-evaluated. Regenerative designers should continue to research and share methodologies for creating metrics for gauging and comparing the success of their developments. By navigating the paradox of creating and using regenerative design metrics, innovative measures will evolve to enable more effective integration of the living world and the built.

References Bateson, G., and M. Catherine. 2008. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Beckage, B., L. J. Gross, and S. Kauffman. 2011. “The Limits to Prediction in Ecological Systems.” Ecosphere, 2 (11): 125. doi:10.1890/ES11-00211.1. Biggs, R., M. Schlüter, and M. L. Schoon (eds.) 2015. Principles for Building Resilience: Sustaining Ecosystem Services in Social-Ecological Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

42  Richard Graves Chaney, A. 2017. Runaway: Gregory Bateson, the Double Bind, and the Rise of Ecological Consciousness. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Cohen-Shacham, E., G. Walters, C. Janzen, and S. Maginnis. 2016. Nature Based Solutions to Address Global Societal Challenges. Glad: IUCN. Cole, R. 2015. Understanding Regenerative Design: Challenging the Orthodoxy of Current Green Building Practice. Available online: www.REMInetwork.org. Cole, R., A. Oliver, and J. Robinson. 2013. “Regenerative Design, Socio-Ecological Systems and Co-evolution.” Building Research and Information, 41 (2): 237–247. Daily, G. C., S. Polasky, J. Goldstein, P. M. Kareiva, H. A. Mooney, L. Pejchar, T. H. Ricketts, J. Salzman, and R. Shallenberger. 2009. “Ecosystem Services in Decision Making: Time to Deliver.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7 (1): 21–28. Daniel et al. 2012. “Contributions of Cultural Services to the Ecosystem Services Agenda.” PNAS, 109 (23): 8812–8819. Finkbeiner, M. et al. 2014. “Challenges in Life Cycle Assessment: An Overview of Current Gaps and Research Needs.” In W. Klöpffer (ed.), Background and Future Prospects in Life Cycle Assessment. LCA Compendium – The Complete World of Life Cycle Assessment. Dordrecht: Springer. Folke, C., R. Biggs, A. V. Norström, B. Reyers, and J. Rockström. 2016. “Social-Ecological Resilience and Biosphere-Based Sustainability Science.” Ecology and Society, 21 (3). Geneletti, D., and L. Zardo. 2016. “Ecosystem-Based Adaptation in Cities: An Analysis of European Urban Climate Adaptation Plans.” Land Use Policy, 50: 38–47. Graves, R., B. Keeler, M. Hamann, E. Kutschke, and C. Nootenboom. 2019. “A  Social Ecological Approach to Architecture and Planning.” Journal of Architecture and Construction, 2 (4): 33–44. Gunderson, L. H., and C. S. Holling. 2002. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Systems of Humans and Nature. Washington, DC: Island Press. Hes, D., and C. Du Plessis. 2015. Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability. New York: Routledge. Keeler, B., P. Hamel, T. McPhearson, M. Hamann, M. Donahue, K. Meza Prado, K. Arkema, G. Bratman, K. Brauman, J. Finlay, A. Guerry, S. Hobbie, J. Johnson, G. MacDonald, R. McDonald, N. Neverisky, and S. Wood. 2019. “Social-Ecological and Technological Factors Moderate the Value of Urban Nature.” Nature Sustainability, 2: 29–38. Levin, S., T. Xepapadeas, A. S. Crépin, J. Norberg, A. De Zeeuw, C. Folke, T. Hughes, K. Arrow, S. Barrett, G. Daily, and P. Ehrlich. 2013. “Social-Ecological Systems as Complex Adaptive Systems: Modelling and Policy Implications.” Environment and Development Economics, 18 (2): 111–132. Liu, J., T. Dietz, S. R. Carpenter, M. Alberti, C. Folke, E. Moran, A. N. Pell, P. Deadman, T. Kratz, J. Lubchenco, and E. Ostrom. 2007. “Complexity of Coupled Human and Natural Systems.” Science, 317 (5844): 1513–1516. Lyle, J. T. 1994. Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development. New York: Wiley. Lyle, J. T. 1999. Design for Human Ecosystems: Landscape, Land Use and Natural Resources. Washington, DC: Island Press. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Current State and Trends. Washington, DC: Island Press. Neugarten, R. A., P. F. Langhammer, E. Osipova, K. J. Bagstad, N. Bhagabati, S. H. M. Butchart, N. Dudley, V. Elliott, L. R. Gerber, C. Gutierrez Arrellano, K. -Z. Ivanić, M. Kettunen, L. Mandle, J. C. Merriman, M. Mulligan, K. S. -H. Peh, C. Raudsepp-Hearne, D. J. Semmens, S. Stolton, and S. Willcock. 2018. Tools for Measuring, Modelling, and

The paradox of metrics 43 Valuing Ecosystem Services: Guidance for Key Biodiversity Areas, Natural World Heritage Sites, and Protected Areas. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. Pascual, U. et al. 2017. “Valuing Nature’s Contributions to People: The IPBES Approach.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 26–27: 7–16. Pedersen Zari, M. 2012. “Ecosystem Services Analysis for the Design of Regenerative Built Environments.” Building Research & Information, 40 (1): 54–64. Pedersen Zari, M. 2015. “Ecosystem Services Analysis: Mimicking Ecosystem Services for Regenerative Urban Design.” International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment, 4: 145–157. Pedersen Zari, M. 2018. Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry. New York: Routledge. Regenesis Group. 2016. Regenerative Development and Design: A Framework for Evolving Sustainability. New York: Wiley. Regenesis Group. 2019. The Story of Place. Date accessed August 2019. Available online: https://regenesisgroup.com/services/story-of-place. Ruckelshaus, M., E. Mckenzie, H. Tallis, A. Guerry, G. Daily, P. Kareiva, S. Polasky, T. Ricketts, N. Bhagabati, S. A. Wood, and J. Bernhardt. 2015. “Notes from the Field: Lessons Learned from Using Ecosystem Service Approaches to Inform Real-world Decisions.” Ecological Economics, 115: 11–21.

6 Ecological design as the biointegration of a set of ‘infrastructures’ The ‘quatrobrid’ constructed ecosystem Ken Yeang Introduction What is the practical means for implementing ecological design? While ecocentricity means adopting the science of ecology as the guiding principles for achieving ecomimesis (the emulation of ecosystems), ecological design also needs to emulate and replicate the attributes of ecosystems for creating an ecocentric reinvention of the human-made world and built environment. We need a framework for the practical implementation of ecological design. In ecological design, the aim is to integrate the natural world with the built environment in a seamless and benign way. This includes all components of Nature, from biogeochemical cycles to flora and fauna, as well as all built components of human society, from managed water systems to societal systems. In providing a framework for the synthesis of these into a designed system, it is useful to think of each of these as support-systems in terms of what is referred to here as an ‘infrastructure’. Ecological design is then affecting the balanced, seamless and ecologically informed combination of these constituents into a biointegrated composite whole ‘constructed ecosystem’ based on ecomimetic principles. Ecological design brings together four factors as infrastructures. These are synergistically bio-integrated into a composite four-part system, referred to here as a ‘quatrobrid’ constructed ecosystem. The four factors are:

Nature-based infrastructure Commonly referred to as ‘green’ infrastructure, this is the environmental context for all the other infrastructures because it is the planet’s life-support system and consists of the planet’s ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles (Andersson et al., 2014; Edwards et al., 2012; Foster et al., 2011; Hansen and Pauleit, 2014; Kazmierczak and Carter, 2010; The City of New York, 2010; Tzoulas et  al., 2007). The term applies whether the infrastructure is naturally developed or designed and planted.

Technological and engineering infrastructure Technological and engineering infrastructure is comprised of the physical constructs that humanity designs and manufactures. It includes all of humanity’s

Ecological design as biointegration 45 service-providing artefacts, structures, and technologies. These consist both of the ‘unenclosed’ urban utilities external to building enclosures, and the ‘enclosed’ internal mechanical/electrical/IT servicing systems within building enclosures.

Hydrological infrastructure Hydrological infrastructure refers to the parts of both Nature-based infrastructure and peoples’ technological and engineering infrastructure that are particularly associated with water and water management (Karamouz, 2013; Margulis, 2017; Dang et  al., 2016). Essentially, it is humanity’s hydrological and water management and reticulation systems acting in unison with the natural cycles of the hydrosphere. The reason that water-related infrastructure is often treated separately to technological infrastructure is because of the paramount importance of water to life. The natural components of hydrological infrastructure include natural watercourses, waterbodies, and groundwater. The human-made components include drainage networks, water storage features, flood defences, pumps, sumps, sewage networks, etc.

Human socio-economical-political infrastructure The term ‘socio-economical-political infrastructure’, is used here to refer to the complex societal social-economical-political and institutional systems and communities of humanity. Humans have moved into a state of cultural evolution whereby ecologies of societal interaction, and indeed thoughts, have enormous effects on the planet. Accordingly, socio-economical-political infrastructure must be considered as an infrastructure in its own right. It is important to note that these four factors are not mutually exclusive. They are used to facilitate ecological design that is able to focus on particular aspects of the fabric of the human-made world, united by a common element of Nature.

Rationale for an infrastructure-based approach to ecological design Each of these ‘infrastructures’ can be considered as an underlying scaffold or backbone in a network of sub-systems from which the holistic functions of ecomimetic design emerge. These infrastructures encompass in totality all of the key factors that make up human society and its built environment, and Nature. Ecological design is then the effective and synergistic biointegration of this set of infrastructures into a whole system, where an infrastructure is an organisation of entities whether already in existence in Nature (for example, Nature-based infrastructure, or hydrological infrastructure), or being a societal construct (for example, anthropocentric and technological and engineering). The rationale for the adoption of an ‘infrastructural’ approach is that for ecological design to be truly effective, it needs to be carried out at a system-wide macro scale and not be undertaken in an incremental or piecemeal way, such as at the scale of just individual human constructs (i.e. buildings) or even multiple constructs (i.e. urban clusters).

46  Ken Yeang Ecological design at micro scales of working at its best, can only achieve local and incremental environmental benefits. Even if designers deliver buildings with state-of-the-art energy-saving systems and the most ecologically effective systems, such endeavours are likely to remain ineffectual in terms of reversing the already advanced biosphere-wide condition of environmental impairment, unless undertaken as part of a wider change in approach and delivery. Moreover, if individually designed green buildings and structures are connected to an infrastructure that is not ecologically benign, which impairs Nature, then no matter how extensively ‘sustainable’ or ecologically effective they are, the entire system continues to contribute to the overall adverse impacts of environmentally defective human urbanism (including human behaviours). A simple example of this might be when buildings are connected to an electricity grid powered by the burning of fossil fuels. In this instance the buildings and structures connected to the grid cannot be regarded as contributing to an ‘ecologically effective’ system. Seeking to achieve sustainability through the incremental delivery of individual green buildings, without addressing the human-made world holistically, is somewhat like recycling at home. Such efforts can make individuals or the local community feel that they have done something ‘right’ but in reality, the overall beneficial environmental impact is insignificant if not part of an overall effective system that strives to eliminate the very concept of waste. In contrast, when the infrastructure of our conurbations is ecologically effective and green, the buildings and other components that are serviced by them can also become ecologically effective. Viewing the components of our human-made world in terms of infrastructures also helps us to ensure that the effects of our designed systems are considered at every stage in the life-cycles of their components. In particular, the ecological effectiveness of technological and hydrological infrastructures needs to be optimised through consideration of all environmental impacts from the source of supply for each infrastructure, through to their distribution systems, and their ‘end of use’. Furthermore, every act of ecological design needs to address, as far as possible, the repair of past environmental damage and to do this effectively humans need to work at all scales and consider all interdependencies. This means working with entire infrastructures rather than localised individual components.

Physically and systemically integrating infrastructures into a designed system Although each of these infrastructures can be defined to some extent independently, they are also clearly interdependent. They need to be assembled, interwoven, unified, enmeshed, and biointegrated into ecologically designed systems, the interactions and synergies between which can be envisaged as combining and interacting in a multi-dimensional ‘matrix of infrastructures’.

Ecological design as biointegration 47 Each infrastructure must be designed to emulate and replicate the normative attributes of ecosystems in order to be in synergy with wider Nature. The whole biointegrated matrix of infrastructures becomes a designed ‘quatrobrid’ (a term that may be preferable to the binary ‘hybrid’) techno-natural constructed ecosystem. This integration needs to operate at all scales of operation and influences, from the macro-, to the meso-, to the micro-, and nano-scales.

Conclusion: reconceptualising the ecological design process In summary, to effect good ecological design, the full set of infrastructures make up a design framework of crucial elements that need to be integrated to make up an effective designed system. Essentially, humans can then conceive the practical process of ecological design as a seamless, benign, and synergistic biointegration of a set of infrastructures that are the natural, hydrological, technological, and anthropocentric infrastructures. We can refer to these not as creating a ‘hybrid’ constructed ecosystem, but a ‘multiplebrid’ system; in this instance, a four-factor ‘quatrobrid’ constructed ecosystem. The biointegration and design of each infrastructure along with the assembly of these infrastructures into a combined, synergistically integrated, multidimensional, interactive system must holistically emulate and replicate the normative attributes of ecosystems through ecomimicry, thereby functioning as a new type of ecosystem, that is, a human-made ecosystem in harmony with Nature. The resultant system must work within the thresholds of resilience, carrying capacities of Nature’s ecosystems, the biosphere’s biogeochemical cycles, the conservation of its natural resources, and where achievable, contribute positively and beneficially to Nature. Accomplishing this integration effectively is the core challenge of ecological design.

References Andersson, E. et al. 2014. “Reconnecting Cities to the Biosphere: Stewardship of Green Infrastructure and Urban Ecosystem Services.” AMBIO, 43 (4): 445–453. Dang, T. D. et al. 2016. “Hydrological Alterations from Water Infrastructure Development in the Mekong Floodplains.” Hydrological Processes, 30 (21): 3824–3838. Edwards, P. E. T. et al. 2012. “Investing in Nature: Restoring Coastal Habitat Blue Infrastructure and Green Job Creation.” Marine Policy, 38 (June 12): 65–71. Foster, J., A. Lowe, and S. Winkelman. 2011. The Value of Green Infrastructure for Urban Climate Adaptation. Washington, DC: The Center on Clean Air Policy. Hansen, R., and S. Pauleit. 2014. “From Multifunctionality to Multiple Ecosystem Services? A Conceptual Framework for Multifunctionality in Green Infrastructure Planning for Urban Areas.” AMBIO, 43 (4): 516–529. Karamouz, M. 2013. Hydrology and Hydroclimatology: Principles and Applications. Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Kazmierczak, A., and J. Carter. 2010. Adaptation to Climate Change Using Green and Blue Infrastructure: A Database of Case Studies. Manchester: University of Manchester.

48  Ken Yeang Margulis, S. 2017. Introduction to Hydrology. eBook. Date accessed September  2019. Available online: https://margulis-group.github.io/teaching/. The City of New York. 2010. NYC Green Infrastructure Plan: A Sustainable Strategy for Clean Waterways. New York: NYC Department of Environmental Protection. Tzoulas, K. et al. 2007. “Promoting Ecosystem and Human Health in Urban Areas Using Green Infrastructure: A  Literature Review.” Landscape and Urban Planning, 81 (3): 167–178.

7 Creating and restoring urban ecologies Case studies in China Kongjian Yu

Introduction Converging drivers of change such as biodiversity loss, human population expansion, and climate change pose great challenges to the way people design and build humanity’s habitat. Landscape architects must respond to these challenges and can draw upon many effective, developed design strategies, but can also draw upon traditional or local ecological knowledge and practices. It is clear that a paradigm shift in designing the built environment is needed in order to adapt to the rapidly changing climate. Such a shift is needed to solve the multitude of urban ecological issues including flood control, storm-water management, pollution remediation, and habitat restoration. This would be a shift of civilisation from industrial-civilisation to eco-civilisation (Hamilton et al., 2017). People need to rethink industrial technology-based hard engineering solutions to these urban issues and rediscover nature-based and symbiotic solutions, which can often be inspired by the ancient wisdoms of living with nature (Yu, 2010, 2017). An example of people accumulating rich wisdom in dealing with alternating drought and flood cycles for example, is the aquaculture and landscape management practices that have evolved in monsoon climates of China (Chen et al., 2016; Wu et al., 2013). To illustrate these propositions, three landscape architecture projects are described that have been constructed in China (2014–2016).

Case study 1: Sanya Mangrove Park In Sanya, a tourist city with a population of 685,000 on China’s Hainan Island, and in only a period of three years, an area of lifeless landfill surrounded by concrete flood walls has been converted into a lush mangrove park, where nature and people harmoniously share in the meeting of ocean tides and fresh water. The project demonstrates the success of following the ecological processes of wind and water to produce a designed ecotone (zone of transition) (Gosz, 1993) made of inter-locking fingers that effectively speeds up the natural process of mangrove restoration. Site, challenges, and objectives For three decades, ruthless development in Sanya led to widespread landscape change. Most waterways were polluted and filled with garbage. Concrete flood

50  Kongjian Yu walls were built to claim land for development, killing mangroves, wiping out riparian habitats, and blocking tidal flows and storm-water movement leading to urban inundation. At the same time, a rising human population are demanding more recreational green space, particularly alongside the largely inaccessible rivers. In 2015, the city government decided to make dramatic changes, and Turenscape Landscape Architecture was called upon to design Sanya Mangrove Park. The site comprises 10 hectares, on the east bank of Sanya River, and is in the central area of the city. The site is critical in terms of maintaining, or regenerating ecological relationships between the sea and inland, where the daily sea tides meet with the fresh water of the river. It is both a meeting point of and transition zone between ecologies. Typical of the city, the river and therefore the marine environment is polluted due to urban runoff and wastewater pollution. High concrete walls have enclosed about 10 hectares of land that is filled with urban debris for a new development project (since stopped by the government). An artery road runs alongside. The 9 metre steep drop from the road to the water, made public access to the water challenging (Figures 7.1 and 7.2). The design objectives were to restore the mangroves and make the site a showcase for citywide urban renewal and ecological regeneration. Several site challenges had to be addressed: 1) Storms: The strong annual tropical monsoon storms may harm the process of mangrove restoration and destroy the fledging mangrove planting; 2) Flooding: The upper stream floods during the monsoon and storm-water may wash away the young mangrove community; 3) Pollution: The polluted urban runoffs may damage sensitive mangrove seedlings and the biodiversity of the mangrove community; 4) Access: Public accessibility and natural restoration needed to be well integrated. Design strategies: form follows processes In addressing the site challenges and in order to achieve project objectives, the following design strategies were employed: 1

2

Balanced earth work: Construction debris and concrete materials from the demolition of the flood wall were recycled on site, and by means of cut-andfill, ecotones of water ways and riparian habitats were created for a diversity of fauna and flora, particularly different species of mangroves. Inter-locked fingers: A land form of inter-locked fingers was designed to lead ocean tides into the park. This is necessary for the growth and health of the mangroves, but at the same time, the fingers mitigate annual strong tropical storms from the sea as well as storm-water flooding and pollution from the upper mountain streams and the urban area that could harm the establishment process of the mangroves. This configuration maximises ecologically beneficial edge effects (the water edge length increased from 700 metres to over 4000 metres), as well as habitat diversity with water depth varying from 0 to 1.5 metres. This creates a dynamic aquatic environment following the rise and fall of tides, which are necessary for some aquatic species.

Creating and restoring urban ecologies 51

Figure 7.1 Ecotones of Sanya Mangrove Park. Top: The site is at the upper limit the ocean tide can reach. The mangroves had been destroyed by inappropriate development and concrete embankments. Bottom: Site plan. The designed ecotones enable ocean tides to flow in and out of the system while avoiding fresh water flushes and other issues associated with destructive tropical storms.

52  Kongjian Yu

Figure 7.2 The preexisting site, site under construction, and the established Mangrove Park. Top: The preexisting site, April 2016. (Source: Google Earth.) Middle: Construction, April  2017. Bottom: The established mangrove park, November 2018. The ocean tides flow into the fingers of waterways from the singular inlet at the uppermost end of the image and run out at the lower right corner.

Creating and restoring urban ecologies 53 3

4

Terraces and bio-swales: Making use of the 9-metre drop from the urban road to the water level, and inspired by the ancient Chinese wisdom of rice paddies (Chen et  al., 2014), terraces are integrated with bio-swales to filter stormwater from the urban pavement and road. This also creates public spaces at different elevations. Adaptive design of pavilions and access: A network of pedestrian pathways follows the landform. A  skywalk is designed as a ramp to create an experience of walking above the mangrove canopy. Five pavilions allow visitors to enjoy the tranquility and beauty within the mangroves, and provide necessary shelter and shading in changeable local weather. The modulated concrete shelters are designed to resist strong tropical storms and are open to views from various angles. The twisted pavilions make good shelters for bird watching.

Results Three years after constructing the park, the mangroves within the interlocked fingers have established well. Along with the flourishing mangroves, fish and birds are abundant, attracting visitors of all different ages. The park has become a daily recreational place for the local communities, and is a showcase of ecological restoration that not only benefits the natural environment, but public welfare.

Case study 2: Puyangjiang Greenway River Corridor A degraded 16 km long, and 18–119 m wide river corridor, covering an area of 196 hectares was ecologically transformed into a lush and high performing river corridor that reconnects human beings with nature. This may contribute to healing the physical and mental damage done to the local community, who suffered with a degraded environment for decades, caused by relentless development (Yu et al., 2018). Site, challenges, and objectives Pujiang, a small city located in East China and dominated by a monsoon climate, has a population of 100,000 people with an additional 400,000 living in its vicinity. It occupies a small and productive basin which the River Puyangjiang runs through. For almost two thousand years, the city and its agricultural hinterlands existed in what was described as a paradise-like state (Bürklein, 2018). This apparent harmony was broken by rapid industrialisation and urbanisation occurring over the past four decades. As a result, the Puyangjiang River and its tributaries were heavily polluted, water courses were channelised, and river beds were turned into sand quarries (Figure 7.3). The river became a dumping ground that people turned away from. The river, that used to be a source of pride and a unifying bond for the community, had become a foe associated with ugliness, foul smells, and danger. It was in fact listed as one of the worst cases of

Figure 7.3 Puyangjiang Greenway River Corridor site plan. The pre-existing conditions and design renderings show dramatic transformation from a degraded river corridor into a lush green infrastructure.

54  Kongjian Yu

Creating and restoring urban ecologies 55 ecological degradation in the provincial region and gave the city an infamous identity (Liu et al., 2016). Beginning in 2014, the local government launched a campaign to improve the living environment of the city. The restoration of Puyangjian River was a pilot project, which would set up a model for the city and the provincial region that could potentially be repeated. Through winning a design competition, Turenscape Landscape Architects was commissioned to transform the degraded river corridor into a greenway (for more about greenways see: Fabos, 1995), with clean water, healthy ecology, and an active corridor for daily recreational use that would connect the community and bring back the beauty and dignity of the ‘mother river’. Design strategies Three strategies were used to transform the degraded river corridor: 1

Softening and remediating: While the sewage from the city and factories had been piped into water treatment plants, the remaining difficult problem was the polluted surface flow, largely caused by over-use of chemical fertilisers in adjacent and nearby agricultural fields. The river was channeled with concrete and hard surfaces, and had lost its resiliency to changes in water flow and its capacity for self-cleansing. The design removed the concrete of the river bank, and recovered the riparian plains on both sides of the river, turning them into ‘Green Sponges’ (Yu et al., 2015). These were designed to be flood adaptive and able to remediate the surface flows from the agricultural fields. Ecological buffers were designed so that the river water could be diverted, slowed down and cleansed (Figure 7.4).

Figure 7.4 Ecological buffers. Left: designed with native vegetation, a water remediating buffer is built like a green sponge to slow down and cleanse water. An elevated board walk runs through. Right: the concrete banks of the river have been removed and replaced with native vegetation. Ecological buffers are created at both sides to remediate the storm-water run-off from the highway on the left and the agricultural fields on the right.

56  Kongjian Yu 2

3

Preserving and integrating: All existing vegetation along the river, notably the dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) grove at the upper reach of the river, and wingnut trees (Pterocarya stenoptera) along the middle and lower reaches of the river, are protected and are integrated with the designed vegetation. Cultural heritage and existing structures such as bridges, aqueducts, and water locks were also preserved and integrated into the new design of paths and platforms, so that the memory of the past can be kept. Connecting and activating: Winding pedestrian and bike paths and boardwalks were built along both banks of the river. Bridges were built across the river to connect communities on both sides of the river. Resting platforms and gathering places were built to activate the greenway.

Results Within three years, the river was cleansed and people now come to swim and bathe in the river. The concrete river bank has been softened and native vegetation regenerated, leading to frogs and birds coming back to the area. Continuous pedestrian and bike paths allow newly urbanised residents to jog and cycle or to have leisurely family gatherings.

Case study 3: Meishe River Greenway and Fengxiang Park The main river of China’s Haikou City has suffered water pollution for decades caused by sewage, non-point source pollution, and urban and suburban runoffs. Turenscape Landscape Architects led the implementation of nature-based solutions to transform the gray concrete bound river into resilient green infrastructure. It integrates sewage treatment into an ecological system aimed at reviving the river with clean water, rich biodiversity, lush beauty, and social vitalities. Site, challenges, and objectives Haikou is a tourist city in South China’s tropical area with a monsoon climate. In the past four decades, the city has experienced a frenzied ten-fold growth in population from a quarter of million residents to 2.3 million. Little attention was paid to the natural water system and urban water infrastructure which are critical for a city in a monsoon climate. The Meishe River is 23 kilometres long and literally means ‘beautiful mother river’ in local language. It runs through the built up area and had become a difficult and unpleasant feature of the city (Figure 7.5). For decades, it was used as a sewage dump. The inflexible counter flooding control walls had turned the river into a lifeless concrete channel. For many years, piecemeal solutions were attempted such as building walls and locks to control floods and sea tides; river bed dredging; growing flowers and putting in lawns on the river bank; and locking off the polluted tributaries, etc. But all of these measures only worsened the situation both ecologically and socially. Images of black water,

Figure 7.5 Meishe River Greenway and Fengxiang Park site plan. The concrete wall was replaced with riparian wetlands and terraces. Mangroves were reintroduced at the lower section. The waterfront was made accessible whenever possible.

Creating and restoring urban ecologies 57

58  Kongjian Yu dead fish, and concrete flood walls were broadcast nationwide. For a tourist city, this was shameful. In 2016, the Haikou government decided to make a holistic and ecologically systematic change. Turenscape Landscape Architects was commissioned to lead the mission of restoring the mother river. The project includes the Fengxiang Park, which is 80 hectares in size, and a linear 13 km long river corridor that runs through the densely built urban area, and makes up the major part of the planned and designed green infrastructure. Design strategies By integrating civil engineering works that collect the point source sewage, and cut off some major pollution sources, the landscape architect designed the river corridor as a comprehensive ecological infrastructure in order to solve the problems of flooding and pollution, provide habitats for species, and create pleasant recreation opportunities for locals and visitors. Three design strategies were adopted: 1

2

3

Planning an ecological green infrastructure: Based on terrain, land use, and hydrological processes, a storm-water drainage centered green system, namely the Green Sponge, was planned to separate the storm-water from the sewage, so as to integrate the river and all its tributaries, wetlands, and builtup and potential green spaces. The green sponge was integrated with an interconnected pedestrian and recreational network. Transforming grey into green: Wherever possible, more green spaces are given to the water. For example: the concrete flood walls were removed; the blocked water ways were reconnected to the ocean to allow tides to again enter the city; wetlands and shallow shores along the river were reconstructed so that mangroves could restore them; and continuous elevated pedestrian paths were designed to create waterfront access. Integrating grey into green and the terraced wetland park: Interconnected terraces of constructed subsurface flow wetlands were built along the river bank, formerly occupied by a concrete flood wall and a garbage dump (Figure 7.6). The terraces were designed as water cleansing facilities. Two types of water flow into the wetland to be cleansed. The first is the non-point source pollution water runoff that carries rich nutrients. The second is sewage from the local villages that currently are unable to access the centralised sewage treatment system. The wetland can clean 6,000 tons of urban runoff daily, making the water swimmable. Tests show that 3,500 tons of domestic sewage can be cleansed to the same quality daily. To enable this, mobile pretreatment equipment was installed at the wetland inlet to remove the smell and pathogens that may cause public health risks, before the grey water is channeled into the wetland. The two flows can be switched alternately or combined according to demand. The biomass from the wetland is harvested and regularly decomposed into fertilisers for use in the landscape.

Creating and restoring urban ecologies  59

Figure 7.6 Terraced sewage treatment. Top: by integrating the pretreatment facility with the wetland, domestic sewage and contaminated urban storm-water run-off is filtered. Bottom: terraced wetland on the steep slope along the river bank catches and remediates storm-water run-off before it enters the river, while creating a unique recreational public space.

Integrated into this ecology of resilient waterways was an interpretative environmental system (signage) and a series of resting places to enable people to enjoy the landscape and to allow visitors to experience the designed ecologies. Results The river has become clean again, fish and birds have returned, mangroves have been re-established, and the water is again the city’s heart. Tens of thousands of visitors are attracted to the new landscape. To celebrate the recovery of the beauty of its mother river, Haikou was honored as one of 18 International Wetland Cities by the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention (Matthews, 1993) in 2018.

60  Kongjian Yu Significantly, the nature-based solutions showcased in this project are replicable. Globally, approximately 72–92 per cent of sewage in urban areas in low and middle-low income countries, is untreated, polluting rivers, lakes, and oceans, and worsening water shortage issues (Mateo-Sagasta et al., 2015). In China, 55–75 per cent of surface water is polluted, mainly caused by non-point source pollution including urban runoffs (Wang et al., 2009). While centralised sewage treatment systems are economically unfeasible for some urban villages and isolated settlements, nature-based solutions can play an important role in remediating water quality and mitigating flood damage, as well as creating public spaces that provide cultural and social value along with ecosystem services. This is new territory for the practice and education of landscape architecture.

Conclusion The three case studies detailed in this chapter show that landscapes can be designed as holistic ecological infrastructures that provide multiple ecosystem services including: water purification, habitat provision, climate regulation, recreational use, and spiritual inspiration. These nature-based solutions can partially replace conventional grey infrastructure and make the built environmental more resilient. To construct such ecological infrastructures, new ideas in landscape architecture can be drawn upon, but traditional local ecological knowledge can also be a rich resource for inspiration.

References Bürklein, C. 2018. “Turenscape and the Puyangjiang River Corridor.” Floornature. Date accessed August  2019. Available online: www.floornature.com/blog/turensca pe-and-puyangjiang-river-corridor-14249/. Chen, C., C. D. Meurk, J. Chen, M. Lu, Z. Wen, Y. Jiang, and S. Wu. 2014. “Restoration Design for Three Gorges Reservoir Shorelands, Combining Chinese Traditional AgroEcological Knowledge with Landscape Ecological Analysis.” Ecological Engineering, 71: 584–597. Chen, C., C. D. Meurk, H. Cheng, M. Lu, R. Chen, and S. Wu. 2016. “Incorporating Local Ecological Knowledge into Urban Riparian Restoration in a Mountainous Region of Southwest China.” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 20: 140–151. Fabos, J. G. 1995. “Introduction and Overview: The Greenway Movement, Uses and Potentials of Greenways.” Landscape and Urban Planning, 33 (1–3): 1–13. Gosz, J. 1993. “Ecotone Hierarchies.” Ecological Applications, 3 (3): 369–376. Hamilton, A., S. Pei, and L. Yang. 2017. “Botanical Aspects of Eco-Civilisation Construction.” Plant Diversity, 39 (2): 65–72. Liu, W., C. Shi, Z. Xu, T. Zhao, H. Jiang, C. Liang, X. Zhang, L. Zhou, and C. Yu. 2016. “Water Geochemistry of the Qiantangjiang River, East China: Chemical Weathering and CO2 Consumption in a Basin Affected by Severe Acid Deposition.” Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 127: 246–256. Mateo-Sagasta, J., L. Raschid-Sally, and A. Thebo. 2015. “Global Wastewater and Sludge Production, Treatment and Use.” In Pay Drechsel, Manzoor Qadir, and Dennis Wichelns (eds.), Wastewater: Economic Asset in an Urbanizing World, 15–38. Dordrecht: Springer.

Creating and restoring urban ecologies  61 Matthews, G. 1993. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands: Its History and Development. Gland: Ramsar Convention Bureau. Wang, Y., K. W. Tang, Z. X. Xu, Y. Tang, and H. F. Liu. 2009. “Water Quality Assessment of Surface Drinking Water Sources in Cities and Towns of China.” Water Resources Protection, 25 (2): 1–5. Wu, C., M. Qiao, and S. Wang. 2013. “Enlightenment from Ancient Chinese Urban and Rural Stormwater Management Practices.” Water Science and Technology, 67 (7): 1474–1480. Yu, K. 2010. “Landscape as Ecological Infrastructure for an Alternative Urbanity.” In M. Mostafavi (ed.), Implicate and Explicate, Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 282–283. Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers. Yu, K. 2017. “Green Infrastructure Through the Revival of Ancient Wisdom.” The American Academy of Arts and Sciences Bulletin Summer, LXX (4): 35–39. Yu, K., D. H. Li, H. Yuan, W. Fu, Q. Qiao, and S. Wang. 2015. “ ‘Sponge City’: Theory and Practice.” City Planning Review, 39 (6): 26–36. Yu, K., H. Yu, and Y. Sing. 2018. “Restoring the Mother River Back to the City: Puyangjiang River Corridor in Jinhua.” Landscape Architecture Frontiers, 6 (1): 64–76.

8 Towards wildlife-supportive green space design in metropolitan areas Lessons from an experimental study Amin Rastandeh Context Biodiversity in metropolitan areas Urban biodiversity is needed to ensure the proper functioning of ecosystem services, human wellbeing, and public health in cities (Balvanera et al., 2006; Southon et al., 2018). Despite widespread landscape fragmentation in urban areas, a wide range of wildlife species including small-to-medium-sized mammals use urban green spaces as alternative habitats and/or food sources (Ditchkoff et al., 2006; Baker and Harris, 2007; Magle et  al., 2016; Gallo et  al., 2017). This is because most human settlements have been established at ecosystem junctions (Alvey, 2006) where different types of wildlife habitats overlap. Species richness is potentially higher in these areas, and the rate of prey-predator interactions is greater, accordingly. This human–wildlife encounter is one factor that has led to a dramatic decrease in biodiversity worldwide (Rastandeh, 2018). In metropolitan areas, capitalism and socio-political interests dictate how land should be used. Therefore, designing green spaces for wildlife management, where these interests outweigh biological values, seems extremely difficult, unorthodox, and to a large extent, controversial. Even when local authorities decide to increase the extent of green spaces, land acquisition is a serious barrier. Existing green spaces in residential gardens Residential gardens are believed to be one of the most strategic places for biodiversity conservation in metropolitan areas (Beumer and Martens, 2015; Goddard et al., 2013; Leve et al., 2019). In residential gardens, where the density of human structures is lower, there are still opportunities for supporting wildlife diversity. Green spaces can be designed or redesigned in ways that support native species and control pests. Although broad-scale landscape analysis contributes considerably to knowledge of wildlife management in urban areas (Rastandeh and Pedersen Zari, 2018), fine-scale studies are also needed to reveal more information about wildlife and green space relationships, especially where people and wildlife

Wildlife-supportive green space design  63 coexist (Rastandeh et al., 2018). For this reason, experimental research is needed to examine how the ecological characteristics of existing residential garden green spaces in metropolitan areas may influence wildlife presence patterns. An experimental study in Western Iran Two residential gardens (RG1 and RG2) were selected as the research sites in the Ganjnameh Valley (GV) in western Iran (Table 8.1). GV is situated in the southwestern part of the Hamedan Metropolitan Area. GV is extremely prone to urban sprawl due to its valuable environmental features (Figure 8.1). The selected research sites are typical of residential gardens in the region. They include a house built on a platform to be used temporarily by the owners during spring and summer integrated with a combination of fruit trees; mainly different species of cherry, plum, pear, peach, apple, walnut, and hazelnut. These edible species are surrounded by deciduous trees including willows, poplars, and acacias. Mammalian species were the focus of this study. According to anecdotal evidence, residential gardens in GV are home to a wide range of native and invasive (i.e. pest) mammals. Small and large tracking tunnels were used to respectively monitor small and medium-sized mammalian species. Although tracking tunnels are used to monitor the presence of small mammals in New Zealand (Graham, 2002) and the United Kingdom (Williams et  al., 2018), this was the first time tracking tunnels were used to study the presence of medium-sized mammalian species. Large tracking tunnels were made after an in-depth review and study of the physiology and movement behaviours of medium-sized mammals (Bengsen et  al., 2016; Díaz-Ruiz et  al., 2016; Withers et  al., 2016). Baits used included peanut butter, walnut, meat, banana, and fresh apple (Johnson and Thomas, 2015; Elliott et al., 2018). Permissions were acquired from the owners of the residential gardens prior to the process of data collection. Ten small and two large tracking tunnels were evenly placed across each research site. Direct observations were made to divide each residential garden into microecological patterns, based upon six factors: access to water, proximity to human Table 8.1 Quantitative information about the residential gardens (RG1 and RG2) studied in this research Research sites

Area (m2)

Paved Area (m2 - %)

General features

RG1

2000

100 m2 – 5%

(1) An unfenced area including a building (2) Adjacent to a river with a width of < 10 m

RG2

4000

400 m2 – 10%

(1) A fenced area including two buildings (2) Adjacent to a public path with a width of 5 m

64  Amin Rastandeh

Figure 8.1 Ecological aspects of Ganjnameh Valley (GV). (Photos have been taken by the author since 2008.) (a) a typical house in GV, (b) cherry trees, (c) an area colonised by native trees, (d) native flowers, (e) a hedge made by large stones, (f) woody debris, (g) apples left on the ground, (h) exotic flowers, (i) water sources, (j) deciduous trees, (k) housing development adjacent to GV, (l) raspberries, (m) the valley-city interface.

Wildlife-supportive green space design  65 structures, plant species richness, understory height and density, woody plant cover, and woody debris and dead vegetation availability. In RG1, tracking tunnels were installed on Day 1. On Day 2, tracking tunnels were visited and footprints left on the inkpads were photographed. New inkpads and baits were replaced within the tracking tunnels, if required. The same process was followed for Nights 2 and 3. On Day 4, all tracking tunnels were collected from RG1. As RG2 is fully fenced, repeating the process of monitoring mammals over three nights was not necessary. On Day 1, tracking tunnels were placed on the ground. On Day 2, they were visited and footprints left on the inkpads were photographed. To identify the footprint of each mammal, guidelines were reviewed and applied including Ratz, 1997; Murie and Elbroch, 2005; Johnson and Thomas, 2015. To reinforce the accuracy of detecting footprints, the garden owners were asked to provide a list of mammals that they had observed over the past three years. Finally, the relationship between the ecological characteristics of each residential garden and species presence patterns was studied using this information.

Results1 Residential garden 1: a biodiverse pool of native and pest species Table 8.2 depicts that the tracking tunnels in RG1 were visited in each station (Sn) over three nights (Nn) by nine mammalian species. In GV, domestic dogs, house mice, Norway rats, and weasels are considered as pests. Red foxes, jackals, domestic cats, and hedgehogs are native to GV. Although, the Persian squirrel is not native to this region, there is no consensus about the positive and negative impacts of this species on GV. Table 8.2 The presence of mammalian species detected on each station in RG1 over three nights Night/ Station

S1

S2

N3

H

S4

S5

S6

S7

S8

S9

NR HM

NR HM W PS

NR HM

NR HM

H

NR HM H W

NR HM W

NR HM

NR HM W

H

NR HM H W

NR HM H

NR HM H W

NR HM H W

N1

N2

S3

H

H

S10

S11

S12 RF DD DC

H

H

H

H J

H

DC: Domestic cat; DD: Domestic dog; H: Hedgehog; HM: House mouse; J: Jackal; NR: Norway rat; PS: Persian squirrel; RF: Red fox; W: Weasel

66  Amin Rastandeh

Figure 8.2 Hedgehog and rodent footprints. Examples of the hedgehog and rodents’ footprints left on the inkpads in RG1 (not to scale).

Wildlife-supportive green space design  67 This study focused on the presence of species, not the number of individuals. With reference to the differences observed in the footprint size however, it was estimated that numbers of individual hedgehogs, rats, mice, and weasels are high (Figure 8.2). Residential garden 2: a fenced island for small pests Table 8.3 depicts how tracking tunnels were visited in each station (Sn) by three small-sized mammalian species over the period of data collection in RG2. The Norway rat is the most dominant mammalian species in RG2, followed by the house mouse and Persian squirrel.

Micro-ecological patterns in residential gardens Four and three micro-ecological patterns were identified in RG1 and RG2, respectively. These patterns are representative of existing ecological characteristics of the residential gardens (Figures 8.3 and 8.4). According to this study, species richness in different micro-ecological patterns is not the same. In RG1, Pattern IV (cf. Figure 8.3) is used by a higher number of mammalian species. In this research site, the lowest species richness was recorded in Pattern II (cf. Figure 8.3). In RG2, species richness for Patterns I  and II is higher while the lowest figure belongs to Pattern I (Figure 8.4). Overall, species richness in RG1 is higher than that of RG2.

Practical lessons for landscape architecture This study contributes to the knowledge of wildlife-supportive green space design at the fine scale. It bridges the gap between theory and what happens in reality on the ground. Patterns detected in this study (Figures 8.3 and 8.4) should be regarded as basic guidelines to advance the knowledge of wildlife-supportive green space design in residential gardens. Taken together, they help designers and landowners understand how design-led actions may conserve native mammals and control pests. Lessons learned can be transferred to similar contexts across the world where these mammal species coexist (such as metropolitan areas of Central Zagros, Mediterranean landscapes, Central Asia, and some parts of North America). Table 8.3 The presence of mammalian species detected on each station in RG2 over one night Night/ Station

S1

N

NR HM

S2

S3 NR

S4

S5

S6

NR HM

HM: House mouse; NR: Norway rat; PS: Persian squirrel

S7 NR

S8

S9

S10

PS

NR

S11

S12

68  Amin Rastandeh

Figure 8.3  Micro-ecological patterns in RG1 and mammals detected.

Wildlife-supportive green space design  69

Figure 8.4  Micro-ecological patterns in RG2 and mammals detected.

Lesson 1: the role of semi-open areas Medium-sized mammalian species use semi-open areas covered by scattered fruit trees with short understory vegetation, sometimes far from human structures, where roaming is possible, visibility for predation upon prey species is high, and there is enough space for escaping from apex predators and humans. Pattern III in

70  Amin Rastandeh RG1 (Figure 8.3) provides these conditions, especially for the red fox and domestic cat that are amongst the most important native species in GV. These mammals can play an important role in controlling populations of rats and mice in residential gardens. The red fox in particular, can contribute to the process of seed dispersal because this species eats a wide spectrum of fruits including apples, plums, and cherries, which are abundant in GV. Lesson 2: edge areas covered by woody debris and dead leaves The hedgehog can act as a natural pest controller. Although the species was detected in all four patterns of RG1, its presence is more likely in areas where the accumulation of woody debris and dead leaves provides proper shelter for nesting. According to this study, hedgehogs often use edge areas but occasionally may be also present in semi-open areas for foraging. Pattern IV (Figure 8.3) creates an ideal place for hedgehogs to remain in residential gardens. Other patterns, however, may be used by this species in search for food. Medium-sized mammals (i.e. red foxes, domestic cats, jackals, and domestic dogs) and predator birds confine the presence of hedgehogs in open and semi-open areas. Lesson 3: fencing vs. connectivity Typical fencing restricts the presence of key native species like the red fox, domestic cat, and hedgehog. Even when residential gardens are fenced, some smallsized rodents easily enter the site or nest permanently within it. Fencing decreases mammal diversity in residential gardens because it sharply reduces connectivity. This will have adverse impacts on species movement, accordingly. While RG2 was twice as large as RG1, species richness in RG1 was three times higher than RG2. In the case of hedgehogs that are abundant in GV, providing connectivity in certain areas will help this species to move between residential gardens. This study underscores that fencing dramatically limits the presence and movement of hedgehogs (and probably other medium-sized mammals). Lesson 4: pest control through increasing visibility Exotic rodents (i.e. rats, mice, and weasels) often are located in edge areas and places where they can easily escape and hide. Where visibility is high, the presence of these rodents is unlikely, even at nighttime. Areas adjacent to water, far from human structures, and covered by shrubs, woody debris, and large stones facilitate the presence of these rodents. This composition provides a place for them which is safe from risk of predation by birds or larger mammals. Pattern IV in RG1 meets these requirements. To control the population of these exotic species in residential gardens, a design-led approach would be to improve visibility through managing woody debris, dead leaves, shrubs, and understory. While in RG1 the Norway rat and house mouse, among other mammals, prefer a certain

Wildlife-supportive green space design 71 micro-ecological pattern for survival (i.e. Pattern IV in Figure 8.3), in RG2, their footprints were observed in areas that are not ecologically similar to RG1 (i.e. Patterns I and II in Figure 8.4). There are at least two explanations for this finding. First, fencing provides a safe place for rodents protected from natural predators, enabling them to freely use the green space overnight, regardless of characteristics of vegetation and other determinant elements including access to water or proximity to human structures. Second, fencing alters the behaviour of rodents when searching for food and when finding suitable places for nesting and breeding. In both ways, these pests benefit from fencing. Lesson 5: the role of native trees in edge areas According to this study, the presence of Persian squirrels is strongly linked to edge areas covered by tall and old trees. In RG1, Pattern IV (Figure 8.3) may support this species; however, the coexistence of other rodents, especially rats and weasels, may limit the presence of the Persian squirrel on the ground. In RG2, Pattern III (Figure 8.4) has suitable ecological characteristics for the presence of this species. Planting native trees including willow, walnut, and hazelnut in edge areas, which are often tall, will provide safe habitats and sustainable food sources for this mammal. As observed during the course of this study, Persian squirrels contribute to the regeneration of walnut and hazelnut trees through the process of scatter-hoarding.

A call to action The accelerating decline of biodiversity in urbanised landscapes is undeniable. Wildlife-supportive green space design, an emerging branch of research in landscape architecture, responds to this challenge. Its overarching goal is to support biodiversity and therefore contribute to the provision of ecosystem services through informed interventions in the structure of existing green spaces in landscapes altered by urban development. In metropolitan areas, residential gardens can play an important role in harboring a wide range of mammalian species. This study shows that the micro-ecological patterns of residential gardens can considerably influence species presence patterns (in western Iran at least). The design of green space in this way can help to increase the presence of native mammals while concurrently controlling pests. This in turn will help to ensure the provision of important ecological processes such as pest control and seed dispersal, which are fundamentally important to public health. This study provides a foundation for further applied research and reinforces that landscape architects must urgently design for the increased presence of urban biodiversity.

Note 1 For more details, please contact the author directly.

72  Amin Rastandeh

References Alvey, A. A. 2006. “Promoting and Preserving Biodiversity in the Urban Forest.” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 5 (4): 195–201. Baker, P. J., and S. Harris. 2007. “Urban Mammals: What Does the Future Hold? An Analysis of the Factors Affecting Patterns of Use of Residential Gardens in Great Britain.” Mammal Review, 37 (4): 297–315. Balvanera, P., A. B. Pfisterer, N. Buchmann, J. S. He, T. Nakashizuka, D. Raffaelli, and B. Schmid. 2006. “Quantifying the Evidence for Biodiversity Effects on Ecosystem Functioning and Services.” Ecology Letters, 9 (10): 1146–1156. Bengsen, A. J., D. Algar, G. Ballard, T. Buckmaster, S. Comer, P. J. Fleming, and F. Zewe. 2016. “Feral Cat Home-Range Size Varies Predictably with Landscape Productivity and Population Density.” Journal of Zoology, 298 (2): 112–120. Beumer, C., and P. Martens. 2015. “Biodiversity in my (back) Yard: Towards a Framework for Citizen Engagement in Exploring Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Residential Gardens.” Sustainability Science, 10 (1): 87–100. Díaz-Ruiz, F., J. Caro, M. Delibes-Mateos, B. Arroyo, and P. Ferreras. 2016. “Drivers of Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) Daily Activity: Prey Availability, Human Disturbance or Habitat Structure?” Journal of Zoology, 298 (2): 128–138. Ditchkoff, S. S., S. T. Saalfeld, and C. J. Gibson. 2006. “Animal Behavior in Urban Ecosystems: Modifications Due to Human-Induced Stress.” Urban Ecosystems, 9 (1): 5–12. Elliott, G. P., J. Kemp, and J. C. Russell. 2018. “Estimating Population Growth Rates from Tracking Tunnels.” New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 42 (2): 269–272. Gallo, T., M. Fidino, E. W. Lehrer, and S. B. Magle. 2017. “Mammal Diversity and Metacommunity Dynamics in Urban Green Spaces: Implications for Urban Wildlife Conservation.” Ecological Applications, 27 (8): 2330–2341. Goddard, M. A., A. J. Dougill, and T. G. Benton. 2013. “Why Garden for Wildlife? Social and Ecological Drivers, Motivations and Barriers for Biodiversity Management in Residential Landscapes.” Ecological Economics, 86: 258–273. Graham, I. M. 2002. “Estimating Weasel Mustela Nivalis Abundance from Tunnel Tracking Indices at Fluctuating Field Vole Microtus Agrestis Density.” Wildlife Biology, 8 (1): 279–288. Johnson, H., and E. Thomas. 2015. Guidance for Detecting Hedgehogs Using Footprint Tracking Tunnels. Ludlow: British Hedgehog Preservation Society. Leve, M., E. Baudry, and C. Bessa-Gomes. 2019. “Domestic Gardens as Favorable Pollinator Habitats in Impervious Landscapes.” Science of the Total Environment, 647: 420–430. Magle, S. B., E. W. Lehrer, and M. Fidino. 2016. “Urban Mesopredator Distribution: Examining the Relative Effects of Landscape and Socioeconomic Factors.” Animal Conservation, 19 (2): 163–175. Murie, O. J., and M. Elbroch. 2005. A Field Guide to Animal Tracks, Vol. 3. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Rastandeh, A. 2018. Urban Biodiversity in an Era of Climate Change: Towards an Optimised Landscape Pattern in Support of Indigenous Wildlife Species in Urban New Zealand. Doctoral diss., Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Rastandeh, A., and M. Pedersen Zari. 2018. “A Spatial Analysis of Land Cover Patterns and its Implications for Urban Avifauna Persistence Under Climate Change.” Landscape Ecology, 33 (3): 455–474.

Wildlife-supportive green space design 73 Rastandeh, A., M. Pedersen Zari, and D. K. Brown. 2018. “Components of Landscape Pattern and Urban Biodiversity in an Era of Climate Change: A Global Survey of Expert Knowledge.” Urban Ecosystems, 21 (5): 903–920. Ratz, H. 1997. “Identification of Footprints of Some Small Mammals.” Mammalia, 61 (3): 431–441. Southon, G. E., A. Jorgensen, N. Dunnett, H. Hoyle, and K. L. Evans. 2018. “Perceived Species-Richness in Urban Green Spaces: Cues, Accuracy and Well-Being Impacts.” Landscape and Urban Planning, 172: 1–10. Williams, B. M., P. J. Baker, E. Thomas, G. Wilson, J. Judge, and R. W. Yarnell. 2018. “Reduced Occupancy of Hedgehogs (Erinaceus Europaeus) in Rural England and Wales: The Influence of Habitat and an Asymmetric Intra-Guild Predator.” Scientific Reports, 8 (1): 12156. Withers, P. C., C. E. Cooper, S. K. Maloney, F. Bozinovic, and A. P. Cruz-Neto. 2016. Ecological and Environmental Physiology of Mammals, Vol. 5. Oxford University Press.

9 The new design with nature Nan Ellin

Functionalism re(de)fined An evolution in urban design has been occurring over the last two decades, reshaping our physical environment at all scales, from the home to the biome. These efforts aim to heal wounds inflicted upon the landscape and people by the modern and postmodern eras, manifest in environmental degradation, a diminished sense of community, and a decline in public health in some countries. In the United States, for example, ‘more Americans are sick . . . than are healthy . . . almost half the entire adult population [has] pre-diabetes or diabetes [and three] in four adults are overweight or obese’ (Mozaffrian and Glickman, 2019). Integral urbanism is the rubric under which I’ve been gathering these proactive urban design responses. Exemplars of integral urbanism do not share a particular style, but certain qualities: hybridity, connectivity, porosity, authenticity, and vulnerability. While modern urbanism espoused the separation of functions in urban form, hybridity and connectivity bring functions (or programmes) back together. In contrast to the modernist attempt to eliminate boundaries and the postmodern tendency to ignore or alternatively fortify them, integral urbanism seeks to demonstrate porosity through permeable membranes and thresholds. By allowing diversity (of people, activities, building types) to thrive, this approach seeks to reintegrate, or integrate anew, without obliterating differences, and in fact preserves and celebrates the integrity of difference. Departing from modernism’s universalism and postmodernism’s fascination with other places and other times, integral urbanism aspires towards authenticity, which is place-based and builds on existing assets. Rather than attempt to predetermine and control all with a master plan, integral urbanism plies vulnerability, partnering with nature and human communities in guiding urban growth and development. This urban design evolution figures within a larger reorientation in westernised societies toward restoring connections that have been severed over the last century between people and nature, body and soul, and among people. The larger paradigm shift might be characterised as moving away from acceleration, accumulation, irony, and escapism; and instead towards slowness, simplicity, sincerity, and sustainability.

The new design with nature 75 The shift has been from modeling cities after machines (characteristic of modernism), to emulating cities of the past (postmodernism), to most recently, gaining inspiration for city-building from ecology as well as information systems (Ellin, 1999). Architect Louis Sullivan’s dictum that form follow function (Sullivan, 1896), a tenet that informed modernism, was supplanted during the late twentiethcentury by the postmodern tendency for form to follow fiction, finesse, finance, and foremost fear (Ellin, 1997, 1999). At the dawn of this third millennium, form is once again following function, but function is no longer confined to the modernist mechanistic and instrumental interpretation. Now, function is regarded more holistically to include environmental, emotional, symbolic, and spiritual ‘functions’, in fact, Sullivan’s initial (though widely misinterpreted) intent.1 With ecology and information systems as models, this contemporary functionalism derives inspiration from thresholds, ecotones, tentacles, rhizomes, webs, networks, the internet, and more. Integral urbanism demonstrates re-integration (functional, social, disciplinary, and professional), permeable membranes (rather than the modernist dismantling of boundaries or postmodernist fortification), and design with movement in mind; both movement through space (circulation) and through time (dynamism, flexibility). The result is urban design that pays attention to borders, edges, and networks and values system diversity and the ability to self-adjust through ongoing feedback mechanisms. In contrast to the earlier models that aspired to control, perfection, and utopia, current models suggest the importance of connectedness and flexibility as well as the principle of complementarity. On the ecological threshold where two ecosystems meet, for instance, there is competition and conflict but also synergy and harmony. There is fear but also adventure and excitement. It is not about good or bad, safety or danger, pleasure or pain, winners or losers. All of these occur on the threshold when it is thriving. Rather than deny or control change, an attitude characterising most of the twentieth century, there is an acceptance, even embrace, of change, incorporating it into the design approach itself.

The ecological model for urban design Urbanism has been inspired by ecology in various ways. Urban design may emulate nature, aspire to support it, incorporate it, or all of these. Janine Benyus (1997), along with Jane Jacobs (2000), recommend designers emulate nature when designing at all scales from household products to cities. As Benyus explains, designers can apply biomimicry by emulating forms of nature, natural processes, or entire living systems (large-scale and long-term). At the level of the city, for instance, a plan might draw inspiration from the branching patterns of trees, rivers, and capillaries in the body, all of which derive their form and function from water movement. Urban designers are learning from ecosystems about efficiency, conservation, biodiversity, resilience, self-adjusting feedback mechanisms, and the value of permeable membranes and ‘going with the flow’.2

76  Nan Ellin Integral urbanism understands that people are part of nature, not separate from it. Accordingly, we would not attempt to control nature, but rather honour it. In contrast to the modernist goal of freedom from nature, including ourselves and the places we live, integral urbanism seeks freedom in nature. When the interdependence of ecosystems includes people and cities, urban design moves beyond emulating nature to becoming part of it. Urban design and nature thus become mutually supportive and integrated. This attitude towards both nature and the city impacts the process as well as product of urban design. Since the integral approach towards urban design respects the natural flows of existing systems and works towards enhancing these, the point of departure is inventorying existing assets: natural, built, and human. Rather than begin with a clean slate (tabula rasa), the standard for modern urbanism, the integral approach begins by identifying the strengths of a place and assuring their preservation, be they landscapes, buildings, neighbourhoods, businesses, cultural institutions, or creative and intellectual capital. It similarly recognises exemplary practices from which we can learn and upon which we can build. Only after we protect what is valued and enhance what may be underperforming, does the integral approach address what is missing and should be added. These additions can be regarded as ‘jewels’. Extracted from specific places through effective community involvement, and therefore indigenous to the place, these jewels are crafted to add value (economic, social, aesthetic, and ecological). These interventions have a tentacular or domino effect, catalysing others in an ongoing dynamic process. Consequently, additions to the landscape are not introduced at the expense of what is valued. Rather, the new builds upon existing assets and is deeply inflected and influenced by this ‘DNA’ of a place, allowing for a unique and meaningful and authentic expression to unfold. Skillfully inserted, these interventions into the urban fabric can perform ‘urban acupuncture’ (De Solà- Morales, 1999), and catalyse additional positive growth and change. Building upon existing assets, integral urbanism is aware of, and inspired by, existing flows, both natural and humanly constructed. These may include contour lines, wildlife corridors, wind corridors, waterways, streets and roads, transit lines, flight paths, pedestrian paths, utility lines, and lines of sight. Integral urbanism investigates these existing networks as a focal point and source of inspiration in contrast to the modernist approach that ignored them or regarded them as irritants to be eliminated or disguised. Integral urbanism enhances these flows and allows them to flourish, often learning from ecological thresholds. Rather than implement Urban Growth Boundaries, this approach might instead work towards enhancing existing networks through incentives or ‘attractors’. These enhanced hubs, nodes, and connectors could include a range of quality housing, educational and recreational opportunities, workspaces, retail, etc. Rather than saying, ‘do not go’, as the Urban Growth Boundary does, these say ‘please participate in creating our community’. Although an attempt to preserve undeveloped land and encourage urban revitalisation, the arbitrarily imposed Urban Growth Boundary can act as a noose, strangling the natural growth and development of a city. Instead of this negative reinforcement, positive urban

The new design with nature 77 reinforcement, or redirection, allows for the growth of a dynamic polycentric and networked city rather than an artificially bounded mono-centric city. ‘Going with the flow’ has other implications for urban design. Whenever possible, this approach opts for ‘soft-energy’, benefiting from natural energy flows and renewable resources, instead of ‘hard energy’ that is centralised, expensive, and polluting. It favours ‘living systems’ or ‘living machines’ that assemble the correct cast of species so that the waste of one biological community becomes food for another (Todd and Todd, 1994). And when possible, it opts for pervious surfaces that provide long-term ecological dividends, decreasing the heat island effect and reducing stormwater run-off, while enhancing the quality of public spaces (Figure 9.1). Unpaved streets without curbs and simple infiltration swales, for example, allow surface runoff to filter back into the soil and absorb rain and snow more easily. Integral urbanism may involve bringing nature back into a place, through revegetation or reclamation, after biodiversity has been lost through overcultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, poor irrigation practice, or climate change. Effectively incorporating nature into cities can reduce air conditioning energy costs as well as heating loads by reducing the heat island effect, and can remove pollutants

Figure 9.1 Pervious paving surfaces, as found at the Dia Beacon museum grounds in New York designed by artist Robert Irwin, allow the infiltration of nature while producing a pleasing effect for visitors. Source: Photograph by N. Ellin

78  Nan Ellin such as ozone and sulfur dioxide from the air. Bringing nature into cities can also produce shade, provide food, and expand recreational as well as social opportunities by encouraging walking and interaction. Increased nature in cities also significantly raises property values (Platt, 2006; Register, 2006; Thompson and Steiner, 1997; Hough, 1995; Hellmund and Smith, 2006; Beatley, 2004). Landscape architects engaged in these efforts include Frederick Steiner, Carol Franklin, and Leslie Sauer. Land artists, such as Laurie Lundquist, and Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, have also been integrating nature. Many architects have been designing buildings that are inspired by, protect, and engage the surrounding landscape such as the Desert Broom Library by Richard + Bauer Architecture (Figure 9.2) and that incorporate nature such as Boeri Studio’s Bosco Verticale in Milan (2014) (Figure 9.3). Understanding that rich biodiversity ensures the health and resilience of ecosystems, assuring that life will not be wiped out in times of stress, integral urbanists strive for urban diversity. Just as disrupting a wildlife corridor with a highway can fragment habitat, the loss of social or programmatic diversity in our cities can lead to urban fragmentation. The goal of integral urbanism is to create adjacencies of uses and people and to allow relationships among them to develop and flourish. Rather than distill,

Figure 9.2 Desert Broom Library designed by Richard + Bauer Architecture in Cave Creek, Arizona offers an indoor/outdoor reading space with a roof that extends 60 feet into the natural desert and a series of coiled metal screens, inspired by the form of the adjacent arroyo. Source: Image courtesy of Richard + Bauer Architecture

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Figure 9.3  Boeri Studio’s Bosco Verticale in Milan. Source: Photograph by M. Pedersen Zari

80  Nan Ellin separate, and control (the ethos of modern urbanism), integral urbanism aspires to integration, inclusion, and dynamism. Expressing an analogous shift in science away from separatism, Arthur Erickson (1980, 23) observed that ‘by ceaselessly bombarding particles of matter to get at the core of things, science has found that, as Einstein inferred, relationship is the only reality’. Regarding people as part of nature, and understanding that nature thrives on diversity, the integral approach adheres to the tenet that nothing exists in isolation, only in relation. When building relationships through urban form, most important are the places where differences meet. Just as colours appear differently depending on the colours adjacent (Albers, 1975), so a person, activity, or form is inflected by what lies adjacent. The integral attitude towards the border, boundary, or edge contrasts with the modern attempt to eliminate these and with the postmodern tendency to fortify them. While the modernist approach resulted in overexposure, homogeneity, and lack of legibility; the postmodern approach was accompanied by extreme cynicism, a growing sense of fear and anxiety, and a declining sense of community. An integral urbanism neither eliminates nor fortifies borders, boundaries, and edges. Rather, it engages and enhances them to re-integrate (or integrate anew) places, people, and activities without obliterating difference. Integral urbanists understand that, like natural systems, urban systems must be open to receive energy and thrive, but also need membranes that function to increase movement or flows within them (Forman, 1995, 84). Much of the attention towards ecosystems in contemporary urban design thus draws inspiration from permeable membranes and thresholds. Architecturally and urbanistically, these connections often take the form of multiple modulating ground planes (Berrizbeitia and Pollak, 1990). As in ecosystems, an integral urbanism achieves porosity by allowing some things through, but not others. On the scale of the city, these permeable membranes create urban thresholds, resembling ecological thresholds where a large percentage of living things coalesce, such as an arroyo where water flows through the desert, or an estuary where the sea meets the shore. People are similarly drawn to urban thresholds, such as the main streets and plazas of cities and towns, because they satisfy physiological and emotional needs. Both ecological and urban thresholds are ultimately where sustenance is drawn because they are naturally diverse, dynamic, and self-adjusting. The challenge for integral urbanists is to make connections or build bridges without losing the integrity of individual parts, providing something greater than their sum. The question is what to allow in and what not? As well as what to reveal and what to conceal? In contrast to the nineteenth-century Darwinian notion that evolution leads to the fittest design (linear causality) and that thermodynamics leads to thermal equilibrium, integral urbanism understands that, as long as there is intense flow of energy coursing through a system and mutual interaction among components, it will experience transitions between stable states (bifurcations) and will be nonlinear because of feedback (De Landa, 1998, referencing Ilya Prigogen). Therefore, there is no ‘fittest design’ and no equilibrium. The goal of integral urbanism is not, therefore, to achieve a stable perfect state, but to generate places of intensity and interest. This approach and the landscape it generates reflects the complementary

The new design with nature 81 human urges to merge (connect) and to separate (distinction, individuation), with the resultant ongoing tension and dynamism.

The new design with nature: ecological and information systems Designing with nature is not, of course, new. It has a well-established pedigree with age-old as well as more recent precedents. These include Asian geomancy (or feng shui) and Vedic architecture which emphasise the need for cities and buildings to breathe, the Native American understanding of buildings as part of nature, the Renaissance view of the city as having a life force and soul (Kenda, 1998), the early twentieth-century Chicago School of Urban Ecology’s view of the city as organism, the Japanese Metabolists’ interest in dynamic design (Tzonis and Lefaivre, 1999), Archigram’s notion of ‘city synthesis’ (1960s), Christopher Alexander’s article that demonstrated the flaw of understanding the city in terms of mathematical models (Alexander, 1965), and the Gaia hypothesis which holds that the earth is a living organism that is interdependent at all levels and all scales (Lovelock, 1979). Many mid-century architects emphasised linking indoors with outdoors including Aldo Van Eyck, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Nikolaus Pevsner. Buckminister Fuller proposed intelligent membranes for buildings that can adapt in response to changes in the environment (Baldwin, 1996). And landscape architect Ian McHarg (1966) famously advocated ‘design with nature’. The current version of designing with nature departs from earlier ones because information technologies have irrevocably and irreversibly reconfigured space and time. Now, there is no longer a perceived battle or need to choose between the city-as-organism and city-as-machine. Ironically, this time around, new information technologies are learning from, while also enabling, the return to nature. Instead of only the ideal shapes of classical (Euclidean) geometry, computers can represent the ‘anexact’ (self-similar not self-same) shapes found in nature, also described as fractals (geometry of the irregular) of time and space. Although the idea of self-organising change in ecosystems through feedback is not new, it has only recently gained widespread acceptance thanks to computer technologies that are capable of graphically rendering this process. By allowing us to design and represent buildings and cities as dynamic entities rather than static ones, computer-based technologies are allowing for a convergence of human-made with natural processes and products. For instance, new technologies have incited interest in the ‘folding’ of space and time in contrast to more conventional ‘framing.’ Folding seeks to connect places, usually through modulating ground planes, and to connect the present with the past and future, without blending them together. With the assistance of computers, we can now represent waves, folds, undulations, twists, warps, and more, providing a hyper-rational means of representing a ‘higher level order’ that has long been integral to Buddhism, Taoism, and Romanticism, as well as cosmologies proposed by Albert Einstein (quantum mechanics, 1905), Arthur Koestler (the holonic), Alfred North Whitehead, and others. Inspired by the theoretical contributions of Gilles Deleuze (on ‘le pli’),

82  Nan Ellin examples are found in the work of Daniel Libeskind, Greg Lynn, Jeffrey Kipnis, Zaha Hadid, the Ocean Group, and Dagmar Richter among others. Instead of offering prosthetic devices to combat the natural environment while sometimes alienating us from it, new technologies are corroborating, elaborating upon, and implementing the new integration. Since refusal to change or adopt new technologies is no longer an option, the question is not whether, but how best to proceed. This phenomenon may in itself illustrate the proposition that our universe is self-organising on ever higher levels. Just as the modern city separated functions in its quest for machine-like efficiency, so modern practice divided and subdivided over the last century into architecture, planning, landscape architecture, interior design, industrial design, and graphic design, each with their circumscribed responsibilities and their respective professional organisations, journals, and academic departments. Productive collaborations amongst them have been all too rare and the precious talent and energy wasted over turf skirmishes is both tragic and embarrassing, contributing to the sorry state of our built environment (Ellin, 1999, Chapter 7). Our current task is mending seams in our disciplines, professions, and urban fabrics that have been torn asunder. Rather than presume an opposition between people and nature, buildings and landscape, and architecture and landscape architecture, an integral urbanism regards these as complementary or contiguous. Rather than generate perfect objects or separate functions, the emphasis shifts to systems and relationships. It also shifts from a focus on the center to the border, boundary, edge, periphery, margin, interstices, and in-between. We have been coming full circle or, more accurately, full spiral. Learning from the inherent wisdom of nature, we have been infusing this wisdom with contemporary sensibilities arising primarily from new technologies. Rather than choosing to continue or abandon the modern project, our hyper-rational reliance upon technology along with the simultaneous revalorisation of process, relationships, and complementarity is conspiring to eradicate the either/or proposition. Instead, we are doing both simultaneously, each providing feedback for and adjusting the other, holding potential for achieving integration at yet another level.

Acknowledgements This article is adapted from ‘Integral Urbanism’ (Ellin, 2006).

Notes 1 Louis Sullivan’s “form follows function” (1896) has been widely interpreted instrumentally, though it appears he understood function more subjectively since he regarded form as the language or means to express the infinite creative spirit. 2 The fields of landscape ecology (Shane, 2003–2004; Forman, 1995), urban ecology (Steiner, 2008), and landscape urbanism (Waldheim, 2006; Mostafavi, 2004; Corner, 2004) have provided a basis for this approach. With nature as model, urban design has adopted the byword “more from less” from Buckminster Fuller (applied to urban design by Ian Ritchie, 1994), in contrast to Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s “less is more”. James

The new design with nature 83 Wines, John Todd, Sim Van der Ryn, Stuart Cowan and others share this view that evolved from earlier discussions of Aldo Leopold (1949), Ian McHarg (1966), Gregory Bateson (1973), Charles and Ray Eames (powers of 10), E.F. Schumacher (1973), Ivan Illich, Murray Bookchin, and others.

References Albers, J. 1975. Interaction of Color, 1st ed., 1963. New Haven: Yale University Press. Alexander, C. 1965. A  City is not a Tree. Architectural Forum, April: 58–62, May: 58–61. Baldwin, J. 1996. Bucky Works: Buckminster Fuller’s Ideas for Today. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Bateson, G. 1973. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. London: Paladin Books. Beatley, T. 2004. Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age. Washington, DC: Island Press. Benyus, J. M. 1997. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York: Perennial. Berrizbeitia, A., and L. Pollak. 1990. Inside Outside: Between Architecture and Landscape. Gloucester, MA: Rockport. Corner, J. ed. 2004. Recovering Landscape. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. De Landa, M. 1998. One Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. New York: Zone Books. De Solà- Morales, M. 1999. “Progettare citta/Designing Cities.” In Mirko Zardini (ed.), Lotus Quaderni Documents, Vol. 23. Milan: Electa. Ellin, N. (ed.) 1997. Architecture of Fear. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Ellin, N. 1999. Postmodern Urbanism, Rev. ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Ellin, N. 2006. Integral Urbanism. New York: Routledge. Erickson, A. 1980. “Shaping.” In William H. Whyte Erickson and James Hillman (eds.), The City as Dwelling. Dallas: Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Forman, R. 1995. Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hellmund, P., and D. Smith. 2006. Designing Greenways: Sustainable Landscapes for Nature and People. Washington, DC: Island Press. Hough, M. 1995. Cities and Natural Process: A Basis for Sustainability. New York: Routledge. Jacobs, J. 2000. The Nature of Economies. New York: Modern Library. Kenda, B. 1998. “On the Renaissance Art of Well-Being: Pneuma in Villa Eolia.” Res, 34 (Autumn). Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford University Press. Lovelock, J. E. 1979. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McHarg, I. 1969, 1966. Design with Nature. Garden City, NY: Natural History Press. Mostafavi, M. 2004. Landscape Urbanism: A Manual for the Machinic Landscape. London: AA Publications. Mozaffarian, D., and D. Glickman. 2019. “Our Food is Killing too Many of Us.” New York Times, August 26. Platt, R. H. (ed.) 2006. The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the Twenty-first Century City. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Register, R. 2006. Ecocities: Building Cities in Balance with Nature. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers. Ritchie, I. 1994. (Well)Connected Architecture. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

84  Nan Ellin Schumacher, E. F. 1973. Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as If People Mattered. New York: Harper & Row. Shane, G. 2003–2004. “The Emergence of ‘Landscape Urbanism’.” Harvard Design Review, 19 (Fall/Winter): 13–20. Steiner, F. 2008. “Green Urbanism.” Journal of Urbanism, 1 (1) (March): 6–7. Sullivan, L. 1896. “The Tall Office Building Artistically Reconsidered.” Lippincott’s Magazine, March. Thompson, G. F., and F. R. Steiner (eds.) 1997. Ecological Design and Planning. New York: Wiley. Todd, N. J., and J. Todd. 1994. From Eco-cities to Living Machines: Ecology as the Basis for Design. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Tzonis, A., and L. Lefaivre. 1999. “Beyond Monuments, Beyond Zip-a-ton.” Le Carré Bleu, 3–4: 4–44. Waldheim, C. 2006. Landscape Urbanism. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

10 Biomimicry An opportunity for buildings to relate to place Dayna Baumeister, Maibritt Pedersen Zari, and Samantha Hayes This chapter is based on a series of conversations with Dr Dayna Baumeister, partner at Biomimicry 3.8 and Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, exploring her work on emerging regenerative design approaches inspired by nature. Dr Baumeister is an ecologist and biologist and a trained systems thinker who has worked in the field of biomimicry for more than 22 years. She joined forces with Janine Benyus shortly after the publication of the seminal book Biomimicry (Benyus, 1997) and is the co-founder of Biomimicry 3.8, the world’s leading bio-inspired consultancy offering biological intelligence consulting, professional training, and inspiration. She is also Director of the Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University.

A push for change in built environment design Change in built environment design and practice must happen urgently. Humanity is under pressure from converging drivers of change including climate change and biodiversity loss; the scale of these challenges is only increasing (Cardinale et al., 2012; Steffen et  al., 2018). We have the opportunity, and the obligation, to act immediately to create radically more sustainable architecture inspired by natural processes and functions. Focused efforts to shift our design approaches can lessen the eventual impacts of these global changes on people, built environments, and the ecosystems they are part of. Additionally, these efforts can provide the healthy models and design approaches needed to adapt to a changing world. Investing any more resources, time, or energy in the traditional path (that is, buildings and cities that damage ecologies and climate) is, from a survival of humanity point of view, dangerous, unethical, and nonsensical.

How biomimicry can contribute to change Biomimicry is the design practice of emulating an organism, organism behaviour, or aspects of ecosystems in terms of: form, shape, or pattern (what something looks like); material (what it is made of); construction (how it is made); process (how it works); system (how the parts interact); or function (what it does) (Baumeister et al., 2013; Pedersen Zari, 2017). Biomimicry 3.8’s work in the built environment takes three complementary approaches. The first, and most basic,

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Figure 10.1  Genius of Place. Source: Biomimicry 3.8

called ‘Survive and Thrive’, builds on the basic ecological realities of a site (for example, ecosystem type, key climatological conditions, natural resource availability, ecosystem services, etc.), and then deciphers how a built environment asset or intervention might be best able to leverage, honour, and work with these. The second is ‘Genius of Place’ (Figure 10.1), which involves examining how site-specific local organisms can provide models for locally attuned and sustainable design strategies that address challenges and conditions relevant to that site (for example, how local plants and animals manage extreme heat or rainfall) (Biomimicry 3.8, 2016; Taylor Buck, 2017). The third is the more comprehensive ‘Ecological Performance Standards’ (EPS) work that enables development of ecologically derived building and/or site performance standards and design aspirations that are specific to the site (Figure 10.2). EPS involves investigating an intact ecosystem (either onsite or nearby) to quantify ecologically important ecosystem services. Specific quantifiable metrics or targets can then inform aspirational performance goals for the design. These might include performance goals based for example on understanding that ‘in this local ecosystem 80% of the water comes from rainfall and 20% comes from surface water’. These metrics can then inform the quantity of water available for use, the proportion to be harvested from rainwater, and the quantity to be sourced from ground water as an alternative to the typical reliance on piped water from distant sources.

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Figure 10.2  Ecological Performance Standards. Source: Biomimicry 3.8

In addition to these primary practices, Biomimicry 3.8 also worked with architectural practice HOK to develop a process termed ‘Fully Integrated Thinking’ (FIT). Complementing EPS and Genius of Place approaches, FIT also draws upon the Biomimicry 3.8 defined ‘Life’s Principles’; six main patterns, with complementary sub-principles, that reflect strategies adopted by all organisms on Earth (Figure 10.2), and are described as ‘the rules of the game for living on this planet’ (Baumeister et al., 2013). A matrix-based process assesses interconnected components of a proposed design (for example, in terms of water management: water storage, water transport, water purification, water discharge) and tests all aspects of the design against Life’s Principles. A deeper phase uses a more detailed overview of how ecosystems work on the site in question and again checks these against the proposed design. In essence, the FIT approach draws on 1) common and global biological patterns to guide design, and 2) site-specific ecosystem functions to inform place-based design objectives and performance targets. These approaches offer a broad appeal and have been implemented in dozens of projects, yet challenges to widespread adoption in built environment projects still exist.

The existing context: barriers and opportunities Attention to local abiotic factors (such as water, solar exposure, etc.) as a basis for design has become more standard over the last two decades (Kibert, 2007). However, still missing in most built environment projects is a recognition that

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Figure 10.3  Life’s Principles. Source: Biomimicry 3.8

no building or built environment is wholly independent of a real, and very sitespecific, ecological context. One might argue an elephant is an elephant independent of a savannah, but what is truer is that the elephant is an elephant because of the savannah, and the savannah is a savannah because of the elephant. They are essentially part of each other because of the symbiotic relationship between them.

Biomimicry  89 When designers try to create buildings without a deep understanding of specific ecological context and the interaction between the two, the outcomes can become highly problematic (Van Der Ryn and Cowan, 2013). In addition to a philosophical shift linking context to building, we must also correlate design time frames with longevity. Design teams are charged with designing something that will potentially last for 100 years or even longer, but the design process is often condensed into a matter of months. Compared to industrial design processes where research and development phases may last for several years in order to create much shorter life products, compressed building design phases do not honour the gravity of the task at hand. That is, to create buildings and spaces that are fit for purpose, fit for people, and fit for site for the long term. Addressing these two barriers alone would likely improve the quality of built environment design. Simultaneously, they increase the demand for a more biomimetic perspective, while permitting the time for its inclusion. Another significant barrier is the connection between innovation, risk, and money. Those that finance the construction of built environment projects are often risk averse and unwilling to try something that no one else has (Hayes et al., 2019). However, biomimicry has demonstrated that a new concept does not necessarily equate to a risky one, nor a more expensive one. This is particularly true when advocating for the use of ecological performance standards based on how ecosystems actually work. New technologies are not necessarily needed; existing technologies can be used to achieve these goals (Pedersen Zari and Hecht, 2019) and at a potential cost-savings when multi-functional approaches are used. Ecological performance goal targets are not a risk, but instead are a matter of mind set and choice. A design team might elect to design a building or landscape system that puts 20 per cent of the water falling out of the sky back into the ground water table, based on understanding the ecological systems of the site in detail (and perhaps an ethical imperative), and subsequently be rewarded by the municipality for contributing to ecosystem services. Meanwhile, they save on water discharge costs and improve the resilience of the building. The technical know-how already exists and is proven. Critical policy and regulation opportunities can support this kind of ecologybased biomimicry work. The decision to expand or densify development at a given site could come, for example, with a proviso that the built environment intervention must at least match the ecological performance (for example, water regulation, carbon storage, nutrient cycling, etc.) of the local ecosystem that is being displaced, and if possible go beyond it (Pedersen Zari, 2018). In the application of EPS to a development project in Durban, South Africa, the team quantified the ecosystem services generated by an intact ecosystem on the project site, then calculated the ecosystem services generated by the current sugar cane agricultural uses, and finally, the business as usual design (BAU) performance for the proposed development. This provided benchmarks for current (agricultural field) performance, BAU, and target performance (aligned with ecosystem standards). They were able to get their project approved by demonstrating that their ‘generous’ development would perform better in several ways than the sugar cane field it was displacing.

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Complimentary ideas and social ecologies Biomimicry 3.8 is part of a larger network of practitioners and academics focused on understanding and translating ecological realities into design outcomes. The work being done by restoration ecologists (Gilby et al., 2018), bioregionalists and ecological historians (Booth, 2012), regenerative design advocates and practitioners (Reed, 2007, 2009), and even permaculture professionals (Henfrey, 2018) are examples of these. Diversity in thought, method, and terms used is a source of strength in ecological design. Ultimately, many leading thinkers are heading in the same direction and are pushing for change, and it is important that approaches to instigating change are explored from many angles. The goal for Biomimicry 3.8 therefore is not always to collaborate directly with people who do similar work, but to support and encourage them to be part of a greater movement towards ecologybased change in built environment design. In April 2018, The Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University, of which Biomimicry 3.8 is an integral part, brought together key players in this kind of design thinking at the Generous Cities Summit, to ‘consider how cities can become purpose-built, net producers of ecosystem services by taking inspiration from the ecosystems in which they are embedded’ (The Biomimicry Center, 2018).1 Moving forward, Biomimicry 3.8 believes that while people doing similar work should communicate with each other and collaborate, working independently will also attract many different kinds of practitioners and clients to a strong and diverse field, while simultaneously building a cadre of useful models to promote the widespread change necessary.

Built and conceptual examples In applying the biomimicry approaches outlined here, Biomimicry 3.8 has worked with a range of innovative partners. Interface, a global modular carpet manufacturer, has long been recognised as a leader in corporate sustainability efforts, and in recent years has looked beyond their Mission Zero focus and towards regenerative net positive performance. One part of that journey has been to focus on biomimicry, including piloting the EPS approach for their operations, with a goal of creating ‘factories that are functionally indistinguishable from forests’. Interface and Biomimicry 3.8 piloted the EPS approach on two sites in Australia and the United States of America, and found that in the initial iteration, ecological research and data capture proved extremely resource and time intensive. At the second site, the team was able to quantify key ecosystem services generated by the reference habitat, quantify the business as usual design performance against these, and then search the market for design strategies and products that could help to increase ecosystem services through design. While the research burden remained high, the work was an important step forward in testing and refining the process and methodology in applied projects. Later projects have seen the benefits of those early learnings, and recently the EPS approach was applied by Biomimicry 3.8 on the Lancaster County Public School project in Virginia with great success and efficiency; promising progress

Biomimicry  91 for mainstreaming design for ecosystem services (Dwyer, 2019). In this project, working with experts in the Ecosystem Services Identification and Inventory (ESII) tool (EcoMetrix, 2019), it was possible to create a very detailed matrix of ecosystem types across the site. The resulting mapping recognised the presence and interplay of riparian zones, emerging wetland, young forest, meadow, and mature pine forest among others, and prompted consideration of how the design may seek to reflect these ecosystems and their changes over time and under different scenarios. Rapid quantification of ecosystem services meant it was then possible to spend more time investigating local organisms for relevant design strategies. The school also spoke of their capacity to continue monitoring ecosystem services performance and developing the ‘Genius of Place’ through their education programmes. One company that has delved into the ‘Genius of Place’ approach across its portfolio is design firm HOK. Recognising limited time and resources to conduct a full Genius of Place study within the scope of every individual project, they opted for a different approach. The majority of their projects internationally exist within a single biome type: temperate broadleaf forest. Focusing on the common design challenges that they were facing across their portfolio, they worked with Biomimicry 3.8 to look specifically for solutions that organisms had developed to address those challenges within temperate broadleaf forests. From this, they launched a Genius of Biome design guide, with a range of design ideas, strategies and prompts for use across their portfolio (Biomimicry 3.8 and HOK, 2013). They have recently followed this with a more specific Genius of Place guide for the California Coast, and the work has influenced design on a wide range of projects. One such project is Central + Wolfe in Silicon Valley, where the design drew upon the reflective qualities of the buttercup petal, as well as its capacity to track the sun and harness solar energy (Thorpe, 2018). They investigated the epidermis to understand the mechanisms that supported these functions, and used that knowledge to inform refraction of light and shading, as well as to manage heat gain and glare within the design.

Key lessons for practitioners While every project yields new understanding and lessons in this constantly adapting and evolving work, there are three key patterns that Biomimicry 3.8 has deduced from its work with biomimicry and built environment design. Lesson 1: interdisciplinary collaboration is key Creating ecology-driven design requires collaboration between professionals that do not typically work together, including ecologists, designers, and building scientists. This can lead to a range of language and lexicon challenges, as well as a diversity of perspectives and approaches. Field work that involves the whole collaborative team walking the site and collectively understanding the local context and ecological issues is paramount. Having a client on-board with the idea of

92  Dayna Baumeister et al. ecological design from the onset is also very helpful, as they must be key collaborators in the process. Short feedback loops and dialogues linking the ecological lessons to potential (and then executed) designs ensure the successful manifestation of these aspirational goals. Lesson 2: time, expertise, and field work is essential Devising site specific ecological performance standards can take more time than conventional design methodologies and requires ecological expertise in the team. It can take time to find a suitable intact, healthy ecosystem analogous to what would have been on a specific site to base literature review and field work on. Field work is critical, but a thorough literature review is also a crucial part of determining such metrics because there often is not the time to complete the kind of thorough ecological field work that takes place over long multi-year time periods. This makes research difficult when working in places without a tradition of the science of ecology or where literature is not easily assessable. New software or apps such as the ESII Tool (there are several, see: Bagstad et al., 2013), which convert ecological measures into metrics that designers or engineers may find useful, can be very helpful when doing real time field work so that approximate ecological metrics can be quickly found for a specific site. Biomimicry 3.8 used the ESII tool in the Virginia Green School project as described, and after only two days of field work in adjacent habitat(s), created the data needed to produce sitespecific ecological metrics. They are partnering with EcoMetrix and their ESII tool to do additional work for several factories for Ford Motor Co. in 2019–2020. Lesson 3: take a broad approach to setting goals and measuring success There are many ways to understand how successful a project, or set of design processes has been. In a quantitative sense for EPS, a process of monitoring the performance of buildings or interventions over time is important, to understand if ecology-based metrics and standards are being met, and how the system might be altered or allowed to evolve in response. It is very possible to measure for example, how much carbon is being sequestered, how much water is directed back into the aquifers, or if there has been an increase in local biodiversity. Ecological metrics don’t have to be 100 per cent scientifically exact to be useful in design contexts however. An approximate goal and even progress towards that goal can be useful. For example, if there is a situation where designers find an albedo of 80 per cent in an existing or proposed design, but discover there is an albedo of only approximately 23 per cent in a reference ecosystem, adopting a goal of 15 to 30 per cent albedo will result in a situation that is substantially better than what was originally planned. Similarly, in some projects, there is a case for inclusion of qualitative performance metrics, in addition to quantitative standards. These provide an opportunity for a more holistic view of benefits and progress towards those.

Biomimicry  93 Successes and outcomes of this kind of work are also sometimes emergent and unexpected. Social side effects emerging from the Interface ‘Factory as a Forest’ project (Mathew, 2018), for example, included employee engagement, productivity, and health and wellbeing improvements, and occurred independently of the ecological performance goals initially set. Examining and evaluating these unexpected outcomes (both positive and negative) is also vital to inform future efforts. It is critical in this work to recognise the difference between aspirational goals (ones which push people to reimagine how far they could possibly stretch towards a goal) and achievable goals (ones which are realistically achievable and measurable). Both are useful, yet fulfil different roles related to the design process and getting buy-in from the stakeholders. Biomimicry 3.8 came to understand this when working on the HOK led Lavasa Ecocity urban design project in India (Datta, 2012; Taylor Buck, 2017). The local environmental manager they were working closely with was initially opposed to the aspirational goals proposed, because his position relied on being able to measure the performance of the interventions and meet pre-defined performance targets. Once a set of tangible, measurable, achievable goals were set for the project, alongside the aspirational ones, the environmental manager was able to engage much more enthusiastically with the project. While measurable achievable goals are useful, and allow people to celebrate reaching a target, they can also be limiting. People may become obsessed with metrics, even drawing artificial (in relation to ecological realities) boundary lines of achievement (such as ‘net zero’). The danger is that people stop striving for improvement once these boundaries are reached and lose sight of the ultimate goal, which is continual movement towards healthy ecosystems and people within them. Additionally, one must weigh the costs of gathering these metrics down to the minutiae versus what else might be accomplished with those resources. What is also needed then, is meaningful aspirational goals that help to push people and projects in the direction of radically better ecological performance. If ecological performance outcomes are moving in the direction of supporting the health of ecosystems and people, this also demonstrates the success of the project and methodology, although perhaps more abstractly. This kind of tension related to measurability is inherent in this kind of bleeding edge work.

An urgent need for change in built environment design Biomimicry 3.8’s call to action for practitioners and professions engaged in building better human habitats, is to take the time to really ‘fall in love with’, be mesmerised by, appreciate, and get to know ecosystems for their intrinsic value, rather than just their value to people. People should make an effort to understand and really experience the ecosystems they work and live in (or ones that are like the ecosystems that used to exist in those places), and see them as the ultimate teacher, model, and mentor in terms of aspirational goals. Don’t be an elephant without its savannah. The kind of nature-inspired design discussed here offers new ways of thinking about built environment design, and encourages people to pursue solutions that are regenerative, locally attuned and place based, and

94  Dayna Baumeister et al. informed by natural principles and strategies. We must urgently, more effectively, and generously give back to ecosystems. After all, we belong to ecosystems, they don’t belong to us.

Note 1 Outcomes and presentations from this summit are available at: http://biomimicry.asu.edu.

References Bagstad, K. J., D. J. Semmens, S. Waage, and R. Winthrop. 2013. “A Comparative Assessment of Decision-Support Tools for Ecosystem Services Quantification and Valuation.” Ecosystem Services, 5: 27–39. Baumeister, D., R. Tocke, J. Dwyer, S. Ritter, and J. Benyus. 2013. Biomimicry Resource Handbook: A Seedbank of Best Practices. Missoula: Biomimicry 3.8. Benyus, J. 1997. Biomimicry – Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Biomimicry 3.8. 2016. “Biomimicry 3.8.” Biomimicry 3.8. Date accessed November 21, 2019. Available online: https://biomimicry.net. Biomimicry 3.8, and HOK. 2013. Genius of Biome: Temperate Broadleaf Forest. Missoula: Biomimicry Group Inc and HOK Group Inc. Booth, K. 2012. “Environmental Pragmatism and Bioregionalism.” Contemporary Pragmatism, 9 (1): 67–84. Cardinale, B. J., J. E. Duffy, A. Gonzalez, D. U. Hooper, C. Perrings, et al. 2012. “Biodiversity Loss and its Impact on Humanity.” Nature, 486 (7401): 59–67. Datta, A. 2012. “India’s Ecocity? Environment, Urbanisation, and Mobility in the Making of Lavasa.” Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 30 (6): 982–996. Dwyer, J. 2019. “‛Campus as a Forest’ Inspires a School Master Plan.” Biomimicry 3.8. Date accessed November  11, 2019. Available online: https://synapse.bio/blog/ campus-as-a-forest. EcoMetrix. 2019. “We Offer Decision-Support and Analysis.” EcoMetrix Soultions Group. Date accessed November  21, 2019. Available online: www.ecometrixsolutions.com/ tools.html. Gilby, B. L., A. D. Olds, R. M. Connolly, C. J. Henderson, and T. A. Schlacher. 2018. “Spatial Restoration Ecology: Placing Restoration in a Landscape Context.” BioScience, 68 (12): 1007–1019. Hayes, S., C. Desha, and M. Gibbs. 2019. “Findings of Case-Study Analysis: System-Level Biomimicry in Built-Environment Design.” Biomimetics, 4 (4): 73. Henfrey, T. 2018. “Designing for Resilience: Permaculture as a Transdisciplinary Methodology in Applied Resilience Research.” Ecology, and Society, 23 (2). Kibert, C. J. 2007. “The Next Generation of Sustainable Construction.” Building Research & Information, 35 (6): 595–601. Mathew, M. 2018. “Factory as a Forest: Reimagining Facilities as Ecosystems.” Human Spaces. Date accessed August  2019. Available online: https://blog.interface.com/ factory-forest-reimagining-facilities-ecosystems/. Pedersen Zari, M. 2017. “Biomimetic Urban Design: Ecosystem Service Provision of Water and Energy.” Buildings. Special Issue: Biomimetics in Sustainable Architectural and Urban Design, 7 (1): 21.

Biomimicry  95 Pedersen Zari, M. 2018. Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry. Oxon: Routledge. Pedersen Zari, M., and K. Hecht. 2019. “Biomimicry for Regenerative Built Environments: Mapping Design Strategies for Producing Ecosystem Services.” TensiNet Symposium – Softening the Habitat, Milan, Italy, June 3–5. Reed, B. 2007. “Shifting from ‘Sustainability’ to Regeneration.” Building Research and Information, 35 (6):674–680. Reed, B. 2009. The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building: Redefining the Practice of Sustainability. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Steffen, W., J. Rockström, K. Richardson, T. M. Lenton, C. Folke, et al. 2018. “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115 (33): 8252–8259. Taylor Buck, N. 2017. “The Art of Imitating Life: The Potential Contribution of Biomimicry in Shaping the Future of Our Cities.” Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 44 (1): 120–140. The Biomimicry Center. 2018. “Generous Cities Summit.” Arizona State University. Date accessed August  2019. Available online: http://biomimicry.asu.edu/event/gener ous-cities-summit/. Thorpe, H. 2018. “Sunnyvale Buttercup: HOK Unveils Biophilic Silicon Valley Campus Central +Wolfe.” Wallpaper. Date accessed November 8. Available online: www.wall paper.com/architecture/central-and-wolfe-silicon-valley-business-campus-hok. Van Der Ryn, S., and S. Cowan. 2013. Ecological Design. Washington, DC: Island Press.

11 The emergence of biophilic design and planning Re-envisioning cities and city life Timothy Beatley

Introduction Interface Carpets recently opened its new headquarters building in Atlanta, Georgia. It is an example of biophilic design both in the interior and façade. In 2019, I conducted an interview (and site visit) with Chip DeGrace, the company’s vice president for social innovation (DeGrace, 2019). The interview was part of a series of documentary films that the biophilic cities network have been making about buildings and urban projects, finding that it is often more compelling to show what a building looks and feels like, rather than to simply describe it. This chapter discusses direct observations, as well as what was learnt from the interview with DeGrace, and attempts to set this exemplary project within the larger context of the evolving biophilic city of Atlanta. Biophilic design is an emerging global movement. Buildings like the Interface Headquarters reflect a growing sense that workers are entitled to such spaces. Biophilic design and planning principles are increasingly applied at all scales, from buildings to neighborhoods to cities and regions. Corporate campuses, as varied as Google, Apple, and Expedia, and cities as different as Singapore, Paris, and San Francisco, are prioritising contact with nature (Beatley, 2017). Evidence is compelling that occupants of such buildings will be more productive and happier, as will residents of homes and towers with more natural daylight, more greenery, more openable windows, and more views of the outside world (Williams, 2017). Residents of cities with extensive tree canopy, access to greenspaces, and urban biodiversity, also experience a host of positive benefits including lower levels of stress, improved mental health, and improved quality of life (Bratman et al., 2019; Beatley, 2017).

Interface Headquarters Designed by the Atlanta office of Perkins and Will, the Interface Headquarters serves to bring together employees who were scattered around different offices in the Atlanta region, thus the nickname ‘basecamp’, to create a new setting and venue for the collaborative work of this company. The company chose an existing building to retrofit, rather than to build a new structure. Reducing its carbon

Emergence of biophilic design  97 footprint was a key goal, with an emphasis on taking advantage of the embodied energy of the existing structure, and its location across the street from a subway station. Almost all of the material waste (97 per cent) was either repurposed or recycled. The building utilises an energy efficient chilled-beam heating and cooling system, and low energy lighting, including Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and adjustable desk lighting, which supplements abundant natural light. The Interface Headquarters retrofit shows that biophilic design includes not just living nature but also shapes and forms of nature, and natural materials such as wood. Kellert (2018) has identified a set of ‘attributes and experiences’ that characterise biophilic design, including direct and indirect experiences of nature and experiences of space and place (Table 11.1). The Interface base camp incorporates many of these key attributes. The most visually dramatic feature of this building is its exterior façade, which is a large image of a piedmont forest (Figure 11.1). The exterior façade creates an engaging visual feature from both outside and inside perspectives. From the interior, it has resulted in abundant dappled light and biophilic fractals, or repetitive natural patterns (for more about fractals see: Taylor, 2018). The façade image serves as a kind of natural billboard for Interface, which has a long history of commitment to sustainability, and as an important symbol of the aspirations of the building, which is designed to emulate the ecosystem services provided by the natural forest that would have existed on this site. ‘Nature was the model and nature set the performance standards’, DeGrace stated. This is reflected in the collection, storage, and reuse of all rain water falling on the site (through a 45,000 liter cistern in the basement). DeGrace is especially proud of the building’s attention to water. ‘Our relationship to water tends to be quite abstract’, DeGrace notes, but in basecamp it is much more explicit and tangible. There are refilling stations throughout and color-coded pipes that allow employees to see and understand the movement of water through the building. Interface Headquarters demonstrates that buildings can help to reduce ecological damage but also connect people (back) to the natural world and to each other. Table 11.1  Experiences and Attributes of Biophilic Design I Direct Experience of Nature

II Indirect Experience of Nature

III Experience of Space and Place

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 2 3 4 5 6

Light Air Water Plants Animals Landscapes Weather Views Fire

Source: Kellert, 2018, 16–17.

Images Materials Texture Color Shapes and forms Information richness Change, age, and the patina of time 8 Natural geometries

Prospect and refuge Organized complexity Mobility Transitional spaces Place Integrating parts to create wholes

98  Timothy Beatley

Figure 11.1  Interface Headquarters includes a dramatic façade of an eastern US forest.

The importance of enhancing human wellbeing can be seen in the nine wellness rooms where employees can seek calm and quiet, and where it is possible (and permissible) to take a nap. There are lactation rooms and a rooftop garden. There is a higher-than-usual natural exchange of air (about 50 per cent more than a typical building). This adds to a healthy work environment. The building is intentionally designed to encourage activity (and thus health and social engagement). The visually striking interior staircase is intended to encourage employees to take the stairs. Employees have a great deal of choice regarding where to work or spend time in the building and are encouraged to move around over the course of the day. The diversity of textures, colors, and sitting and meeting spaces, makes it an interesting, stimulating work environment.

Beyond (biophilic) buildings The Interface retrofit is good but it is also not enough. What is needed are biophilic cities. Ideas and practices of buildings like Interface Headquarters must be understood, consolidated, and then scaled up. Atlanta serves as an example of what this larger spatial agenda will require and demonstrates some of the obstacles that will likely be faced. Atlanta, USA, with a population of 5.6 million in

Emergence of biophilic design  99 the metro area and almost 0.5 million in the City (City of Atlanta, 2017), is often thought of for its sprawling land use patterns and its heavy dependence on cars. Atlanta’s negative reputation is perhaps well-deserved, but things are changing; many of the City’s neighborhoods and the urban core are becoming more walkable. Atlanta represents that cities are often places where experimentation can begin to tip them in the direction of greater connections with the natural world (Beatley, 2011, 2016). Like many North American cities, Atlanta is a city where poverty and income inequality are high (nearly a quarter of the city’s residents live below the federal poverty line (City of Atlanta, 2017), and a history of racial segregation has shaped the city (Kruse, 2019). How nature can help address these challenges is not always clear, but connections to parks and the natural world bestow important health and social benefits. Biophilic cities are just and equitable cities; cities that exemplify and commit to a Just Biophilia, a recognition that contact with nature is a right deserved by all irrespective of income, race, or status (Beatley, 2017). Biophilic buildings like the Interface Headquarters may do little to rectify inequalities, but there is a growing awareness of how buildings can contribute to the creation of public biophilic spaces, for instance, publicly accessible rooftop gardens, living walls enjoyed at street level, or exterior courtyards that add to the green civic realm (Kellert et al., 2008; Sturgeon, 2017). Broad-scale and citywide investment in nature is however likely to be more effective than building scale interventions. Not far from the location of the Interface Headquarters is Piedmont Park, one of the largest and most beloved parks in Atlanta. A biophilic city is a city of abundant parks, and proximity to such parks and urban green spaces is an increasingly common metric employed (e.g. New York has a goal that all residents live within ten minutes’ walk of a green space). Many Atlanta residents enjoy Piedmont Park, but about 30 per cent live beyond a 0.8km walk to a park, raising serious social justice concerns (Wolch et al., 2014). In response, the City set a goal in its Resilience Strategy of adding more than 200 hectares of new parks and green spaces (City of Atlanta, 2017). One of the boldest biophilic steps Atlanta has taken is creating the BeltLine, a 35 kilometer pedestrian and transit corridor that encircles the city, utilising historic rail lines. When completed it will connect 45 neighborhoods and already serves as an important place to get outside. It is a new form of linear public space, providing 80 hectares of public parkland and a unique linear arboretum; a 16 kilometer long horticultural collection. The BeltLine already boasts 2 million visitors each year (Atlanta BeltLine, undated), and demonstrates that larger infrastructure urban investments are likely to be what grows biophilic cities.

Beyond parks Parks are an important element of biophilic cities. But like buildings they are discrete green spots, often without much ecological connectedness. The notion of urban parks has aided and abetted traditional bifurcation between human habitat and nature; nature is to be found in designated locations in the city, bounded by

100  Timothy Beatley the park fence or entrance. This is both an ecologically false notion and one not especially helpful in advancing the vision of biophilic cities. There is the potential to cultivate and celebrate wildness in a city. An open question is how can cities make room for, or preserve, or celebrate wildness. In response to this tension in Singapore, for example, the city is now beginning to describe itself not as a City in a Garden, but as a City in Nature. We will need to re-imagine all of the spaces in the city; from rooftop or room, to region or bioregion, and all the scales in between. To paraphrase Danish urbanist Jan Gehl (2011), it is the life between and beyond the structure of the city that will animate and restore the larger ecology of the city. Atlanta has begun to make progress in this regard. Especially encouraging is how the city’s historic motto of ‘City in a Forest’ is increasingly invoked. The city’s forest canopy remains at about 47 per cent; higher than most American cities, laying claim that in many parts of the city an experience of immersive nature is not far away (Levine, 2019).

Beyond health We need a healthy ‘dose’ of nature, and increasingly it is the health benefits of daily or hourly contact with the natural world that becomes the central argument for biophilic design and urbanism (Figure 11.2). ‘Forest bathing’ is encouraged and medical professionals increasingly prescribe a walk in the woods or time in

Figure 11.2  The Nature Pyramid. Source: Beatley, 2017

Emergence of biophilic design 101 nature (Park et al., 2010; Zarr, 2017). The physical health benefits of interacting with nature are important, but we must begin to emphasise other equally critical benefits of nature in cities. These must include purpose and meaning in life, and deeper connections to place and community as well as an ethical obligation that extends beyond the utilitarian value of nature to humans. Part of the problem with a health framework is that too often the notion of health is quite narrowly understood as essentially being the absence of disease. A more salutogenic notion, which understands health more holistically is a positive step, but even better is the concept of ‘flourishing’. Emory University psychologist Corey Keyes, pioneered this notion and has identified at least 13 dimensions, all with clear relevance for nature connection (Keyes, 2007). Nature is not the only ingredient in creating the conditions of flourishing, but in cities it has a unique and special power. Biophilic cities induce and incite curiosity and curious engagement with the many life processes and living things around us. They place emphasis on maximising moments of awe and wonder; where for example there is a spectacular flowering tulip poplar tree or the sounds of bird dawn chorus, or the glimpse of a humpback whale (Beatley, 2017). In this way, biophilic cities are not simply nature-rich cities; it is the engagement of humans with the nature around them that is as important (Kellert, 2018). There remain significant challenges in advancing biophilic design at the building and urban scales. While the Interface Headquarters represents a growing trend in office design, it is not the norm (Nelson, 2018). Few design or architecture schools teach biophilic design principles, and there remain few incentives for architects to care about the long-term health, happiness, and flourishing of building occupants. There is a need to push the science and practice of architectural and urban design further in the direction of regenerative design, where ecological and wellbeing outcomes are created rather than simply harm minimised.

Beyond anthropocentric design New buildings and open/green spaces can be designed, and existing buildings retrofitted, to provide habitat and food sources for a variety of different species. Rooftop meadows and living walls can contribute, but more radical ideas should be considered. Every building surface and façade must be reimagined as potential habitat, and the value of making room for urban wildlife must be recognised. An example is a recent partnership between the United Kingdom’s largest homebuilder and the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, resulting in homes designed to include swift boxes and hedgehog habitats among other strategies. An even bolder rethinking of façades can be found in the work of architect Joyce Hwang around her notion of a ‘habitat wall’ (Hwang, 2017). Like most North American cities, Atlanta has seen a rise in the number of coyotes in the metropolitan area, raising the challenge of coexistence, and uncovering some attitudes of fear but also curiosity. The Atlanta Coyote Project has been monitoring and studying the animals, and educates and strongly advocates for

102  Timothy Beatley positive coexistence (Atlanta Coyote Project, undated). The sight and sounds of coyotes in Atlanta can add positively to quality of life, to a sense of wildness in the city, and to a view of the city as a biodiverse home to extensive flora and fauna. Designers need to better understand how to connect and link open and green spaces in urban areas and determine what the physical and biological processes in cities are that can be helped along with biophilic design and planning, such as movement corridors for small mammals, treetop ‘bridges’, and other forms of ecological connectedness for wildlife living in and moving through the city.

(Biophilia) beyond the city Modern cities tend to draw their resources from very far away, sustaining a complex metabolism of inputs and outputs (Girardet, 2015). Cities like Atlanta need many inputs: food, water, energy, and materials of various kinds. Most of these are acquired from outside the city’s boundaries. Atlanta also generates outputs: municipal solid waste, air and water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. These outputs often travel beyond the city’s boundaries. This unsustainable metabolism results in a large ecological footprint for cities, with an impact well beyond urban borders. Some cities set goals for reducing ecological footprints and are working to reform their metabolisms, but increasingly a more circular form of urban metabolism is advocated: one which seeks at once to reduce the extent and size of the resource flows, but also to reduce supply lines by growing more food locally, and eventually to reimagine wastes as productive inputs that can be recycled within the urban area (Newman et al., 2017). Without consideration of the wider impacts of cities, cities like Atlanta, as green and biophilic as they may become, will still violate a broader global vision of love of nature. It is a key premise of biophilic cities therefore that they work to protect more distant nature at the same time that they work to protect, regenerate, and celebrate local ecologies and biodiversity. A companion idea is Half-Earth Cities that seek to advance E.O. Wilson’s provocative idea of setting half the world aside for nature (Wilson, 2016). Implementing a global Half-Earth vision will necessarily mean much of the work will need to happen outside of cities. While cities occupy only about 3 per cent of the Earth’s surface, they consume 75 per cent of the resources. Cities can and must help in several ways, including by shifting their metabolism and reducing resource consumption. Biophilic cities will need to exert global leadership in the conservation of nature, and perhaps even engage in city-to-city treaties and agreements that help to protect and restore habitats and ecosystems thousands of miles away. Biophilic cities must support land conservation and ecosystem regeneration at regional levels. This includes participation in regional planning (mostly absent in North American planning systems). In some ways, it is an inverted version of the Nature Pyramid (Figure 11.2), suggesting that while the urban nature diet must be mostly local, there is a larger land and biodiversity conservation challenge that lies only a few kilometers beyond the boundaries of cities like Atlanta. The Wildlands Project has generated a provocative map of the eastern USA that argues for setting half of the land aside for conservation, and places Atlanta

Emergence of biophilic design 103 squarely in the middle of a network of connected landscapes (Wildlands Network, undated; Sutherland, 2019). Ron Sutherland and his team generated an ‘Eastern Wildway’ map that depicts core conservation areas and connections for the eastern US (Figure 11.3). Sutherland stresses the idea of fingers of greenways and wildlife corridors that penetrate the urban–wildland interface. There is little doubt that the vision and practice of biophilic cities will require, especially in the era of climate change, attention to these larger scales.

Figure 11.3  The Eastern Wildlands Map. Source: Wildlands Network

104  Timothy Beatley

Conclusions: open questions remain This chapter makes the case that we need to place nature, and contact with the natural world, at the center of design and planning. Evidence is increasingly compelling: nature is not optional but is essential to leading healthy, happy, and meaningful lives. Biophilic design can help to make the indoor environments where we tend to spend the bulk of our time better as demonstrated by Interface Headquarters. We need more built environments like Interface, but we must also focus on the larger urban contexts in which biophilic buildings sit. We must work towards cities as ecosystems, and as places of immersive nature, where nature is continuous and connected. These are biophilic cities. While we have many partial examples of cities that have sought to implement a vision of immersive nature (Singapore is probably the most advanced; aspiring to being a ‘Biophilic City in a Garden’), there are few if any cities that have been able to show how this is fully possible. Moreover, in the parts of the world that are growing rapidly, including the Global South, investments in urban biophilia seem largely absent. How cities should incorporate this vision of immersive nature is not always clear, and how existing planning frameworks should be reframed is an open question. There also remain significant and difficult questions related to equity and social justice. Atlanta offers some specific ideas about how to tackle this, but is at best a cautionary tale. Nature in cities is often not distributed fairly, and prominent efforts to inject nature into the urban fabric (for example, the High Line Park in New York) sometimes result in housing displacement and gentrification (Maantay and Maroko, 2018). A more extensive exploration of the ethical underpinnings of biophilic cities is undoubtedly needed. Partly this will refer to global duties to protect and conserve (and love) more distant nature, as well as nature nearby. In choosing to retrofit an existing structure, the Interface Headquarters is helping to reduce its larger energy, water, and material footprint, and that is positive. But for a city like Atlanta to move towards being a biophilic city the large external impacts of sprawling car-dependent lifestyles would need to be reduced, and the restoration of habitat and biodiversity beyond its borders proactively supported. Looking at the Interface Headquarters through the lens of biophilic cities makes us ponder how this building might contribute to the larger vision. Could the structure incorporate features that help to propel residents outside, and to equip them with the means to observe and understand nearby nature more deeply or more continuously? Could the design of this retrofit help to advance a more global version of love of nature? It already aspires to reduce its energy and carbon footprints, but what about the sourcing of materials to minimise ecological impacts or to contribute to habitat restoration in other parts of the world? To conclude, biophilic buildings can make a difference, but some important dimensions are often lacking. The Interface Headquarters represents a leading example of biophilic design that residents and visitors to Atlanta will see, visit, and talk about for years to come. Importantly it will also help to stimulate new thinking, and to raise the bar for urban-scale (and beyond) biophilic design, which is urgently needed.

Emergence of biophilic design 105

References Atlanta BeltLine Inc. undated. “The Atlanta BeltLine in 5.” Available online: https://belt line.org/about/the-atlanta-beltline-project/atlanta-beltline-overview. Atlanta Coyote Project. undated. “Coexisting with Coyotes.” Available online: https:// atlantacoyoteproject.org/coyote-management-co-existence/. Beatley, T. 2011. Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning. Washington, DC: Island Press. Beatley, T. 2016. “Planning for Biophilic Cities: From Theory to Practice.” Planning Theory & Practice, 17 (2): 295–300. Beatley, T. 2017. Handbook of Biophilic City Planning and Design. Washington, DC: Island Press. Bratman, G. et al. 2019. “Nature and Mental Health: An Ecosystem Service Perspective.” Science Advances, 5 (7): eaax0903. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aax0903. City of Atlanta. 2017. Resilient Atlanta: Actions to Build an Equitable Future. Atlanta, GA: City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Resilience. DeGrace, C. 2019. Interview and Site Visit, Interface Headquarters, April 11, Atlanta, GA. Gehl, J. 2011. Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space. Washington, DC: Island Press. Girardet, H. 2015. Creating Regenerative Cities. London: Routledge Press. Hwang, J. 2017. “Toward an Architecture for Urban Wildlife Advocacy.” Biophilic Cities, 1 (2): 24–31. Kellert, S. R. 2018. Nature by Design: The Practice of Biophilic Design. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kellert, S. R., J. Heerwagen, and M. Mador. 2008. Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science, and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Keyes, C. 2007. “Promoting and Protecting Mental Health as Flourishing.” American Psychologist, (February–March): 95–108. Kruse, Kevin M. 2019. “What Does a Traffic Jam in Atlanta have to do with Segregation? Quite a Lot.” New York Times, August 14. Available online: www.nytimes.com/interac tive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html. Levine, G. 2019. “Co-Director and Chief Program Officer, Trees Atlanta.” Personal Interview, August 2. Maantay, J. A., and A. R. Maroko. 2018. “Brownfields to Greenfields: Environmental Justice Versus Environmental Gentrification.” International Journal of Environmental Research Public Health, 15 (10): 2233. Nelson, B. 2018. “Americans have a Nature Problem. Is ‘Biophilic Design’ the Solution?” Available online: www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/new-biophilic-buildings-usequirky-features-bring-nature-indoors-ncna853996. Newman, P., T. Beatley, and H. Boyer. 2017. Resilient Cities: Overcoming Fossil Fuel Dependence. Washington, DC: Island Press. Park, B. J., Y. Tsunetsugu, T. Kasetani, T. Kagawa, and Y. Miyazaki. 2010. “The Physiological Effects of Shinrin-Yoku (Taking in the Forest Atmosphere or Forest Bathing): Evidence from Field Experiments in 24 Forests Across Japan.” Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 15 (1): 18. Sturgeon, A. 2017. Creating Biophilic Buildings, e-book, Ecotone Publishers. Sutherland, R. 2019. Personal Interview by T. Beatley, April 14. Taylor, R. 2018. “The Implications of Fractal Fluency for Biophilic Architecture.” Journal of Biourbanism, 6: 23–40.

106  Timothy Beatley Wildlands Network. undated. “Eastern Wildway.” Available online: https://wildlandsnet work.org/wildways/eastern/. Williams, F. 2017. The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. New York: W.W. Norton. Wilson, E. O. 2016. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. Wolch, J. R., J. Byrne, and J. P. Newell. 2014. “Urban Green Space, Public Health, and Environmental Justice: The Challenge of Making Cities ‘Just Green Enough’.” Landscape and Urban Planning, 125: 234–244. Zarr, R. 2017. “DC’s ParkRX: Connecting Patients to Parks and Creating the Next Generation of Environmental Activists.” Biophilic Cities Journal, 1 (1) (February): 56–58.

Part 2

Documenting social ecologies

12 Introduction How to document urban/landscape assemblages Peter Connolly

This collection results from a review of recent approaches to the documentation of social life of urban and landscape spaces that would be relevant to designers. There are now a variety of examples and emerging approaches found across various venues. I am interested in the whole practice and art of this documentation and have here chosen a selection of these that will, individually and collectively, provoke many important and otherwise and highlight many, probably obscure aspects of this practice. Contributions to this section are produced by architects, landscape architects, urbanists, artists, anthropologists, and a geography doctoral researcher, each in very different contexts and preoccupied with very different things. I have found the differences between them to be very stimulating. There has so far been relatively little discussion of this sort of social ecologies documentation. This collection aims to foster and significantly contribute to the ongoing discussion of this practice. Architects Sabine Muller and Andreas Quednau draw upon the open systems notions of boids (Reynolds, 1987) to document the informal settlements and human life of Caracas. Architects Nigel Bertram and Marika Neustupny discuss and document through various types of drawing of what they term the ‘practicalsocial space’ of a Chinese village. Karina Kuschnir, an anthropologist, describes what she has learnt about drawing for ethnographic field work, through a seminar that she runs which focuses on drawing and ethnography. Gareth Doherty, a landscape architect, in an extract from his book, Paradoxes of Green (2017), discusses his anthropological doctoral study of green in Bahrain. Marie Combette, Thomas Batzenschlager, and Clémence Pybaro meticulously document the idiosyncratic and often informally produced urban spaces and walkways that wind through the steep slopes of the Chilean city of Valparaiso. Landscape architect and urbanist Victoria Marshall, who is undertaking doctoral research in geography, communicates one of the methods used in her documentation of the spatial-social and developmental evolution of an Indian settlement, which is inextricably entwined with the existing wet ecologies of the local forest and mangroves. Architect and artist, Diana Lucas-Drogan and anthropologist, Holger Braun-Thürmann explore or move beyond the limits of designerly and academic documentation through their account of the social-spatial experiences of refugees arriving in Berlin through a series of events and performances where the refugees and other locals play an active role. Albena Yaneva, an anthropologist who works with architects

110  Peter Connolly and architectural design educators, produces a manifesto for Actor-Network Theory. I am interested in each one of these approaches on their own terms, for what they are trying to achieve, and particularly for their techniques. I have since the early-1990s been experimenting with what landscape architectural urbanism might be: with a distinct focus on the social, through what I call ‘landscape assemblages’ (Connolly, 2004, 2012). This has involved ongoing research into fieldwork, aesthetic/interpretive, analytical, representational, design, and urbanistic techniques. So, I am also interested in how the approaches represented here might contribute to a practice of landscape assemblages and also what the notion of assemblage might add to the examples presented here. This section partly results from an observation that human-environment relations have been pushed aside over the last 20 years in landscape architectural design, and this is partly associated with the rise of, what was discussed in the introduction to this book, as a technoscience understanding of Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas which came to dominate contemporary discourse and practice. I have understood their ideas significantly differently from how they have tended to be understood in this discourse, mostly provoked by my fieldwork. Their ideas have been particularly useful in framing, making sense of, and propelling, what I have been finding in my fieldwork. The essay I have authored at the end of this section, presents an account of human–environment assemblages designed to focus on aspects of Deleuze and Guattari’s work that have been obscured in recent design discourse, and that are informed by and resonate with the approaches included in this book section.

References Connolly, P. 2004. “Embracing Openness: Making Landscape Urbanism Landscape Architectural, Part 2.” In J. Raxworthy and J. Blood (eds.), The Mesh Book. Landscape/Infrastructure, 208. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing. Connolly, P. 2012. An Affirmative Open Systems Conception of how to Design Landscape. Doctor of Philosophy, RMIT University, Melbourne. Doherty, G. 2017. Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reynolds, C. W. 1987. “Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioural Model.” SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, 21 (4) (July): 25–34.

13 City boids Diagramming molecular urbanism Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau

‘City Boids’ serves as an example of how the multitude of practices observed from below and above may be synthesised into one representation through the formats of diagrams. ‘City Boids’ demonstrates how diagrams can register underlying principles of actions rather than realised shape, form, and appearance. The ‘City Boids’ diagrams that we have developed talk about the potential individual action spheres of those who make the city from the very bottom-up and thus enable actions, interactions, and progressions to gain presence and momentum within the disciplines of architecture and urbanism. ‘City Boids – Tactical Spatialisations’, is a documentation of urban practices produced within the framework of ‘Caracas-Case and the culture of the informal city’ (Caracas Urban Think Tank, 2005). Caracas-Case was a grant programme sponsored by the National Foundation for Art and Culture of Germany. Its goal was to shed light onto the informal processes that shape the Latin-American capital of Venezuela, in which four out of its six million inhabitants live in self-built constructions. Our contribution to the programme, ‘City Boids’, looks at urban actors such as street vendors and ‘informal’ dwellers. The work shifts from the notion of ‘informality’ to a positive definition of how limited access to resources and limited scope of action shape urban behaviour. ‘City Boids’ traces the logics of limited action possibilities and their impacts on shaping the city. Through a mapping method that oscillates between bird’s eye view and the horizontality of walking it becomes obvious that this ‘informal’ urbanism is marked by the agility of timebased actions and involves the occupation of spaces which are overlooked by the ruling system. ‘City Boids’ uses the theoretical concept of ‘tactics’ coined by De Certeau (1988), to characterises the ‘informal’ as both a tactical behaviour and planning of the many and conceives diagrams along the lines of Reynolds’ ‘boids model’ (Reynolds, 1987).

Introduction: gaps and fields Cities are not at ease revealing their underlying logics. Forces that are deep within the structure of many cities lie close to the surface in Caracas. Here, extremely polarised processes are at work. The spatial and temporal gaps and failures

112  Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau produced and left over by the formal city are infiltrated and colonised by the deprived faction of the city’s residents. This growing component turns the overlooked aspects of the urban realm to its advantage to create moments and places of work and inhabitation. ‘Unplanned’ settlements, the barrios, have given the city’s hillsides a second topography, home to more than half of the caraqueños, the name for inhabitants of Caracas. Tens of thousands of people ‘pirate’ public space daily by placing their small businesses in the streets. Self-employed drivers with their own buses guarantee the workings of the essential and densely meshed public transportation system of the carritos, which are small buses that are barely regulated by the authorities. Traffic jams are populated by ‘stop and go’ vendors. Most ‘informal’ actors attach to infrastructure and facilities already in place, but are, at the same time, indispensable in upholding the city’s vitality. Exact physical limits might be drawn for each actor’s physical imprint and all ‘informal’ areas, but as soon as organisational factors are sought they fade into a complex net of jumbled relations. Vendors, bus-drivers, and settlers have an ability, on one hand, to permeate and subvert and, on the other, to proliferate into field-like continuums, which are marked by an impressive agility and litheness.

Reading informality: tactical behaviour and planning of the many I wonder what is the source of this pleasure of ‘seeing the whole’, of looking down on? The panorama-city is a ‘theoretical’ (that is visual) simulacrum, in short a picture, whose condition of possibility is an oblivion and a misunderstanding of practices. The voyeur-god created by this fiction must disentangle himself from the murky intertwining daily behaviours and make himself alien to them. . . . The ordinary practitioners of the city live ‘down below’, below the thresholds at which visibility begins. (De Certeau, 1988, 92–93)

The reading of the ‘informal city’ presents a challenge. The quote above was inspired by the view from World Trade Centre in New York City. The term ‘informality’ stems from a similar panoramic perspective and is therefore as obscuring as what De Certeau calls the concept-city.1 ‘The concept-city is characterised by an alienated (over-)view, flattening out all data in plane projection while rendering (traditional) practices opaque (ibid., 94)’. As a remedy, De Certeau suggests, ‘rather than remaining within the field of a discourse that upholds its privilege by inverting its content . . . one can try another path: one can analyse the microbelike, singular and plural practices which an urbanistic system was supposed to administer or suppress’ (ibid., 96). One of the ways that De Certeau offers to ‘locate the practices that are foreign to the “geometrical” or “geographical” space of visual, panoptic, or theoretical constructions’ (ibid.), is to highlight the operational difference between strategies and tactics. ‘A strategy postulates a place that

City boids 113 can be delimited as its own and serve as the base from which relations with an exteriority . . . can be managed’ (ibid., 36). In contrast, a tactic cannot count on a spatial or institutionalised localisation and operates within the place of the other. ‘It vigilantly must make use of the cracks that particular conjunctions open’ (ibid., 37). A tactic makes use of what it cannot control; it manipulates, tricks and turns. An analysis in terms of strategies and tactics shifts the focus from the formal to the operative; instead of the stasis of the built entity, dynamic ways of producing the city come to the fore. As long as the city is seen simply as form and fabric, oppositions, contrasts, and sharp classifications are inevitable. More productively, operational modes set seemingly irreconcilable conditions into an inseparable relation in which one action leaves a gap for the other. The operational erodes the ruling ideology of visibility. With an operation-orientated approach to reading the city, the view from above and the view from below likewise contribute to a narrative: maps turn into manifestations of actions, and local instances of actions turn into precedent cases of overall logics. In Caracas, the operational narrative can be traced through all scales and domains. In our half year stay in the city, we used cartographic material, aerial photographs taken from bridges, higher buildings and helicopter flights, on the one hand, and repeated visits, talks, and listening to the stories of ‘informal’ dwellers on the other hand. Looking at maps into which the barrios were inserted via an ortho-photomapping, and thus from a distance, only in 1984; an opportunistic behaviour towards the context can be noted. The informal parts of the city use the gaps and left-overs of the engineered city such as: the steep topographies of creeks; the undefined areas between incongruous street patterns; and the forgotten exits of highways to former construction sites. The ‘informal’ developments take the dead-ends of the urbanised grid and pull the city up onto the slopes beyond what was previously considered the border of profitable development. The case of the late 1950s urbanisation project, ‘23 de Enero,’ is particularly remarkable. To build the huge housing slabs, each approximately 90 metres long, an immense site for each was terraced. Today, the otherwise useless slopes between the levels are inhabited by the minuscule typology of a barrio. Here modernism’s own building rationales created the fissures for exactly the form of dwelling that was meant to be replaced and prevented. In morphological terms, organic patterns embedded in a gridiron system appear; in operational terms, those figurations change into precise articulations that operate within the place of the other – subversively occupying the nonprofitable grid derivations caused by rivers, hills, and agricultural property lines. We visited one of the many ravines in the centre of Caracas, where flooding is a known risk. ‘Emergency exit here!’ was painted onto the walls of the shacks to hint to stairways that lead up and away from the riverbed. Hence, morphology aside, occupying a space overlooked by the ruling system is a risky practice and, often, the very last means of the vulnerable. Similarly, the traffic jam, a failure in the system from the perspective of overview, if experienced from near, or more precisely from the expectations of a walking vendor, is a moment of opportunity. Time, in the form of that moment, is an

114  Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau

Figure 13.1  23 de Enero, topographical map of Caracas, 2000.

ally of the weak.2 The disadvantage of being slow turns into an advantage, as the vending surface is expanded. Zooming out onto the city’s highway network during the course of a day, the instances of stop-and-go coupled with sell-and-buy repeat in various places all over town. Each moment, each actor and each selling encounter is different, but the principle remains the same. From this distance, one could call it a systematic use of time as the prevalent speed-oriented system fails. If this ‘acting without overview’ accumulates and is multiplied in numerous instances, swarm-like settlements develop. The barrio of Petare, a mega-village of 500,000 people at the east end of Caracas, is a stunning example for what ‘unplanned’ dwelling can amount to. Multitudes of similar elements (houses) congregate into a continuous matrix which, in its multidirectional complexity, is clearly marked by processes of appropriation, but the underlying logics of appropriation remain obscure to the most observant outsider. Using helicopter pictures and records from different times, with the notion of tactical behaviour in mind, the barrios become less texture than a tactile scanning of local opportunities of the many with minimal means. First, in the process over time, vicinity to given infrastructural opportunity, such as road access, water or electricity lines, versus the freedom of expansion in a green field is weighed-up. This is how dispersed density spreads. Second, topographical grades are balanced out. This is how the multiplicity of locations is enacted. But only the interior views reveal that this city is built on neighbours interacting; that local negotiations count

City boids 115 and decide on private and public space. Often, the one who builds first and takes the first floor of the shared trodden path succeeds, square-metre wise. If many similar agents, to borrow the language of self-organisation and decentralised systems in artificial intelligence, interact with each other locally, a structure with a collective behaviour is likely to emerge. The strength of a self-organising system comes from the relative simplicity of interactions applied to the reasonably small neighbourhood of each agent. The interactions follow clearly defined rules, which mathematically speaking are a limited set of if-then statements. While the system expands over time to higher levels of organisation and pattern, unpredictable forms are produced. Almost paradoxically, it is the limited local operations and the clear-cut constraints that become the generators of a fluent, dynamic order. Through a method that picks up information along a path of operational reading and easily oscillates between the verticality of cartography and the horizontality of walks, the informal production of the city can be recognised as both colonising the failures of the prevailing system, and the planning of the many, carried out by multitudes of similar agents such as people, houses, and stalls, that congregate into a continuous matrix. With the informal, a changing behaviour regarding site and time enters the concept of the city. It is inseparable from the moment and marked by acting within.

Representing informality: the model of ‘Boids’ The representation of this ‘informal’ city faces an inherent contradiction. Evolving behaviour is foreign, even suspicious to architecture and urbanism. It is contrary to the discipline’s endeavour to establish facts and finished products. The professional techniques have been developed to delineate limits and set-up results. Therefore, anything with changing outlines, in progress, or flux remains ungraspable. While the challenge is to denote the multitude of local and individual practices in a format that takes account of their geographic extent and their vast urban implications, it seems inconsistent to fix time-based progressiveness and interactive processes on a stable plan. It seems incongruent to represent a multiplicity of instances and specific situations in a generalising format. The challenge is to expand the representational repertoire into formats that bring individual practices from below into a panoramic perspective while keeping their specifics, and while letting their locality, interaction, indeterminacy, and temporality speak. During the work in Caracas we employed a process of creating diagrams to facilitate the generation of a narrative thread and a systematic approach to portray the multiplicity of instances and particularities. ‘City Boids’ uses Craig Reynolds’ Boids model (Reynolds, 1987) to grasp the spatialisation processes at work on Caracas’ hills, highways, and streets. Boids is an artificial life program, which simulates the flocking behaviour of birds. The complexity of Boids arises from the interaction of individual agents sticking to a set of simple rules and is effective only within a limited radius. By means of this model and using it as a guide to depict the observed actions diagrammatically, space-making can be linked back to scale of the individual actor; or the interactive ‘molecules’ of emergent urbanism.

116  Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau Read in this way, barrios and umbrella/stop-and-go markets arise as a variation of similar necessities and form a differentiated repetition of the smallest interventions. One would like to call their individual components, the actors, ‘urban molecules’; small entities that form bonds and synthesise as a larger whole. Smooth, supple, and adaptable, yet robust and persistent, ‘molecular urbanism’ evokes an urbanity that not only braves but also thoroughly challenges the fixed spatial systems of the planning discipline and their conceptions. Throughout the city, ‘urban molecules’ operate within a broad range of velocity and cohesiveness. The more dependent they are the closer they react to circumstances. With an increased degree of security in terms of resources or laws to rely on, they change from extremely flexible to stable and immobile. Thus, the properties from time-related (minute) space-claims, to socially reassured (spacious) addons are continuous but vary in zone-widths, influence, distances, and frequencies. The main rules of operating are identified as: 1 2 3

Relating to site conditions: the dominant and moving constraints in the case of stop-and-go vendors. Negotiating and reacting to the activities of neighbours: this is very present in the case of street vending. Occupying space in sequences: a key characteristic in the gradual expansions of developmental housing, in which each stage of expansion depends on outside factors such as the availability of material or income from occasional work.

The ‘City Boid’ diagram summarises the diagrams of all ‘informal’ actors, from the vendor on the highway to the developmental dweller. Related to the scale of a person, it is based on an abstraction of the recurring moves of countless actors in specific situations across diverse scales. The underlying principle in all can be considered as dependent on a prevailing system, but as independent within very local areas of activity; in any case, spatial configuration is not determined in advance. The self-governed sphere of influence of each City Boid refers to place, materialisation, and neighbours. The diagram suggests a flexible, approximate and porous action sphere and therefore shifts attention to a potential perimeter, to impending directions, and to possible forms. The diagram thus generalises the hidden logics of an urbanism that is based on localised, time-based actions and not on surveyed zoning and end products. Site relations (1–2 in Figure 13.3) Determining the spatially and temporally appropriate location for selling or dwelling is a complex process of consideration, as this is mostly an intersection of contradictory potentials. A free spot and necessary facilities may not coincide. Stretching towards infrastructure (1), or reaching for accessibility (2) through balancing topography and orientation within temporally fluctuating traffic flows, are acts of combining that set human needs and site in a tight relation. In a more formal and secure context, where infrastructure and dwelling are implemented at the same instance, the act of relating to site and resources is minimised.

City boids 117

Figure 13.2 Top: City Boids diagram of a barrio, drawing and collage. Middle: City Boids diagram of street marketing, drawing and collage. Bottom: City Boids diagram of stop-and-go vendors on the highway, drawing and collage. Source: Images by SMAQ

118  Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau

Figure 13.3  City Boid diagram. Source: Images by SMAQ

Materialisation phases (3–6 in Figure 13.3) To occupy space comes with a strong tendency to be in movement and to be modified. It happens in phases and sequences. Vendors on the highway are constantly changing position. Vendors on the sidewalks are relocating their stalls, and add shelter, roofs, and walls over time. Dwellers are starting light, but improve, annex

City boids  119 and enlarge their houses. They all leave memorised or real traces in space (3). The moments, sizes and distances of progressions are a function of varying needs but are also inevitably linked to the opportunities that arise outside of the maker’s realm of influence. In a less precarious context, the occupation of space comes with a financial and legal base that buffers fluctuations in time. Use of available material in make-do ways (4) is necessary to compensate for low monetary funds (5). Re-use, appropriation, adaptation of substances and techniques (6) require a local rather than a general knowledge. The act of using materials out of context via creative or subtle re-localisation is typical for practices that cannot count on stable funding and becomes unnecessary in the case of capital-intensive projects. Negotiation zone (7 in Figure 13.3) Every ‘molecule’ seeks and claims a certain distance from the others. With an increased density of spatial occupation, the need for tolerance is increased. This means the individual circumferences shrink and finally start to overlap to become areas that are subject to negotiation (7). Within this virtually shared zone, one reacts to the activity of others. Conflicts, compromises, and expectative measures of prevention structure the material formulation of the exact borderlines. Pathways, for example, are trodden out, confirmed, defied, articulated, and redirected yet again. In a more formal context, these neighbourly interactions are settled in advance by urban regulations and planning codes.

Diagramming actions – individual actors involved in making the city take the lead Zooming into the (inter-)actions that generate form and configurations from within, Reynolds’ model of Boids offers an example of an operational approach to carefully track down the mechanisms of a so-called ‘molecular urbanism’ without transfiguring the phenomenon. As a method, it suggests a representation focused on the ‘molecules’ themselves and their interactive capabilities rather than on the outcomes, products, and stabilisers such as parcellation, circulation networks, or community organisations. On this re-conception of urbanistic representation, the properties and consistencies of the particular actors involved in making the city take the lead. To view the individual as recipient and translator of a larger context and as a serious player has the advantage of capturing the very concrete dimensions and rationales of informal urbanity. From an urban analysis perspective, the goal of ‘City Boids’ has been to highlight the role of individual actors with little power in making the city. Beyond the analytical, what are the implications for design practice? In diagramming and giving visual shape to a ‘City Boid’, or an ‘urban molecule’, we aim to foreground the relational aspects of any spatial project. The ‘City Boid’ diagram, understood as a design principle, is a device to carefully examine the site givens and for capturing how placement and orientation are the result of negotiating constraints.

120  Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau It suggests that designers allow for gradual phases of growth and change in the design, and that these come in, uncontrolled, from outside powers. It claims that the cooperation with neighbouring projects, the back and forth, is fundamental to its form. In sum, compared to a grand or single project, there is intelligence and beauty while acting in a resource-tight and already built-out context. The ‘City Boid’ diagram is a plea for the small and the many, acting together, within the system of the other.

Notes 1 Informality’ is a term coined in the 1970s to acknowledge the continuing and expanding existence of traditional forms of work. It served to disprove the modernisation theory school of development, which claimed the disappearance of  these forms. Yet, in its oppositional drive, the term informality still privileges the formal and conceals the characteristics of other forms of work than formal ones. 2 De Certeau (1988, 37) writes: ‘A tactic is an art of the weak. It takes advantages of opportunities and depends on them, being without any base where it could stockpile its winnings . . . this nowhere gives a tactic mobility . . . but a mobility that must accept the chance offerings of the moment.’

References Caracas Urban Think Tank, A. Brillembourg Tamayo, K. Feireiss, and H. Klumpner. 2005. Informal City: Caracas Case. Munich: Prestel. De Certeau, M. 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reynolds, C. W. 1987. “Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioural Model.” SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, 21 (4) (July): 25–34.

14 Why would we spend time drawing with people doing their washing in a Chinese village? Nigel Bertram and Marika Neustupny Introduction A Monash University travelling design studio led by Nigel Bertram visited Xixinan, in Anhui Province, China in April 2019. Marika Neustupny participated as a guest critic. This text relates our experience in Anhui to recent research by Neustupny on ‘water work’ and also reflects on how this small project has extended our thoughts on the observational urban analysis work we have been involved with together over a 20-year period. We travelled to the village of Xixinan, in Anhui province with a group of 13 architecture students to study the use of water in this type of traditional Chinese urban society and how this knowledge is starting to be used to address contemporary environmental problems. We are grateful to our hosts, landscape architect Kongjian Yu and the Turenscape Academy (TA). Yu established TA in 2015 as an educational platform to provide training in architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism, and art and design, so that students and professionals are able to address major challenges of the urbanising world (Turenscape, n.d.). This new type of institution has seen an important injection of funds and research interest in the village. We were interested in the way TA is set up to study and learn from the traditional ways of the region, and simultaneously acts to both preserve and resuscitate them through increased awareness and nurturing of local skills and opportunities. This work is undertaken in a context of increased development pressure in rural areas of China, and as a strategic alternative to traditional ‘preservation’ approaches (Yu, 2017). Yu is also an active professor at Peking University and heads the influential design office, Turenscape. He spent several days with us and a group of his students, walking together up the river system to surrounding villages and taking part in an evening of joint presentations and discussion. The embedded team of the Academy facilitated our daily needs, answered constant questions and mediated with locals both before and during our two-week stay. As a short on-site design research project, it was beyond the scope of the work to find any in-depth ­political or social information, or to theorise the relationship between one culture and another. However, the generous support of TA made it possible to focus on our aim: to find the principles behind how this ancient and water-wise place is structured, so as to be able to translate some of this knowledge and approach which is so relevant to contemporary design issues we are facing back in Melbourne.

122  Nigel Bertram and Marika Neustupny

Figure 14.1 Xixinan: representation of the wider village environment emanating from the water inlet, showing a hierarchy of street/path/canal types in relation to building frontages, crossings, and landscape spaces. Source: Drawings by Jessica Cathcart, Caroline Bate, and Frances Chan.

Why would we spend time drawing? 123 The small village settlements in this part of Anhui region are surrounded by farmland, utilising the highly fertile flood plan for vegetables and other crops. This productive landscape also continues into and through the village itself, where open space feels almost entirely utilitarian; with the bright green of vegetables and dense copses of bamboo making a type of patchwork with buildings. Each village relates to and shares the river, which brings fresh water from the nearby mountains. The hydrology of this river has been gently engineered over centuries to provide water for crops and daily human use within the settlement of Xixinan. Water is taken off from the reservoir made upstream by a small weir on the edge of the town, and enters the village through a water-gate or ‘mouth’, where any excess can be diverted over a spillway and passes through a floodable forest island back to the main stream. Once within the village, water runs down stone-lined channels along and under streets, accessed by a series of small steps and openings, before entering the downstream fields to be used once again for crop farming before returning to the river. Over the past decade, Turenscape Academy and groups of students from Peking University have been both studying and lobbying government to naturalise the riverbanks wherever possible, to manage the traditional water systems and look after the riparian environment with new planting. This work has also taken on custodianship of significant local buildings and structures, in many cases renovating and adaptively re-using them to provide accommodation or small public functions and to support the contemporary design-based practices connected to the academy. This action research work is part of establishing a quietly radical programme to re-learn traditional ways of living with water and balancing the needs of humans and the environment. Turenscape is applying this knowledge at scale to address China’s significantly polluted and degraded waterways and make new types of urban landscape. The office of Turenscape has championed the ‘Sponge City’ programme (Yu et al., 2015), seeking to make space for water, to slow it down and make friends with the flood cycles, rejuvenating degraded post-industrial landscapes produced by the hard-engineering techniques of the modern era, utilising natural processes, aquatic plants, re-purposing existing fragments and remnant flood plains with an emphasis on bringing people in direct contact with nature. We were excited to come into contact with the work of this practice that takes its own local infrastructural history and reinvents its deep-rooted intelligence. Upon arriving in Xixinan, however, it gradually became clear that the water infrastructure has also shaped interactions between people and influenced the social structure of the village urban space. The constant stream of fresh water running through streets and in front of houses draws people out of their houses, and means that a range of activities which we might conventionally consider ‘private’ take place in the public sphere. Vegetables are rinsed and chopped, food prepared directly in front of houses on semi-public sinks and concrete benches. In larger and slightly more public spaces clothes are washed throughout the day, utilising the many generous stone steps leading down to (and slightly under) the surface of running water. Large areas of stone slabs provide space for rubbing clothes clean, and the steps allow a multitude of work surfaces at different heights, including

124  Nigel Bertram and Marika Neustupny washing and also food preparation such as gutting fish or meat. At the same time, the natural amphitheatre shape of these steps sunken from street level provides a comfortable space for social interactions; separated from but in direct visual and aural contact with others. We are aware that a multitude of political and economic forces are at play to let us directly witness this continuing Chinese rural life. For example, we were told that there is an exodus of young adults from villages to find work in cities, leav­ ing the elderly and young children to keep up the ‘quaint’ lifestyle which makes for attractive tourist visitation. Furthermore, the fact that there are no cars in this village, and that the village is a largely farming-based community producing its own food in the patchwork of small intensive fields spread throughout and around the village, are of course large factors that allow the observed public social interactions to take place. But nevertheless, we wanted to look for transferable principles. We became interested in the fact that all the activities shared in this way were those that we might categorise as ‘chores’ or housework, and that this housework happened in close proximity to but outside the house itself. As a result of this phenomenon, which we could see was made possible and perhaps provoked at least in part by the constant shared water supply running in front of houses, certain other urban behaviours had developed a specific local flavour. House frontages are occupied with sinks and other water-based equipment such as buckets and mops conveniently stored in close adjacency to the water source. A range of timber stools and other simple private furniture are left out in front of houses. This mobile private infrastructure complements the fixed street channels and platforms and allows convenient and casual occupation – with the threshold step being a common place for sitting on the boundary between inside and outside. Perhaps the most significant effect on the social life of these water-frontage streets is that front doors of dwellings are typically left open: each house presents a protected alcove to the street, in which a glimpse of the private world can be understood (but not fully seen) and in which a range of semi-public activities such as playing mah-jong or perhaps making (and sometimes selling) food can take place. The generosity of this gesture – of leaving doors open – is both symbolic and practical. People are in easy visual and audible reach of each other. This is reinforced by the common local practice of eating in the street, a bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in the other, bringing a moment of stillness into this practical workspace, and occupying the public realm with private activity. It is interesting to note that the few ‘official’ public spaces in the town, seemingly designated for more passive or formalised recreation were mostly empty. By contrast the public spaces that appeared to have evolved over centuries or been self-built were all focussed on the water supply; and through this infrastructure rituals of daily life-work have become spatialised and located. In Xixinan, there is a pragmatic fit between the space of water-chores and the urban infrastructural system, with water supply following public circulation routes and directly fronting domestic life. Chores, whether communal or private, are a type of habitualised activity which can be done while focusing on something else; for example, whilst socialising with neighbours. This type of activity is

Why would we spend time drawing? 125

Figure 14.2 Drawn map of overall Xixinan water network (Top). Diagram of water inlet or ‘mouth’ (Middle). Supply reservoir: a controlled water body taken off from the main river path. Overflow weir with stepping-stones and wooden bridge in the distance. To the right are floodable forest-islands (Photo 1). Village water inlet with steps. The amount of water entering the settlement is controlled through a small sluice-gate (Photo 2). Drawings by Jessica Cathcart, Caroline Bate, and Frances Chan. Source: Photographs by authors.

126  Nigel Bertram and Marika Neustupny

Figure 14.3 Xixinan: representation of the immediate environment around the water inlet – an ensemble of social and infrastructural spaces. Source: Drawings by Jessica Cathcart, Caroline Bate, and Frances Chan.

Why would we spend time drawing? 127 strongly tactile, providing direct contact with the ‘matter’ of material; in this case water and its container. In this way, habitual activities such as water-chores can be seen to link the social and material together. As Grosz says, ‘Habit is the point of transition between living beings and matter, enabling each to be transformed through its engagement with the other’ (Grosz, 2013, 217). Yet the social aspect of the findings is always inextricably linked back to the presence of the researcher when undertaking empirical fieldwork (no matter the duration of study). A small settlement is a great place for students and architects to study urban relations in a way that allows a type of comprehensive or systemic understanding as well as specific material detail within a reasonable time frame. As students worked in the village each day they interacted with the residents, who were using the same spaces that the students were drawing. This was sometimes awkward but also gave rise to new interactions and understandings, despite the language barrier, that would not normally be possible. Drawing is much less intrusive than a camera, particularly in this age of smart phones and image-based social media. Photographs of course form an important part of the observation and recording process, however the act of drawing promotes relative stillness and concentration, and hence sets up potential for different relationships to emerge. Drawings also take time, over which many small external environmental actions accrue. Whereas a photo captures an instant, drawing can reveal the serial nature of repeated small actions which are observed in-situ during the time it takes to draw. Sitting still, in one location, things happen. Our method involves first, a period of intense observation. This can happen quite quickly, and does not stop when the drawing work starts. In this case the way people used the water space of the village; or what we called the ‘practical-social space’ soon became a focus for the group, establishing a social lens through which to understand and evaluate the technical water infrastructure of the town. The students sketched on site using tape measure, notebook, camera; essential fieldwork equipment. This urban-scale site work was similar to techniques used by architects documenting buildings but more expedient; students learnt to pace out dimensions and use their body to estimate sizes through materials and relationships, in order to produce drawings that we referred to as ‘plausible’. Whereas a measured drawing seeks total accuracy, our drawings of urban ensembles and situations worked to something more like 80 per cent spatial accuracy, and focussed on proportions and relationships between elements. Things like steps are both measured and felt through experience. A small difference in tread height or slope, or subtle differences in the level of a bench can be immediately sensed through the body, and the process of drawing and recording as-found conditions is also a type of education in becoming sensitised to such things. Each day we brought our fieldwork drawings, measurements, and sketches back to base for further editing, refinement and drawing-up (the practice and purpose of fieldwork in recording urban practices is discussed in Kaijima et al. (2018)). Working on-location in a relatively remote place means limitations on equipment (for example, no printers or scanners) and a necessarily hybrid production method evolved. Hand-drawing was supplemented with drawing on laptops

128  Nigel Bertram and Marika Neustupny and even tracing over screens. Each student developed the method of production and representation that opportunistically suited their skills and inclination. Each day we also reviewed and critiqued work in progress, gradually sharpening the definitions of what we were looking for through the process of observation, and setting new goals for the following day’s activities. In each case we were trying to capture what we have defined elsewhere as ‘ensembles’ or composites (Bertram, 2013; Bertram et al., 2003); succinct combinations of space, people’s actions in that space, fixed and mobile elements supporting the actions and natural and built components. With this way of seeing, a pot plant or trolley is as important as a set of stone steps, and the exact qualities of plant material are considered as carefully as the way bricks might be laid in a wall. After our time in Xixinan and Anhui, the group relocated to Beijing, where Li Han and Hu Yan of Drawing Architecture Studio reviewed the fieldwork drawings and critiqued them as drawings. Whereas we had focussed up to this point mainly on what they were showing, their topic and subject, Li Han and Hu Yan focussed purely on how they showed: what their technical logic, composition, tradition, and technique revealed and how it could be tightened, improved. This critique proved highly influential for the group, and upon returning to Melbourne the multitude of raw, multi-media fieldwork drawings were re-worked and reduced down to a new format suitable for exhibition. In this process, the emphasis was not on dimensional or spatial accuracy or production of a ‘complete’ record, but more on communication to a new audience and focussing of design intent. As pointed out by Li Han in Beijing, there are things that can be done in the medium of drawing that photography cannot do. The group explored the use of multiple projections within the one view, and the combining of different viewpoints and scales to communicate more fully the spatial, social, and environmental complexity and local nuance. It was extremely interesting that in this process of hyper-specificity and focussing on the drawing as an end in itself with its own internal discipline and rules (rather than as a tool) – the possibility of the translation of principles and future design potential of the drawing’s content also unexpectedly became more apparent. The trip to Xixinan is our latest project in many years of observational design research and helps to clarify for ourselves ‘where to travel’ and ‘what is worth seeing there’. We were originally propelled to go there by the obvious potential for learning about techniques regarding life in an urban and natural environment structured around the passage of water, but by spending time and embedding ourselves within this space and by engaging seriously with such everyday life and its protagonists, heightened in an unfamiliar setting, we have been able to open our eyes to new design ideas. [I]t is no longer enough to limit actors to the role of informers offering cases of some well known types . . . you have ‘to follow the actors themselves’, that is try to catch up with their often wild innovations in order to learn from them what the collective existence has become in their hands, which methods they

Why would we spend time drawing?  129 have elaborated to make it fit together, which accounts could best define the new associations they have been forced to establish. (Latour, 2005, 11–12)

References Bertram, N. 2013. Furniture, Structure, Infrastructure: Making and Using the Urban Environment. London: Ashgate, 5–9. Bertram, N., S. Murray, and M. Neustupny. 2003. By-Product-Tokyo. Melbourne: RMIT University Press, 28. Grosz, E. 2013. “Habit Today: Ravaisson, Bergson, Deleuze and Us.” Body & Society, 19 (2–3): 217–239. Kaijima, M., L. Stalder, and Y. Iseki. 2018. “Learning from Architectural Ethnography.” Architectural Ethnography, 8–14. Tokyo: TOTO Publishing. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 17. Turenscape. n.d. “Turenscape Mission.” Turenscape. Date accessed October  22, 2019. Available online: http://academy.turenscape.com. Yu, K. 2017. “New Ruralism Movement in China and Its Impacts on Protection and Revitalisation of Heritage Villages: Xixinan Experiment in Huizhou District, Anhui Province.” Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences, (7): 696–710. Yu, K., D. Li, H. Yuan, W. Fu, Q. Qiao, and S. Wang. 2015. “ ‘Sponge City’: Theory and Practice.” City Planning Review, (6): 26–36.

15 Object-led interview Documenting geographical ideas Victoria Marshall

Field ethnography is a method of gathering information for social research. It is unavoidably partial as researchers and their participants shape some account of the world together. For instance, everyone and everything with an interest in a study area cannot be involved. There are always some ethical questions about who controls the process of selection, and whose voices or what topics are brought forward. I aim to continue and contribute to a tradition of such fieldwork ethnography methods that support a deep, partial account of social life. My particular interest is to create an account of a rural to urban transition. To do this I engage a set of fieldwork ethnography methods and in this essay I focus on one in particular, the object-led interview. This method is useful because it affords the researcher a mode of inquiry that is generative and creates multiple connections (Nordstrom, 2013, 243) and shapes my understanding of socio-spatial transformations. The purpose of my research is to understand and engage with how ordinary, peri-urban-rural areas settle amidst a rural to urban transition. To do this I bring forward multiple accounts of socio-spatial transformations, broadly defined to include both ecology and property. My study is sited in Gangetic West Bengal, India, beyond the south-western edge of Kolkata. By peri-urban-rural I mean the interaction of urban and rural settlement practices rather than a core-periphery relationship. I  approach settlement as an ongoing, incremental process of settling-in and unsettling, particularly in the context of the Anthropocene (Gibson-­ Graham, 2011). By this I  mean that ‘we’ can no longer see subjects as simply human and places as human-centred. In this essay I show how I went about objectled ­interviews via one example and what I am finding out about them. In addition, I also say something about my peri-urban-rural study area, which I describe as comprised of marshy-settled areas and wooded-settled areas. I am a designer who is currently undertaking research in the field of geography and, Ultimately, objectled interviews are helping me to conceptualise and communicate socio-spatial geographical ideas.

Assembling object-led interviews I assembled my object-led interview method by building on three established research modes in geography. First, an object-led interview can be seen as a

Object-led interview 131 variant of ‘photo elicitation’ (Collier, 1957), in which a photo is inserted into a research interview to elicit a different type of information than words alone (Harper, 2002, 13). In photo elicitation, Harper (2002, 23) observes, ‘remembering is enlarged, it leads to deep and interesting talk, and it inspires collaboration as participants try to figure out meaning together’. Yet, my interest is not only about the meaning research participants shape; I am also interested in the ways that settlements are alive and how lived practices shape them. Others have tackled related approaches, for example, Susan Nordstrom (2013, 238) conducts ‘objectinterviews’. This is a mode of interviewing where both subjects and objects are primary data and as such, and can also be thought of as an ‘entangled conversational interview of objects and subjects’ mediated by the researcher (Nordstrom, 2013, 243). In another example, Sarah Bell et al. (2017) use an ‘engaged witnessing’ method of ‘being-with’ trees, and animals (see also: Bell, 2017). I learn from and build upon these studies. For instance, while Nordstrom looks at documents, photographs, and other artefacts, as the context for her research is about family genealogies, I  take the object-interview outside and let the possibilities of that context lead us around. There are others working in this ‘vegetative object’ mode and they are found within the emerging fields of plant–human geographies and multispecies ethnography (Head and Atchison, 2009; Eben Kirksey and Helmreich, 2010). For example, Russel Hitchings and Verity Jones (2004) explore the ‘botanical encounter’ in addition, Hannah Pitt (2015) studies ways of ‘knowing [plants’ agency] through showing’. I aim to learn from and build upon these studies as well. Second, the object-led interview method builds upon ‘show us’ directives that have been used in studies focused on home interior environments by Jane M. Jacobs et al. (2012; see also Pink, 2007). Third, the object-led interview method builds upon walking methodologies, which as defined by Hannah Macpherson (2016) in her survey of the practice, is a method of walking and talking that opens up ‘relational spaces of self and landscape’.1 I conducted my research fieldwork for five months in 2018, and for an additional month in early 2019. Along with my Bengali co-researchers we conducted 55 semi-structured interviews and ten object-led interviews in Ward 13, of Maheshtala Municipality, Kolkata. One of these was a lengthy object-led interview with a man and his teenage daughter, and below I briefly explain what they showed us. His family has lived in the area for over 100 years and he stopped cultivating his paddy land about 12 years ago. After looking at various documents at his home (location 1 in Figure 15.1), and completing a semi-structured interview while sitting on his verandah, we asked if he could show us what we had been talking about. As we walked he occasionally talked and I  recorded this on my phone. At the same time, also using my phone, I took many quickly framed photos along the way. I captured images of the man and his daughter, images of what we were looking at together or what caught my eye, and images of the ground that we walked upon. We walked along a narrow path from the settled-wooded area where the man’s house is and into an overgrown paddy field, or marshy-settled area. He showed us the drainage issue that is preventing him from cultivating his land. Raw sewage

132  Victoria Marshall

Figure 15.1 Documenting the object-led interview: 1. House, 2. Sewage, 3. Ponds, 4. Plot, 5. Canal, and 6. Road.

Object-led interview 133 from the nearby housing colony flows along a hand-dug ditch and this floods his land, making it unusable (location 2). We then walked back into the settledwooded area and he showed us the four treed-ponds (location 3) that his extended family shares. The treed-ponds are also flooded with sewage, particularly during the rainy season. The man then led us along a narrow road, past other former farmers who were talking about us, and towards his land (location 4). As it was covered in stagnant sewage and tall grasses, we were only able to see it from afar. He pointed out the limits of his land to us and then, he showed us the nearby canal and housing colony (location 5). The paddy field once drained into the canal, however, the drain was blocked when the developer of the colony built a wide approach road (location 6). The man maintains that he is intentionally denied the opportunity to cultivate his land. ‘It’s quite easy to drain this water into the canal if they really intend to,’ he says. While the State is planning to build a municipalwide sewage system along with a proper drainage network, it has not begun construction on this project. The man conveyed his dismay, along with a sense of ‘lost time’, which is a common occurrence in struggling, lower middle-class India (Jeffrey, 2010).

Emergence The condition of the marshy-settled area is of interest to me as it is an expression of unsettling. In this case, owned property in land is both laid to waste and held in place by water. From the object-led interview I learned that the man did not begrudge his new neighbours but rather, he saw the ward councillors and the West Bengal Irrigation and Waterways Department as both negligent and complicit in the wasting of his land. Anthropologist Erik Harms (2014, 313) notes that ‘wasteland’ is historically and socially produced. It is, he argues, a ‘very specific process’ whereby the act of consciously coming to know, or produce specific kinds of knowledge about land effectively participates in the process that discursively imagines those lands as a kind of ‘empty oblivion’ (Harms, 2014, 313). What is unique today, Harms argues, is that wastelands are ‘not so much discovered as made’. For instance, the current Maheshtala City Development Plan describes such former paddy land as ‘open, unused land/undeveloped land’ (Maheshtala Municipality, 2014, 83). Similarly, the privately owned plot encountered in the object-led interview is currently shown in a municipal land use map as ‘vacant land’ (Maheshtala Municipality, 2014, 200–233). At the same time, such overgrown and polluted land is discussed by some of the residents as full of possibility. For instance, an elderly former farmer told us it was ‘idle’, and that he would start farming again if his drainage issue can be resolved. The man who took us on a walk with his daughter also expressed the desire to cultivate. He said, other owners and he intend to restart cultivation after ‘clearing the weeds’, but only if ‘arrangements are made for draining their lands on a regular basis’. After hearing these intentions I made a connection to an early colonial account of how the mangroves, which once extended to this part of tidal, Gangetic Bengal, were settled. Mangroves were once considered weedy and in the

134  Victoria Marshall way of the productive use of land. Interestingly for this study, the mangrove forest was described as having a tremendous force and as something that can thwart human attempts to remove it. In 1874, J. Westland, the magistrate and collector of Jessore (the district directly to the east), described the ‘arduous undertaking’ of clearing the ‘Sundarban’ mangroves (Westland, 1874, 177). He noted that ‘the trees intertwine with each other to such an extent that each supports and upholds the other’ and some are of an ‘immense size . . . spreading and sending down new stems till it covers perhaps an acre of ground’ (ibid., 177). In addition, ‘trees are not the only difficulty’, as ‘there is a low and almost impenetrable brushwood which covers the whole surface’ and ‘there is no small danger from wild beasts’ (ibid., 177). After the land is cleared, there is further difficulty as ‘dangers have not yet passed,’ he says (ibid., 178). ‘Unless the greatest care is taken of the land so cleared, it will spring back into jungle and become as bad as ever,’ Westland bemoans (ibid., 178). So great is the ‘evil fertility of the soil’, he says, that a ‘forest of reed’ will take ‘three eradications to expel’ and must be cultivated for ten to twelve years before it loses this tendency to ‘at once cover itself’ (ibid., 178). Today, it seems that this long-known potential of ‘jungle’ is not forgotten. The character of the land to ‘all at once cover itself’ is now full of intention. That is, cultivated land is intentionally waterlogged in order for it to soon grow into a type of impenetrable field that signals ‘unused’ land and unsettles property. I came to understand more about marshy-settled areas by making connections between the object-led interview journey and what we were told about such areas later. Here I am referring to the way that we had to walk around, past the canal, in order to enter and exit the colony, even though we could see it immediately in front of us when we looked at the sewage ditch. Why was this so? Many female residents described marshy-settled areas as ‘infested’ with snakes. Along with a desire not to trespass, the possibility of an encounter with a snake shapes when and where people walk. That is, residents tend to not venture beyond established paths and paved roads or into and across marshy-settled, and treed-pond areas. In addition, the rising population of snakes venture into wooded-settled areas to seek cool and dryness, particularly during the rainy season. While most residents prefer to live with snakes at a distance, some live with them companionably, for example, an adult female told us how they are a ‘common occurrence’. She said, ‘we often find snakes in our rooms’ and ‘they leave on their own’. Such a relation with animals is something I encountered regularly in my fieldwork. The Manasa (a Bengali snake goddess venerated in the study area) cult includes a subtle sense of attraction-repulsion to snakes and such interaction is ‘hedged in ambivalence’ (Doniger, 2015, 3). That is, snakes are invoked to come, bringing water and fertility, but also to go away without harming the worshipper (ibid., 2015, 3). My interpretation of this is that snakes are settling-in, although they may not be tolerated as an intimate physical presence, as before. What I infer from this brief account of jungle and snakes is that residents are cautious about marshy-settled areas. They maintain a physical distance because the lands are polluted, thickly vegetated, and dangerous. Nevertheless, residents

Object-led interview 135

Figure 15.2 Two maps showing peri-urban-rural settlement change - marshy-settled areas (dark) and wooded-settled areas (light): 2004 (upper) and 2018 (lower).

136  Victoria Marshall find such areas emotionally attractive as they hold memories and expectations, which are matters of the past and future. When marshy-settled areas are looked at as simply a transitional condition on its way to becoming urban, such nuances are made invisible, and not valued. It is my observation that what is broken or built, when, and by whom in processes of settling-in and unsettling are important to know. This is because the breaking apart or break down of property and ecology in peri-urban-rural areas is a lived ecology that can shape emergent cultural practice (Williams, 1977). By this I mean, certain relations with the material world and power are created through urbanisation, and they contribute to cultural change. My interest in such areas as a geographer is to carefully and analytically describe its relevant socio-spatial transformations. By extension, my interest as a designer in such transformations would be to then think playfully about such mutability in a context of broad participation, and imagine through the practice of drawing how to shape more equitable rural to urban transitions. Learning from the object-led interview I am thus documenting a condition of transition with the intent to productively complicate it within the field of geography. I am also acknowledging, in the object-led ethos of ‘engaged witnessing’, that I have been drawn into the marshy-settled lands, as I too want to be part of the transition.

Note 1 While there is a landscape tradition within walking methodologies of autoethnography (Dubow, 2011; Ingold and Vergunst, 2008; Lorimer, 2006; Wylie, 2002, 2005) and a scenery approach (Jones et al., 2008), I do not engage these traditions because my aim was to collect data about participants and focus on connective questions.

References Bell, S. J. 2017. “Co-Becoming with Angophora: Performing More-Than-Human Belongings in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.” Social & Cultural Geography, 1–25. Bell, S. J., L. Instone, and K. J. Mee. 2017. “Engaged Witnessing: Researching with the More-Than-Human.” Area, 50 (1): 136–144. Collier, J. 1957. “Photography in Anthropology: A Report on Two Experiments.” American Anthropologist, 59 (5): 843–859. Doniger, W. 2015. “Sympathy for the Devi: Snakes and Snake Goddesses in Hinduism.” In K. Haq (ed.), The Triumph of the Snake Goddess, 1–28. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Dubow, J. 2011. “Still – Life, After – Life, Nature Morte: W.G. Sebald and the Demands of Landscape.” In S. Daniels (ed.), Envisioning Landscapes, Making Worlds, 320. Oxon: Routledge. Eben Kirksey, S., and S. Helmreich. 2010. “The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography.” Cultural Anthropology, 25 (4): 545–576. Gibson-Graham, J. K. 2011. “A  Feminist Project of Belonging for the Anthropocene.” Gender, Place and Culture, 18 (1): 1–21. Harms, E. 2014. “Knowing into Oblivion: Clearing Wastelands and Imagining Emptiness in Vietnamese New Urban Zones.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 35 (3): 312–327.

Object-led interview 137 Harper, D. 2002. “Talking about Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation.” Visual Studies, 17 (1): 13–26. Head, L., and J. Atchison. 2009. “Cultural Ecology: Emerging Human-Plant Geographies.” Progress in Human Geography, 33 (2): 236–245. Hitchings, R., and V. Jones. 2004. “Living with Plants and the Exploration of Botanical Encounter Within Human Geographic Research Practice.” Ethics, Place & Environment, 7 (1–2): 3–18. Ingold, T., and J. L. Vergunst. 2008. Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot. Aldershot: Ashgate. Jacobs, J., S. Cairns, and I. Strebel. 2012. “Doing Building Work: Methods at the Interface of Geography and Architecture.” Geographical Research, 50 (2): 126–140. Jeffrey, C. 2010. Timepass: Youth, Class, and the Politics of Waiting in India. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Jones, P., G. Bunc, J. Evans, H. Gibbs, and J. Ricketts Hein. 2008. “Exploring Space and Place with Walking Interviews.” Journal of Research Practice, 4 (2): 1–9. Lorimer, H. 2006. “Herding Memories of Humans and Animals.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 24 (4): 497–518. Macpherson, H. 2016. “Walking Methods in Landscape Research: Moving Bodies, Spaces of Disclosure and Rapport.” Landscape Research, 41 (4): 425–432. Maheshtala Municipality. 2014. City Development Plan (CDP): Maheshtala Municipality 2014–15 to 2018–19. Kolkata: Government of West Bengal. Nordstrom, S. N. 2013. “Object-Interviews: Folding, Unfolding, and Refolding Perceptions of Objects.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 12 (1): 237–257. Pink, S. 2007. “Walking with Video.” Visual Studies, 22 (3): 240–252. Pitt, H. 2015. “On Showing and Being Shown Plants – a Guide to Methods for More-ThanHuman Geography.” Area, 47 (1): 48–55. Westland, J. 1874. A Report on the District of Jessore: Its Antiquities, its History, and Its Commerce. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press. Williams, R. 1977. “Dominant, Residual, Emergent.” In Marxism and Literature, 121–127. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wylie, J. 2002. “An Essay on Ascending Glastonbury Tor.” Geoforum, 33 (4): 441–454. Wylie, J. 2005. “A Single Day’s Walking: Narrating Self and Landscape on the South West Coast Path.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 30 (2): 234–247.

16 Mapping informal settlements A process for action Diego Ramírez-Lovering, Daša Spasojević, and Michaela F. Prescott

Mapping is a fantastic cultural project, creating and building the world as much as measuring and describing it. . . . Analytical research through mapping enables the designer to construct an argument, to embed it within the dominant practices of a rational culture, and ultimately to turn those practices towards more productive and collective ends. In this sense, mapping is not the indiscriminate, blinkered accumulation and endless array of data, but rather an extremely shrewd and tactical enterprise, a practice of relational reasoning that intelligently unfolds new realities out of existing constraints, quantities, facts and conditions. (Corner, 1999)

A context of hardship – social and environmental realities of informal settlements Developing cities of the Global South are shaped by dynamic cycles of development and transformation between the formal and the informal city (Dovey, 2012). Informal agglomerations, shaped by a mix of need and opportunity, sprout in the most hostile environments, on land that is often flood prone, contaminated or difficult to settle. Paradoxically, it is these informal swathes, occupied by the most impoverished residents, that are often the most difficult and costly to service. As servicing for these locations is not designed pre-settlement but rather retrofitted after the fact into less than optimal development patterns, the informal city is perennially engaged in extensive revitalisation processes sometimes leading to more formal, stable patterns. While some servicing infrastructure is possible to be retrofitted, public open space and other urban amenities are often compromised by the often dense settlement patterns and circuitous processes that characterise these urban agglomerations. A lack of servicing, infrastructure and open space amenity, coupled with severely degraded environments, often results in ill-health for informal settlement dwellers. However, in an environment of weak governments, with few regulations and a lack of enforcement capacity, the socio-cultural dimensions of communities have as much, if not more, impact on development as land regulation or policy imperatives. In this context, for example, land ownership may be shaped as much by social dynamics, such as kinship, social ties, and conflict, than by harder

Mapping informal settlements  139 elements such as land use and regulatory frameworks. Appropriate responses to these challenges must take into account the socio-cultural as much as the technical dimensions and challenges of communities, but the question is how to do it effectively? In the first instance, we must undertake to understand both the physical and the social conditions and challenges embedded in these generally undocumented contexts. The mapping of these conditions can provide productive directions for responding to such challenges.

On mapping In light of the socio-political and ecological uncertainties mentioned earlier, there is a need to rethink and reframe design solutions: ‘urban political ecology demonstrates how socio-ecological sustainability can only be achieved by means of a democratically controlled and organised process of socio-environmental (re)-construction’ (Swyngedouw, 2006). This investigation is specifically relevant in the Global South, in the context of an absence and failure of infrastructure (Graham and Marvin, 2001; Graham and McFarlane, 2014). In areas without regulatory bodies and processes, the act of mapping the environment can shape the process of urban transformation, formalisation of tenure and future development. In this context, mapping becomes a powerful tool in deciding who and what is visible where, when, and for how long. As such, it is important to interrogate these mapping processes, and open the discussion about their agency and value. The mapping that we speak of is not interpretive mapping; the combination of desk-based mapping ‘from above’ augmented with fieldwork ‘from below’, nor is it the descriptive urbanism that originated in the 1990s that coupled drawing and mapping with informed descriptions (Shannon, 2008). Both position the hand of the architect or planner as primary in the act of creation. Neither are we referring to mapping in the tradition of ‘radical cartography’ (Mogel and Bhagat, 2007), the right to the city movement (Padawangi et al., 2015), or architectural ethnography (Kajima et al., 2018). While acknowledging that maps are representations of different worldviews and power assemblages, we are using mapping as a communication tool to design and advocate for re-development that is sustainable and resilient. We explore mapping as an operational tool for designing in politically congested, market-led, ecologically degraded environments. In the context of informality, mapping is political. In informal settlement environments, the mapping of a neighbourhood offers a mechanism supporting collective understanding and agreed action towards multiple possible outcomes. Whether the process aims to formalise land tenure or locate infrastructure, the effectiveness and the scope of communication will depend on what and how things are documented. This essay moves beyond the act of mapping informal settlements for preservation and conscientisation (Sen, 2007) (for example, as practiced in India in the 1980s by activists and NGOs in the development sector). It also moves beyond the ‘counter-mapping’ movement that uses maps as an activist tool to oppose the state and market claims over indigenous territories, and include more voices in spatial planning processes (Radjawali and Pye, 2015). The aim of

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this essay is to explore mapping not only as a process of documentation, but as a way to collaboratively re-design informal settlements. To this end, mapping the social and built realities, and making evident connections and interrelationships, allows for the exploration of a range of trade-offs and co-benefits, towards arriving at sustainable design solutions. We are interested in exploring and exposing the value of mapping in the process of designing in informal contexts through three empirical and intertwined activities: mapping to facilitate collaboration; mapping to generate a systemic solution; and mapping to mobilise stakeholders. These activities were part of the revitalisation process of informal settlement communities, focused on the post-hoc implementation of water-related infrastructure in the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) Project. This essay reflects on the operational role that mapping can have, especially in bringing together diverse audiences around designing for environmental and human health.

Mapping the RISE communities We explore the act of mapping by engaging with the participant communities of the RISE Project, a programme of research, design, and delivery with the ambitious aim to revitalise 24 informal settlements across the cities of Suva, Fiji and Makassar, Indonesia, including approximately 1200 households and 7000 people (Figure 16.1 left). The seven-year action research programme explores an integrated approach to water-sensitive upgrading of informal settlements and investigates its environmental and human health impacts. The examples we interrogate here are from one of the informal settlement communities in the city of Makassar, located in the city’s north-east; this settlement is characteristically plagued by illhealth and degraded environments, and is typical of dense, low lying coastal cities in the Global South. The design intervention in the RISE Project is based on retrofitting holistic, integrated water management solutions into existing informal settlement communities. This includes blackwater and greywater capture and treatment, flood mitigation and rainwater harvesting, and re-use of infrastructure. The design of water flows (drainage networks, soak areas, collection tanks) and wastewater treatment systems (nature-based systems of constructed wetlands and bio-filters) needs to be located within densely packed communities. We see these contexts as plagued by a complex combination of socio-technical challenges, defined by both built and natural environments: existing houses, roads and pathways, topography, geology – as well as complex social and political frameworks: clans and extended familial structures, social conflicts, social class dynamics, and land rights disputes. The main design challenge is to effectively retrofit space-hungry wastewater treatment systems (such as constructed wetlands) into complex socio-material entanglements, the existing informal settlements – in a manner that complies with the programme’s social safeguard frameworks (as established by the donor, the Asian Development Bank, and Indonesian property law) to protect vulnerable households (identified to be below the poverty line).

Mapping informal settlements 141 As an example of operating in this context, the design and location of a constructed wetland will depend on the complex interplay between social and physical or environmental conditions such as water catchment dynamics, number of people and toilets in the neighbourhood, available space for safe construction, soil properties and available sunlight, while simultaneously being informed by the social relationships between and within households. This includes history of their establishment in the neighbourhood, relationships with community leaders and elders, future plans and aspirations, land ownership dynamics, and their social and economic status, etc. While there may be a hydrologically ideal location for a communal wetland, the social dynamics play an important and decisive role in determining its design and placement and the households it services. Furthermore, the wetland design and position will also be informed by the amount of land owned by one household, their relationship with neighbouring households, family ties and future plans, and any pre-existing conflicts and agreements in relation to land and property. Figure 16.1 (right) shows the positioning of a cluster of constructed wetlands in one of the RISE settlements. These wetlands will provide blackwater treatment for two large family groups, both comprising several households, living in different houses in close proximity. One family group lives in a set of four houses in plot A, whereas the other group lives within three houses on separate plots (C, D, and E). This design represents an example of a complex trade-off. From a social standpoint, the design was guided by the following considerations. Family A plans to extend their houses in the near future and had no land to accommodate a treatment system. Therefore, family C-D-E agreed to donate land for a wetland that would

Figure 16.1 Left: 24 RISE Communities in Suva, Fiji and Makassar, Indonesia. Right: Positioning the wetland within a socio-material entanglement. Key: land plots (A–F); septic tank (st); constructed wetland (cw); and proposed public pathway (pp). Source: Image by authors.

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treat blackwater (st) from both family groups, on the condition that family A would donate the land which affords direct access to family C-D-E to the main road, formalising it as a public access way (pp). This path must be sufficient for motorbike access, about one metre wide. Based on the total plot size of A, the area of the pathway is also the maximum donation allowed by safeguard controls for this vulnerable family group, since they are below the poverty line. Household C, however, was not able to donate more land than that already allocated to accommodate a communal septic tank (st) and the first segment of the wetland (cw), since the location of their property boundary is in dispute with neighbouring plot B (dashed black line). The next wetland segment begins on plot D, in order to protect a large mango tree that provides residents with shade and fruit. The wetland continues across plot E, occupying the maximum allowable land donation by the household, but ending before an existing bale bale (a traditional outdoor seating platform). From a technical standpoint, the wetland design had to enable sufficient blackwater treatment for the total number of residents in the cluster of houses, which established the treatment surface area requirements. The wetland‘s shape is also constrained by the optimal width-to-length ratio for efficient effluent flow (nominally 1:5). Furthermore, it is positioned to allow for safe construction around fragile houses. The wetland construction seeks to provide co-benefits, such as to reinforce an existing, precarious retaining wall built by the owner of plot F (a private developer), which residents are concerned might collapse. This was discussed with residents as an additional household benefit in donating land for the construction of the wetland. The design of this wetland system provides a typical example of hundreds of such entanglements that we are contending with across the communities and also serves to exemplify the design approach in RISE; a focus on identifying informal elements and reinforcing and formalising them – connecting existing households, formalising existing pathways, supporting the social use of available common spaces. In this way, the technique of mapping becomes at once a record of existing use and a propositional act, defining boundaries and activities as a claim towards formalisation and preservation. The next sections explain the mapping tools developed to engage in such processes and resolve these complex socio-material entanglements. These tools include a mapping model, 1:1 physical markings on the ground, and finally, a RISE Infrastructure Map and a Community Map.

Mapping to collaborate The RISE design process for the delivery of upgrades is conceptualised as a loose framework of approaches combining participatory design processes with the design of infrastructure. In order for the intervention to succeed, it was clear at the outset that we needed to develop a process for allowing diverse groups to come together and take an active role in productive, collaborative design and decisionmaking processes. This had to allow the expert and deep knowledge of community members to be understood, recorded, and leveraged towards the technical

Mapping informal settlements 143 design outcomes. In the first instance we developed a common language as a system of codes and common ground to understand and communicate specific situations we observe and respond to. This language had to communicate elements in the settlement that are necessary for designing an effective wastewater treatment system in a limited timeframe. Tools had to be developed to not only offer a common ground for dialogue for designers, engineers, and communities, but also to empower community participants to expose their tacit knowledge of their physical and social environment. The mapping system had to be simple and intuitive, to combine elements that are known and familiar to residents, so they can actively participate in all stages of the discussion. It also needed to be able to translate that knowledge into a technical design proposal, embedded in the existing reality. The main tool that was developed to enable the collaboration between residents, planners, engineers, and architects was a physical model (Figure 16.2a,b). Its primary role was to act as a translator, as a boundary object between differences in their perceptions and knowledges (Leigh Star and Griesemer, 1989; Leigh Star, 2010). The model had to be designed in order to avoid multiple interpretations and confound discussions – the model needed to avoid abstraction and be grounded in reality, enabling the design of post-hoc infrastructure through the political relations that new technology provokes in this community context. Every element of the model served as a political tool, having the power to frame the language about the represented reality: ‘[t]he “political” is the ontological condition of politics and of being together in general; it is performed on many sites related to design, construction and renovation practices; it is enacted by architectural visuals, design experiments, material arrangements and urban artefacts’ (Yaneva, 2017).1 The model was conceptualised as a system of relations. As the success of the project relies on developing a collective understanding and support for functions beyond individual households and respective property boundaries, the model had to communicate the collective functioning and operations of the neighbourhood, including the communal infrastructure systems of the RISE project. In a context where property boundaries are ill-established and weak, this proved to be a contentious process. In contrast to mapping practices where designers are responsible for the observation, recording, and analysis of urban environments (such as in Atelier Bow-Wow [2002] or Ramírez-Lovering [2008]), the RISE mapping model was designed to be understood and used by non-designers, typically residents of the RISE communities. Instead of drawing or writing, they used physical markers to map the social and physical characteristics of the space they inhabit such as access networks, the importance and types of shared spaces, location and type of environmental threats in the neighbourhood, and water and sanitation networks (Figure 16.3). In this way, the designers and engineers were able to glean social use and the spatial distribution of activities in the neighbourhood. Through this act of mapping, residents were also exposed to the bigger picture, such as the interconnectedness of environments at neighbourhood level and the impact that one property could have on the broader neighbourhood vis-à-vis sanitation and water management.

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Mapping to systematise The technical design of the infrastructural system focuses as much attention on the connections between elements, as on the elements themselves. While these connections are regulated by gradients and flows shaped by material and natural conditions, attempts at designing and mapping these configurations relied on a simultaneous recording of social relations between and within households. An ‘on the ground’ 1:1 ‘map’ (‘RISE Infrastructure Map’ ) constructed using hazard tape, spray paint, and other markers (refer to Figure 16.2d) enabled a complicated discussion between technical experts and groups of residents. This mapping activity was developed to facilitate understanding of the system as a whole, by drawing the relationships between the system elements on the ground. These relationships were mapped using two types of hazard tape – yellow was used to map connections between infrastructural elements, and red to mark property lines between different private plots (Figures 16.2c and 16.2d). The infrastructural elements (septic tanks, wetlands, and pressure pumps) were first marked with light-weight, movable plastic containers, and spray painted on the ground and walls after the connections and element relationships were collaboratively established (Figure 16.2c) on-site. This marking system enabled a deep understanding of the system function in the real physical context. Flexibility in the process enabled sensitive political negotiations between experts and residents, and importantly between residents themselves. While the

Figure 16.2 a,b) A physical model as a space for socio-technical discussion; c) Mapping the position of a proposed infrastructural element using plastic containers; d) Mapping the connections between elements in the overall system using brightly coloured hazard tape. Images by authors.

Mapping informal settlements 145 physical model enabled an understanding of the systemic function at the scale of the neighbourhood, the ‘1:1’ mapping was necessary to deal with complex and nuanced trade-offs at household to household scale. The 1:1 markings allowed the team to discover and resolve the entanglements between the technical requirements for the infrastructure and the socio-cultural conditions of informality. The act of agreeing on and physically marking the location of a wastewater pipe became a de facto agreement to protect that use, and a household’s agreement that that space will not be jeopardised in future. In this way, mapping offered a window into understanding and interacting with the social dynamics of this informal settlement. The 1:1 map depicts the ecosystem of the neighbourhood, as conditions and relationships are described by the residents.

Mapping to mobilise Mapping is political. In the informal city, mapping and documenting a neighbourhood is the first step towards its legal formalisation. Typically, this process will be facilitated by the surveying of land parcel boundaries which assists in resolving land conflict and opens the path for land (and tenure) regularisation. Our mapping processes embraced this premise. However, it was clear that the effectiveness and scope of this process depends on what and how things are mapped and documented. This is one reason why two maps were produced in each informal settlement as a record of the collaborative process. The first, the ‘RISE Infrastructure Map’, illustrates the position and size of infrastructural elements, as well as the connections with the existing houses. It represents a record of the agreement about elements that will be constructed in the near future. The second, the ‘Community Map’ documents a much broader set of discussions, and represents an attempt to capture the socio-material entanglements of each neighbourhood, the way in which physical spaces are connected to social, economic, ecological or cultural functions (Figure 16.3).

Figure 16.3 Community map: spatial representation of socio-material interactions and the start of the action-plan. Source: Image by authors.

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These moments of socio-material interactions are necessary for the sustainable functioning of the future infrastructural system, as well as supporting other important functions of the broader neighbourhood – the pandanus tree that provides income to old Ms. Dewi for production of decorative graveyard offerings; the custard apple tree that needs to be preserved because Mr. John parks his motorbike underneath; an access way that needs to remain one and a half metres wide to allow for the pa’ gandeng (motorbike fish vendor with goods in side baskets) to pass; a dry and unshaded area for drying rice; a place for garbage collection bins. Each notation on the map is further connected to an action box, or set of boxes, capturing the sequence of actions that need to be undertaken by the community, the RISE design team, or the government authorities. In this way, the map represents a connection between the land and the activities of different groups of actors that would not necessarily act in the same place, at the same time, or with the same understanding. The final community engagement activity involves socialising the Community Map with residents, city planning departments, and government authorities to agree on the course of action and roles and responsibilities within it.

Conclusion The importance of operative mapping of the kind we describe here goes beyond notions of communicative planning, participatory design (Botes and van Rensburg, 2000), and documentation. In the context of informality, people are often focused on the urgency of their immediate needs, shelter and economy. Therefore, it is challenging to explain and demonstrate the value of a project like RISE, focused on the communal benefits of a healthy environment, designing systems for flood mitigation, climate change resilience, objects and things that are either underground (and invisible) or for the not-so-near future. The creation of a shared understanding of the settlement was necessary for further design development. In addition, a process that develops a community’s understanding and ability to come together to solve problems builds collective agency and efficacy and through this a resilience, allowing communities to be better prepared to jointly respond to adversity. In the informal settlement context where legal processes and boundaries are nebulous, any ambition for systematising solutions, a pre-condition for mainstreaming and upscaling, must not only provide a register of prototypical physical challenges and design responses for such challenges, but must be bolstered by a system for intersecting technical responses with socio-cultural conditions. Mapping of these socio-material entanglements is often in opposition to the neat and clearly classified, typological report. Socio-material entanglements can never be captured completely; one can only observe particular time frames or particular components of a situation in space (Wigglesworth and Till, 1998). However, the characteristics of a component of a system do not necessarily reflect the system itself, which is why in designing for the future it is necessary to find more dynamic ways of mapping towards more sustainable implementation.

Mapping informal settlements 147 In order to address the overwhelming challenges of increasing informal urbanisation globally, we must shift the paradigm of service delivery practices. There is an important reckoning: unless social and cultural frameworks are seriously considered and intertwined with the delivery of physical outcomes such as infrastructure solutions (socio-material entanglements) we will not be able to provide long-lasting, effective responses. The work discussed here presents strategies for contending with the important entwining of the physical and the social. It presents tools and processes that lead towards resolving land and tenure formalisation and infrastructure service delivery, while building community trust and efficacy measures that will outlast any project of this nature. Our experiences to date demonstrate the importance and value of effective community relationship building. Mapping tools and processes that embrace this complexity, provide effective mechanisms for growing the socio-material capital of communities.

Note 1 We were aware that the model had the power to include some discussions and exclude others. It was designed to serve the purpose of designing this infrastructural system.

References Atelier Bow-Wow. 2002. “Pet Architecture Guide Book.” Living Spheres, 2. Botes, L., and D. van Rensburg. 2000. “Community Participation in Development: Nine Plagues and Twelve Commandments.” Community Development Journal, 35 (1). Corner, J. 1999. “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention.” In D. Cosgrove (ed.), Mappings, 211–252. London: Reaktion Books. Dovey, K. 2012. “Informal Urbanism and Complex Adaptive Assemblage.” International Development Planning Review; Liverpool, 34 (4): 349–367. Graham, S., and S. Marvin. 2001. Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition. London: Routledge. Graham, S., and C. McFarlane. 2014. Infrastructural Lives: Urban Infrastructure in Context. London: Routledge. Kajima, M., L. Stalder, and Y. Iseki. 2018. “Introduction.” In M. Kajima, L. Stalder, and Y. Iseki (eds.), Architectural Ethnography, 7. Tokyo: TOTO Publishing. Leigh Star, S. 2010. “This Is Not a Boundary Object: Reflections on the Origin of a Concept.” Science, Technology, & Human Values, 35 (5): 601–617. Leigh Star, S., and J. R. Griesemer. 1989. “Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39.” Social Studies of Science, 19 (3): 387–420. Mogel, L., and A. Bhagat (eds.) 2007. An Atlas of Radical Cartography. Los Angeles: Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press. Padawangi, R., E. Turpin, M. F. Herlily Prescott, I. Lee, and A. Shepherd. 2015. “Mapping an Alternative Community River: The Case of the Ciliwung.” Sustainable Cities and Society, 20: 147–157. Radjawali, I., and O. Pye. 2015. “Counter-Mapping Land Grabs with Community Drones in Indonesia.” Proceedings of the Land Grabbing, Conflict and Agrarian – Environmental

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Transformations: Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia conference, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Ramírez-Lovering, D. 2008. Opportunistic Urbanism. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing. Sen, J. 2007. “Other Worlds, Other Maps: Mapping the Unintended City.” In L. Mogel and A. Bhagat (eds.), An Atlas of Radical Cartography, 13–27. Los Angeles: Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press. Shannon, K. 2008. “The ‘Agency of Mapping’ in South Asia: Galle-Matara (Sri Lanka), Mumbai (India) and Khulna (Bangladesh).” Footprint, Spring (Mapping Urban Complexity in an Asian Context): 105–119. Swyngedouw, E. 2006. “Circulations and Metabolisms: (Hybrid) Natures and (Cyborg) Cities.” Science as Culture, 15 (2): 119. Wigglesworth, S., and J. Till. 1998. “The Everyday and Architecture.” Architectural Design, 134. Yaneva, A. 2017. Five Ways to Make Architecture Political: An Introduction to the Politics of Design Practice. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.

17 Ethnographic drawings and the benefits of using a sketchbook for fieldwork Karina Kuschnir

This essay seeks to valorise and understand the potential of ethnographic drawings for anthropological fieldwork, exploring their relations to ways of making records and visual research. My argument is that drawing contributes positively to anthropological research and vice-versa: researching anthropologically contributes to drawing the world about us. Both anthropology and drawing are ways of seeing and ways of knowing the world. Here, I present some benefits of using sketchbooks and drawings in ethnography, discussing topics related to the methodological challenges posed by fieldwork, such as accessibility, memory, temporality, spatiality, visual perception, ways of recording, dialogue with informants, participatory methods, and results sharing. This reflection started out from the realisation that the visual record of drawing is not just a graphical documentation, but also a way of doing research and obtaining knowledge (Kuschnir, 2011, 2014, 2016). Since 2011, when I first proposed a project on anthropology and drawing, I have been running a course called ‘Anthropology and Drawing Laboratory’ with the goal of teaching students to conduct anthropological research while trying to draw during the ‘participant observation’ process. My adventure was both investigative and didactic, and involved a double challenge: 1) to teach drawing techniques that could be used in a very short term by anthropology students and 2) to encourage them to practice this knowledge in small urban ethnographies that, in turn, would help me to think anthropologically and graphically about the city of Rio de Janeiro (Kuschnir, 2014). My goal was for the drawings made in the field to be handled as material for analysis and for eventual presentation of the investigation’s findings. In adopting this approach, it is much more important to learn a new form of seeing the world than ‘drawing well.’ In fact, it is easy to discern the proximity between this objective and the kind anticipated in the teaching of ethnographic methodology. Briefly, the objectives of the Laboratory workshops for students were: 1) to be able to draw, while deconstructing the idea of the ‘perfect’ or realistic drawing; 2) learn through drawing: drawing as a way to understand; 3) learn to focus on slow and careful observation of people and places around us; 4) get to know some part of the city and its people; 5) undertake ethnographic research using drawing as way of seeing, registering, and apprehending; 6) write an illustrated paper about a specific group and its symbolic narratives.

150  Karina Kuschnir In our analysis of the final ethnographic works composed of texts and drawings produced during this process, it becomes clear just how much the skills acquired by the student researchers generated positive developments for them (Kuschnir, 2014). The experience of drawing in the field and the reflections developed from the existing literature led us to propose a list of potential benefits of the use of drawing in ethnography, some of which are enumerated later. I  am completely aware that the empirical material presented here does not originate from in-depth ethnographic monographs. The sketches and situations that illustrate our arguments were ethnographic exercises that should be viewed as such. Nevertheless, I hope the reader agrees that they prove to be stimulating sources of anthropological insights.

Drawing in a sketchbook is an accessible, low-cost tool for registering visual data A first topic to note is the low cost of drawing material compared to photographic and film equipment. Even in the smartphone era, printing and achieving good quality digital images is much more expensive than analogue drawing, especially in underdeveloped countries. Sketching gear is a very handy tool both in terms of actual costs and in terms of the costs involved in training students, given that teaching the necessary skills does not require sophisticated laboratories or expensive machinery. Making our own ‘field notebooks’ is also a way of foregrounding the importance of this documentation tool for ethnographers. Alongside the practical activity, we also discussed the use of sketchbooks in various areas of knowledge, including design, geography, arts, architecture, and anthropology. The goal was to view the ethnographer as a ‘visual thinker’ and understand that you do not have to be an illustrator in order to use drawings in ethnography. Once immersed in the fieldwork process, the sketchbook becomes more and more marked by its owner and the investigation. Notebooks become stained, dirty, torn or wet with rain, spilled beverages or other liquids. All these processes forge an identity that transforms the notebook into a memory object of the ethnographic experience. It becomes a unique tool that mixes not only ‘images and words’ (Ramos, 2010) but also ‘inner and outer worlds’ (Taussig, 2011).

The sketchbook and other drawing tools provide a physical and psychological support for the researcher To be able to draw can help the anthropologist feel less lonely and uncomfortable in the field, a place where sometimes knowing what to do is difficult. When engaged in drawing, both students and professional ethnographers report feeling calmer, more patient, and productive. Drawing also helps them to become more focused on observing and listening. As Taussig (2011, 30) testifies: ‘I like drawing, and in a strange way that I do not understand it settles me into my surroundings even though the act of drawing can be unsettling.’

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Figure 17.1 Drawings by Luisa Machado and Tomás Meireles, both anthropology undergraduate students, for an ethnographic research project on skilled workers responsible for laying and repairing Rio de Janeiro’s Portuguese stone pavements (2014).

To have a sketchbook is also an essential tool when anthropologists need to learn complex processes with multiple steps and tools. This point was more intensely explored when we focused on artisans and manual labourers, such as road workers, carpenters, locksmiths, chemical workers, taxidermists, wool artisans, garbage collectors, among others. A variety of these jobs involve complex procedures that needed to be drawn in order to be better understood (Figure 17.1).

Drawing can provide a way to record and discuss memories A graphic record also operates as a memory record. In our course, we use this idea to reveal the student’s preconceptions about the field, a self-analysis that lies at the core of anthropological thinking. Each student chose a place to conduct fieldwork and drew something based on their memory of it. Later they would compare these drawings made from memory with the observational sketches produced during fieldwork. A drawing can also function as a record enabling the visualisation of people’s memories. This is one of the central contributions of the article by Afonso and Ramos (2004). Their innovative approach showed that pictorial representation can serve as a ‘mnemonic device’, helping render ‘visible implicit meanings abstracted from the interviews’ and having the ability ‘to open paths to reflexivity’. It is possible to use photographs taken during fieldwork to produce further drawings. As one student reported, for example, a photograph allowed her to see general patterns on the sidewalks of her research site, a fact that her visual memory failed to register. Drawing from the observation of a photograph can also speed up the epistemological process of producing new knowledge, different from the knowledge that we would possess without these supports (photo and drawing). Some students also made use of collages, mixing photographs and drawings (as mentioned by Wadle, 2012). Others decided to draw on the photographed images, a creative resource suggested by one of the course workshops.

152  Karina Kuschnir A fourth aspect of the relationship between drawings and memory was pointed out by several students, who agreed with the finding of Ramos concerning his travel diaries. For Ramos (2010, 17), drawing is a means to ‘fixate the memory and the visions of places and people’. But while the production of graphic records may appear to be secondary, on returning from the field (or when writing an academic paper on the research) these drawings become a trigger for remembering the lived experiences.

Drawing in a sketchbook can affect fieldwork perception of time The act of drawing means that the researcher remains longer and more patiently in the field. This extended time can also be revealed through the ethnographic drawings themselves. This is a significant benefit of using a sketchbook, since prolonged time spent in the field forms the basis of anthropological research. Students reported that drawing during fieldwork altered their perception of the passage of time. On many occasions, they mentioned that after finishing a drawing, they realised that one or two hours had gone by, yet the psychological feeling was that they had been working for much less time in situ. This sensation is reported by sketchers with some frequency. On the other hand, some researchers have noticed that the delay involved in the process of drawing may become a stress element during research where social actions take place at an accelerated pace. Sometimes, drawings must be perceived as a collection of overlapping moments, one that selects from field experiences, producing absences or ‘blanks’ in what has been observed.

Drawing is an essential tool for documenting and analysing spatial information This is a benefit of sketchbooks that requires little explanation given that maps have never ceased to be integral to the anthropological enterprise. Our experience, however, generated two important lessons. First, by drawing their own maps and panoramic views, ethnographers were able to observe better the space of research and the social relations unfolding. Second, this record can be turned into a source for reflection and presented as one of the ethnographic findings. The students also considered the arrangement of their drawings on the sheet of paper as a way to think about the fieldwork space and how to convey to the reader-viewer’s eyes a completed work that can help them picture the observed environment in perspective.

Drawing helps the observer see and hear new things In urban research situations, many environments are already known, which makes it difficult to produce a sense of estrangement. Even in biological terms, the eyes are unable to discern everything they see. As Horowitz (2013, 155) writes, the culture of researchers restricts what they see on the basis of what they expect to see.

Ethnographic drawings 153 Thus, in many situations ‘we see least the things we see most’. Drawing proved an effective way to ‘mess’ with this selection, helping the ethnographer transform the familiar into the exotic. Wadle (2012) also calls attention to the ability of drawings to ‘evoke emotions and worldviews that would have remained unexpressed in oral narrations’. In the process of seeing and drawing, the researchers indeed reported that new elements ‘emerged’ before them, like people, things, and landscapes. In many cases, the collaboration of the research partners was an essential part of ‘showing up’ this new element. It was a process of learning, literally, to see with the eyes of others. Through drawing, the researchers had the chance to learn about things of which they were previously unaware, such as tools, objects, and even the ability to distinguish certain colours in the same way seen by their interlocutors. Several students reported that they felt that their auditory perception was enhanced while drawing, allowing them to capture ambient sounds better, as well as phrases and revealing conversations overheard in the observed setting. The practice also encouraged them to ‘listen more’ and to ‘talk less’, a basic precept of good ethnography. This sensation was not unanimous, though: for some, the opposite occurred. The task of drawing had to be interrupted when they wished to listen better or when they wanted to hold a conversation with an interlocutor.

Figure 17.2 Sketches by student Diana Mello for a research project on a series of steps near her home in the Santa Teresa neighbourhood, Rio de Janeiro. When she started to draw, she began to see things she had never seen before.

154  Karina Kuschnir

Different types of drawing can also record abstract concepts Most ethnographic drawings are made as a way to document objects, artefacts, and visual information. Nevertheless, what we call drawing is not necessarily an observational register that seeks verisimilitude with something that can be seen. It may be the other way around. For Taussig (2011, 31), a drawing ‘acquires its own reality’ where ‘imagination and documentation coexist’. The bottom line is the researcher’s stance: to avoid seeing from what they know, and to open up instead to new experiences and meanings.

Fieldwork drawing promotes conversations, generating dialogue and collaborative research It was a unanimous finding in our research group that drawing in the field encourages people to talk to the researcher. This was also a key point in Ramos’ (2010) experience in Ethiopia, where the author sensed that his sketchbook made him more ‘human’ in the eyes of the local people. A crucial aspect of going into the field to draw in a sketchbook is that the researcher is seen rather than being just someone who observes; he or she reaches a sui generis place as an ‘artistresearcher’, apparently more empathetic, less invasive or inquisitive. The question ‘can I sketch?’ elicits a very positive response compared to the question ‘can I take a photograph?’ or ‘can I film?’ Wadle (2012) also appeals to the importance of visual language in establishing dialogues between researcher and interlocutors who do not speak the same language. By means of a sketchbook, anthropologist and collaborator can engage in ‘common sessions of drawing’ and be able to achieve mutual learning. An open sketchbook can also be an innovative way to share your research concerns and act as an invitation to talk about them. Very frequently, interlocutors are interested in the sketches (and to sketch by themselves), sometimes willing to participate, telling the researcher what he or she should draw, and also helping in analysing their findings (Causey, 2017). In some cases, criticisms were made (‘that isn’t drawn properly’) not for aesthetic reasons but because the person perceived that the anthropologist had not understood the object or the social setting (some researchers, however, did receive aesthetic criticism on occasion). In several studies, people watching the researcher’s work became more directly involved, helping to sort objects to be drawn (during a second field visit) or calling attention to angles, people, or experiences worth documenting in the sketchbook. Sometimes, children want to help too, keen to ‘improve’ the researcher’s drawings.

Visual data helps sharing the results of the ethnography while protecting informants’ anonymity As stated earlier, drawings produced during fieldwork make it easier for the audience to comprehend your research goals, developments, and final results, allowing the generated data to be tested, reviewed, and compared. Graphic visual

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Figure 17.3 Drawings produced by student Rosa Richter during a research project on Gonçalves Ledo Street, downtown Rio de Janeiro. Informants did not accept her using a film camera but were happy to talk when she brought along her sketchbook. The relationship with them evolved into a mutual collaboration that helped her complete her ethnography on the local workers and inhabitants.

language may not be ‘universal’, but it is much more accessible than written texts. Drawings can add considerably to the public dialogue on the topics raised by the ethnography. Another important aspect is that this material produces visual information from the field capable of preserving informant anonymity, a classic concern of the ethnographic enterprise, and especially relevant in urban anthropology. Wadle (2012) drew my attention to this problem in her review of Atkins’s work on sexual encounters, where the latter author mixes landscape photographs with drawn portraits of people in vulnerable situations. Several of the people participating in the research asked the students to give them copies of the drawings for their own ends. These examples show the spirit of collaborative work expressed in the previous section, when the material generated by ethnography is reframed and creatively appropriated by the world under study. The student Mariana Barcellos, noted that the act of drawing in the field also gives ‘autonomy to the subjectivity of the researcher’, questioning the logic of scientific work, which tends to obliterate this authorship while valuing the technical report, producing a ‘cold’ narrative of the results. According to Berger (2005, 3), a drawing is often an ‘autobiographical

156  Karina Kuschnir record of one’s discovery of an event – seen, remembered, or imagined’. Several students registered this aspect, feeling happy to be able to express some of their personal style in the material produced for the final work. Showing drawings in the way that they were produced in fieldwork is not only a kind of proof of what was observed, as Taussig (2011) put it in his book title I Swear I Saw This, but is also a way to avoid the fallacy of disguising and distorting the inherent subjectiveness of the ethnographic enterprise. It is also with a similar distrust of the discursive games of anthropological writing that Ramos appreciates the testimony of drawings. Limited by the urgency of materials and technology, the sketcher does not intend to ‘describe’ or ’mimic’ a lived or observed reality. The sketcher becomes an ‘attendance sheet (been there, seen that)’ that ‘contains in itself, invisible, the testimony of a look, the hypothesis of a memory and a sign of an osmosis of the senses and of Dasein, between who drew and who or what was drawn’ (Ramos, 2010, 19).

Final considerations The notion of ‘ethnographic drawing’ contains many meanings and possibilities still to be explored. Here, I sought to valorise and understand the multiple possibilities of ethnographic drawings, exploring their potential relations to other forms of documentation and research in anthropology. Although the ethnographic method is very much alive in anthropology and other fields of knowledge, I think we are still afraid to discuss its challenges. Recently, Andrew Causey’s (2017) book, Drawn to See: Drawing as an Ethnographic Method, changed this scenery. It is the first ambitious work that embraces, both theoretically and empirically, a way to bridge the best from both ethnography and drawing. Causey addresses key problems in the production of anthropological knowledge, the representation of ideas, temporality, diachrony, synchrony, and corporeality, among others. And all of this is compounded by a deep commitment to ethics in ethnography, showing respect, empathy, and interest in the worlds he investigated. For the author, ethnographic drawings may be a way to see beneath the surface, to stand out more as questions than solutions; as imperfect and experimental; as doors that open to make sense of the world – possibilities within the impossible ethnographic project (Kuschnir, 2018). Thus, we can say there exists another important contribution of drawing to the anthropological approach: to promote the kind of encounter that produces a better society, more supportive, collaborative, and respectful of social differences.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the students who participated in the research, who accepted the challenge to include observational drawings in their fieldwork sketchbooks and gave me permission to show their drawings here. For a more complete account of this research, see Kuschnir (2016).

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References Afonso, A., and M. J. Ramos. 2004. “New Graphics for Old Stories: Representation of Local Memories Through Drawings.” In S. Pink, L. Kürti, and A. I. Afonso (eds.), Working Images: Visual Research and Representation in Ethnography, 72–89. London and New York: Routledge. Berger, J. 2005. Berger on Drawing. Edited by Jim Savage. Aghabullogue: Occasional Press. Causey, A. 2017. Drawn to See. Drawing as an Ethnographic Method. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Horowitz, A. 2013. On Looking – Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes. New York: Scribner. Kuschnir, K. 2011. “Drawing the City – A Proposal for an Ethnographic Study in Rio de Janeiro.” Vibrant – Virtual Brazilian Anthropology, 8 (2): 609–642. Kuschnir, K. 2014. “Teaching Anthropologists to Draw: A Didactic Research Experience.” Cadernos de Arte & Antropologia, 3 (2): 23–46. Kuschnir, K. 2016. “Ethnographic Drawing: Eleven Benefits of Using a Sketchbook for Fieldwork.” Visual Ethnography Journal, 5 (1): 103–134. Kuschnir, K. 2018. “Drawing as Possibility: A Review of Andrew Causey’s Drawn to See: Drawing as an Ethnographic Method.” Teaching Culture Blog. The Higher Education Division of the University of Toronto Press (UTP). Ramos, M. J. 2004. “Drawing the Lines: The Limitations of Intercultural Ekphrasis.” In S. Pink, L. Kürti, and A. I. Afonso (eds.), Working Images: Visual Research and Representation in Ethnography, 147–161. London and New York: Routledge. Ramos, M. J. 2010. Histórias Etíopes. Lisbon: Tinta da China. Taussig, M. 2011. I Swear I Saw this: Drawings in Fieldwork Notebooks, Namely My Own. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wadle, H. 2012. “Anthropology goes Comics”. Comics Forum Blog. Date accessed March 15, 2020. Available online: https://comicsforum.org/?s=anthropology+goes+comics.

18 A landscape anthropology of green in Bahrain Gareth Doherty

The power of a country road when one is walking along it is different from the power it has when one is flying over it by airplane. Walter Benjamin1

Introduction As the literature on the urbanism of landscape was so thin for Bahrain, it became clear that the broad range of data I  needed for this research project could be obtained only from a long-term period of ethnographic fieldwork. I would need extended engagement with the location and its people to gather the data, qualitative and quantitative, that I needed.

Methods Having secured funding for a year of fieldwork in Bahrain and the Gulf, I developed a schedule for the first few months. I wanted to confirm my plan’s usefulness and asked some eminent professors for guidance on my methodology. The professors told me, ‘just do what you need to do’. In other words, don’t think too hard. It took me some time to realise and appreciate that this was not an evasion of the question but actually really good advice. I went to Bahrain and started doing. It was only when I was in the field, for instance, that I realised how important walking would be- as it increased the possibilities of serendipity that most anthropologists depend on and brought me into contact with many Bahrainis outside of my regular social orbit with whom I could engage. Once in the field, I found that even the best-laid plans did not always work out as hoped. I constantly had to improvise, to abandon work I had been doing, to keep multiple lines of inquiry open, and hardest of all, to be patient. I had a romantic notion similar to that of Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the founders of ethnographic fieldwork, who advocates for an immersive experience but describes an easy division of observer from observed, which is not always so easy in the field. Malinowski writes that the proper conditions for ethnographic fieldwork ‘consist mainly in cutting oneself off from the company of other white

A landscape anthropology of green  159 men, and remaining in as close contact with the natives as possible, which can only be achieved by camping right in their villages’ (Malinowski, 2012, 70). Camping in Bahrain’s villages would be useful only if the villagers camped too. Most Bahrainis live behind high walls, and it is unusual for expatriates such as myself to be invited inside. My work became a multilayered ethnography, an ethnography based on seemingly disparate interviews and casual encounters, walking, photography, formal analysis of built projects, and some archival research. I studied green on a daily basis in public spaces, gardens, observing religious practices, government ministries, politics, and so forth. I would meet my core group of friends and informants on a regular basis, but they lacked social engagement with one another, and this led to a narrow, affiliation-based contact with the people I intended to study. In other words, I did not have access to any one pre-established community or wider extended family or group of friends in Bahrain; instead, I constructed my own. I  interacted with a diversity of people and sites dispersed across the city, connected by green as discussed and practiced on a daily basis. I came to call this interaction multilayered ethnography (Doherty, 2010). In due course, I  decided to accept the unpredictability of life and to treat it as a positive thing rather than an inconvenience.  .  .  I  learned not just to deal with chance and serendipity as they arose, responding passively to whatever was thrown at me, but to actively engineer the likelihood of chance occurrences. Here, walking became critically important. My whole year was informed by walking and by the routes I took. Predominantly, I  follow the more traditional fieldwork of ethnographers like Farha Ghannam (2002), in as much as I was based in one site, and my notes are informed not just by what people said to me but also by the place as well as my personal bias (By traditional in the sense that one spends an extended period of time living among so-called indigenous people). Yet my research differs from Ghannam significantly in two ways. The scale of the location is bigger: Bahrain is a nation-state of some seven-hundred-plus square kilometres, much larger than a single housing development on the fringes of Cairo, and of course, there is a whole area of focus on the anthropology of the nation and nationality (Anderson (1983) and Herzfeld (1997). But of more significance is that Ghannam had intimate contact with a family and social group with whom she spent most of her time and interacted with almost daily on a deep personal level. Ghannam spent her time embedded within a pre-existing community that intimately informed her ethnography. If I had done this, my study would have been very different; perhaps an ethnography of green among one social group, say, the Baharna, or among the ʿAjam, or Keralites, or Western expatriates – rather than an ethnography based on a colour across the whole city-state of Bahrain. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz, in The Interpretation of Cultures, suggests that loci cannot be taken as objects of ethnographic research, stating that ‘anthropologists don’t study villages (tribes, towns, neighbourhoods); they study in villages’ (Geertz, 1973, 22). This line of argument ignores the fact that objects and things may have a ‘social life’ too, and as anthropologists move beyond the study

160  Gareth Doherty of people to the study of the relationality of things, an extensive body of literature emerges on the social life of nonhumans such as trees, movies, and everyday objects (Appuradurai, 1986; Caton, 1999; Miller, 2010; Rival, 1998). Geertz tells us elsewhere: ‘Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun’ (ibid., 5). In a similar vein, this book began as a study of green in Bahrain, where the colour is an object, and evolved into an ethnographic study of landscape in Bahrain through the lens of colour. Critically speaking, landscape comprises land and the people who inhabit the land, as well as the relationships between them (Doherty and Waldheim, 2016; Stilgoe, 2016). While it might seem strange that an assemblage of relationships could be considered an interlocutor, others might agree that the landscape has the loudest voice of all. One of the ways that landscape speaks to us is through colour. For example, a brown, dried-out lawn could be saying it is thirsty, a grey-green, thriving date palm grove that it is content, and an evening red sky that a good day will follow.2

Walking In the year of my fieldwork in Bahrain, my goal was to walk everywhere I needed to go. If landscape is the object, it is obvious that one needs to be in it. When one is inside or in a car, one is removed from the tactility of the landscape. In addition, when one walks, one has chance encounters in a way that does not happen in a car. Walking increases the opportunities for meeting people, and also for finding the unexpected and the strange. Ultimately, my goal was to make the strange familiar, to borrow from the oft-quoted phrase (Eliot, 1921). It is a phrase often used to explain anthropology: in making the strange familiar, and the familiar strange, we come to new knowledge regarding social patterns and relationships. Instead, I followed green. I had a number of methods for choosing the routes I would walk, and the aerial image coupled with intuition played the biggest part in selecting my routes. Basically, I walked wherever I needed to go. If I was going to a ministry in Manama to discuss green, I would walk for 30 minutes through the suq to get there. I recorded my interactions with green along the way, taking photographs and writing scratch notes in my pocket-size notebook and methodically noting details not just of the green but people’s reactions to it as well. This meant starting conversations with strangers and being receptive to strangers starting conversations with me. Other times, I had to go farther than I could walk. On these occasions I would take a public bus, or Illias, my landlord’s driver, would drive me. I followed the patches of green and the corridors I used to get there. I used the aerial image to help myself find the green areas, and I would set off to see those areas. In many ways my routes became a complex interplay between Google Earth, which guided me, and the beholding of green scenery as seen from eye level. Rarely did my walks turn out as expected. This research is based on a year of living and walking in Bahrain. The method of walking is fundamental to my understanding of Bahrain and intended to supplement rather than replace aerial reconnaissance, which was also an important

A landscape anthropology of green  161 tool in the research (see Waldheim, 1999). Peripatetics such as Francesco Careri, founder of the Italian Stalker/Osservatorio Nomade urban art workshop, describe walking ‘as a primary act in the symbolic transformation of the territory’ (Careri, 2002, back cover). For me, the approach was much more pragmatic and designed to gather ethnographic data through the encounters I had with people, land, and colour.

Abstraction and aerial The fascination with aerial photography has rightly permeated the design and ecological disciplines and offers an incredible tool to attempt to understand escalating urbanisation and emergent urban, suburban, and exurban forms. Ian McHarg was of course an early pioneer, in Design with Nature (McHarg, 1969). McHarg’s layered maps were a radical departure in their day and were primarily rational and scientific in their evaluations.3 More recently, Charles Waldheim has been a vocal advocate of the importance of the aerial image. For Waldheim, aerial images make possible a new understanding of urbanism as a ‘flatbed terrain’ and ‘horizontal surface’. Waldheim writes: ‘New audiences and sites for work also offer the possibility of new formulations of landscape, recasting its image from green scenery beheld vertically to a flatbed infrastructure that includes both natural and urban environments’ (Waldheim, 1999, 136). Waldheim challenges us to change our perspective on landscape from the traditional notion of green scenery seen at eye level towards one of landscape as a horizontal surface that makes no distinction between urban and rural, landscape and urbanism. My book, Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State (Doherty, 2017), began as an attempt to describe the urbanism of landscape – as green scenery beheld vertically – in large part in response to the previous quotation. In demonstrating the urban qualities of landscape, the aim is to take a slightly different approach to landscape urbanism, a disciplinary realignment including an influential body of literature and professional projects that have originated since the late 1990s. A  basic tenet of landscape urbanism, again to quote Waldheim, is that ‘landscape replaces architecture as the basic building block of contemporary urbanism’ (ibid., 11). Combining fieldwork – the vertical – with the aerial image (the horizontal) allows the opportunity for a ‘thicker’ reading of a landscape, and therefore is positioned to propose ‘thicker’ solutions that might ultimately be more successful (Geertz, 1973) (I should stress, however, that there is no linear relationship between fieldwork and proposition, as ethnography and design have very different epistemologies). As the landscape ecologist Richard T.T. Forman affirms, ‘Of course, dropping from the sky to examine the land closely is also essential’ (Forman, 1995, 3). A city from above may look grey; from inside it can be dazzling in its colours: think of Times Square or Shinjuku. Indeed, when walking through the city, as the Urban Earth, a UK-based geography collaborative, do, it can be surprising how much green there is in the city outside the official category of green space. Why not behold landscape from both perspectives, from above and from eye level too?

162  Gareth Doherty Large-scale geographies need to be understood ethnographically if we are not to lose touch with the people in those geographies. Although the word geography, like landscape, is concerned with space and territory, geography differs from landscape in three significant ways. The first is inherent in the etymology of the word: geo-graphy means writing about the land as it is, recording its features and uses, whereas landscape overtly indicates a visual component. A second significant difference is the issue of scale: geography is not really tied to any one scale in the way a landscape is, or in the spatially hierarchical way the design disciplines are structured, from the broadest regional planning, to urban design, to landscape architecture, to architecture, to garden design, to interior design, and finally product design, all having a particular scalar focus (Forman, 1995, 12).4 We live in a multiscalar world – where the earth is not necessarily getting smaller, or bigger, just both – and geography liberates us from scale in a way that promises fresh insights into the study of that land. Aerial photography is a means to understanding that multiscalar end. Lastly, and significantly, geography inherently implies a social component. I suggest that designers need to rediscover people, and that ethnography offers a set of skills to engage with people.

Design anthropology Although grounded in the relationship between landscape and city, my multi-disciplinary book, Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State, sits within the emerging field of design anthropology. More than the study of design process, it is an attempt to shift the focus from anthropological description towards action.5 In this sense, design anthropology responds to a critique of contemporary anthropology that, Borneman and Hammoudi assert, identifies three denials in the field. This critique maintains ‘that ethnography is a literary genre which denies itself as such; that reliance on observation leads to a denial of the role of the ethnographer in shaping the object/subject studied; and that ethnographers tend to deny the constructed character of their objects and of the knowledge they produce from the initial period of fieldwork, through to the writing of their essays and books’ (Borneman and Hammoudi, 2009, 2). I am particularly interested in the idea that the agency of ethnography be used in the design process itself, rather than as a retrospective tool. Dori Tunstall writes on what design anthropology can add to a design practice: ‘Design anthropology is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to understand the role of design artefacts and processes in defining what it means to be human (e.g. human nature). It is more than lists of user requirements in a design brief, which makes it different from contextual inquiry, some forms of design research, and qualitative focus groups. Design anthropology offers challenges to existing ideas about human experiences and values’ (Tunstall, 2016, para 3). In the concluding chapter to her ethnography of design at OMA, Albena Yaneva suggests that the product of design has become disconnected from the conditions of its making and the design experiences of its makers. Thus, we can appreciate a building without

A landscape anthropology of green  163 knowing anything about its design process, but you cannot understand that building without considering design experiences (Yaneva, 2009, 99–104). Yaneva’s ethnography opens up a provocative critique of the architectural design process. The challenge and potential lie in consciously using ethnography as part of a design process – in the actual shaping of space – rather than using it to only interpret or critique design. And doing so necessitates the beholding of green scenery vertically as well as horizontally.

Acknowledgements This chapter includes a series of extracts from Chapter  1 of Doherty, G. 2017. Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State. Oakland: University of California Press. The selection highlights the author’s discussion and reflection on anthropological method, his particular methods, and has relevance to a discussion between anthropology and landscape architecture, and other design disciplines. Permission kindly granted by the author.

Notes 1 Walter Benjamin (2016). 2 See, for example, Kohn (2013). 3 McHarg also extensively engaged with anthropologists, seemingly preferring anthropologists to sociologists. 4 For more on this, see Richard Forman’s diagram outlining the scalar distinction between an ecosystem, landscape, region, continent, and planet, in Forman (1995, 12). 5 For more on this, see Gunn et al. (2010).

References Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Appuradurai, A. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Benjamin, W. 2016. One-Way Street. Translated by E. Jephcott and edited by M. Jennings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Borneman, J., and A. Hammoudi. 2009. “The Fieldwork Encounter, Experience, and the Making of Truth: An Introduction.” In J. Borneman and A. Hammoudi (eds.), Being There: The Fieldwork Encounter and the Making of Truth, 2. Berkeley: University of California Press. Careri, F. 2002. Walkscapes: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili. Caton, S. 1999. Lawrence of Arabia: A Film’s Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press. Doherty, G. 2010. “Review of Cairo Cosmopolitan by Diane Singerman and Paul Amar.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 42 (4): 725–726. Doherty, G., and C. Waldheim (eds.) 2016. Is Landscape. . . ?. London: Routledge. Eliot, T. S. 1921. “Andrew Marvell.” Times Literary Supplement, March 31.

164  Gareth Doherty Forman, R. 1995. Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Press. Geertz, G. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Ghannam, F. 2002. Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation, and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gunn, W., Smith. And Otto, T. (Panel Convenors). 2010. “Design Anthropology: Intertwining Different Timelines, Scales and Movements”. European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) meeting, EASA2010: Crisis and Imagination, Maynooth, August 2010, Accessed February 26, 2016. www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2010/panels. php5?PanelID=626. Herzfeld, M. 1997. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York: Routledge. Kohn, E. 2013. How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human. Berkeley: University of California Press. Malinowski, B. 2012. “Method and Scope of Anthropological Fieldwork.” In C. Antonius, A. Robben, and J. Sluka (eds.), Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader, 70 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley. McHarg, I. 1969. Design with Nature. Garden City, NY: Natural History Press. Miller, D. 2010. Stuff. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Rival, L. (ed.) 1998. The Social Life of Trees. New York: Berg. Stilgoe, J. 2016. What Is Landscape? Cambridge: MIT Press. Tunstall, D. “What Is Design Anthropology to Me?” Date accessed July 31, 2016. Available online: http://designanthropology.tumblr.com/post/12019865650/what-isdesignanthropology-to-me-dori-tunstall. Waldheim, C. 1999. “Aerial Representation and the Recovery of Landscape.” In J. Corner (ed.), Recovering Landscape. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Yaneva, A. 2009. Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: An Ethnography of Design. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.

19 Valparaiso Publico A graphic inventory of urban spaces in a Chilean city Marie Combette, Thomas Batzenschlager, and Clémence Pybaro Introduction Valparaiso Publico1 is a graphic inventory of 50 exterior spaces situated on ten of the 42 urbanised hills of the Chilean city (Figure 19.1). A collection of 150 architectural drawings, pictures, and videos, it is the result of numerous on-site surveys, representing one of the most relevant aspects of the port city: its public spaces. These places where the topography and the city meet define Valparaiso’s cultural identity, renowned across the world. The different public spaces presented in this investigation reflect the unique topography of the city, as well as the various individual interventions of construction, renovation, and maintenance that can be found in Valparaiso’s hills. They are the most visible manifestation of the citizens’ actions in defining the city. Valparaiso Publico is a descriptive and objective atlas of current urban situations (Figures 19.2–4). It offers a new spatial database, in order to provide a pool of information for the participants of the city, and a tool that will facilitate the development of future urban projects. This experience has the potential to be adapted to other circumstances. It is a call to reconsider the architect’s position regarding their context, to question it directly and to stop trusting in a generic vision of the city. It is a call to restore critical and experimental observation in our practices, to take time to understand a context before intervening in it, in order to produce better urban and architectural designs.

Pending paths Valparaiso, a city whose urban configuration is determined by the topography of the bay, is formed by 42 hills creating a natural amphitheatre next to the Pacific Ocean. This unique characteristic generates elevators and funiculars, labyrinthine lanes and stairways; resulting in a remarkable architectural and urban response. A city between sea and sky, between ocean and mountain, between reality and fantasy . . . rise, fall, rise, fall. . . . How many unexpected moments can occur in these trajectories? How did the dwellers cling to these hills so hostile to inhabit? Through this meticulous survey and a particular attention to these public spaces, most of them self-built, the spontaneous, informal, and poetic urban structure reveals the best hidden secrets of the city: the transition between above and below.

166  Marie Combette et al. In 1967, the French philosopher Michel Foucault elaborated a new notion to describe and define spaces that don’t function under a homogeneous system of rules, conditions, and customs. These spaces which exist at the same time in the extension of our imagination and, in what we can describe as a physical and tangible reality, are qualified by Foucault (1984) as ‘others’, as he explains in his essay ‘Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias’.2 The concept of ‘heterotopy’ aims to define and categorise the content of these ‘other’ spaces, which stimulate us, simultaneously, physically and mentally: an improvised cave underneath the bed sheets, a parallel world produced by the reflection of a mirror, or a city made of stairs on the slopes of a mountain. This concept helps us to see beyond what is visible and to reconsider certain types of spaces in our territories and urban environments, in order to attribute a new common value to these spaces. The public spaces organically built upon the slopes of Valparaiso’s 42 hills could be integrated within the boundaries of such a concept, creating the urban scaled heterotopy of a chaotic city which continuously projects itself towards the sea, and is modelled by the fractal geometry of its natural topography. These are ‘other’ spaces, platforms, steps, stairs, belvederes, rooms in the open air, all transposed to the urban scale, and then simply named ‘streets’ or ‘plazas’, for lack of a specific vocabulary. In other words, the heterotopian aspect presented by these spaces is the simple idea of inhabiting a slope. The collective imaginary contains an extended quantity of imagery which, directly or indirectly, refers to the idea of inhabiting an inclined plane: this is the desire of self-elevation and to overcome the human condition that is expressed in the myth of Babel; in the complex and dark atmosphere of the prison stairs drawn by Piranesi, and the optical challenges presented by Escher’s drawings. Valparaiso is a city whose spirit springs from the everyday action of the fishers descending and ascending from the slopes to the sea. The arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in 1536 had a profound impact on the growth of the fishing village. Compressed in-between the ocean and the mountains, Valparaiso grew splitting itself into two different entities, each one containing distinct uses and atmospheres: the plain and the hills. Two cities embodied in one, one flat, the other inclined, one regular, the other irregular, one orthogonal and the other spontaneous. The value of these public spaces that connect Valparaiso’s numerous hills is a direct consequence of the city’s history. As it keeps expanding, Valparaiso continues to show us new ways to inhabit the slope. The diversity of situations, forms, circulations, sizes, and scales found in the city’s hills is an attraction for those who come not only to discover a heritage but also to experience a space. Public spaces in Valparaiso’s hills are abundant, and their typologies are infinite: from simple stairs to their extended versions which overcome the inability of humans to climb the slopes; from fragmented platforms that offer the minimum plane to rest, to open air squares and viewpoints towards the ocean; from small kiosks to football fields open to the horizon. Some of them are clearly designed and defined by the community, whereas others seem to simply be the consequence of the surrounding constructions, residual spaces compressed in-between houses, without any lighting or pavement. But all of them are the support for daily events,

Valparaiso Publico  167

Figure 19.1  Top: location of spaces documented. Bottom: view of Valparaiso city. Source: Documentation by Marie Combette, Thomas Batzenschlager, and Clémence Pybaro

168  Marie Combette et al.

Figure 19.2 Documentation of Escalera Cummimarca. Source: Documentation by Marie Combette, Thomas Batzenschlager, and Clémence Pybaro

Valparaiso Publico  169 stages for the neighbourhood’s activities, meetings and commerce, places for practicing sport during the day and for celebrations during the night and filled with all kinds of graffiti on their walls. The present collection of drawings, produced on site, wandering in the city’s hills, is a call to pay attention, to stop and observe the geometry and the spatiality of a representative selection of Valparaiso’s inclined public spaces. It provides a way to appreciate the diversity of scales, shapes, and uses of each one of these spatial configurations. It offers the possibility to think, to understand an important part of the city, where users meet and interact. Valparaiso’s identity is inseparable from the specificity of its public spaces, and this research proposes to explore this unique and complex identity, to question it by giving it another reading, according to the idea developed by Georges Perec, in his book ‘Species of Spaces’ (1997). The problem isn’t to invent space, even less to re-invent it, but to interrogate it, or more simply, to read it, because what we called the everydayness, the habit, isn’t obviousness but opacity: a form of blindness, a form of anesthesia. (Georges Perec, 1974, back cover)

Methodology At the beginning of 2013, we began meeting during weekends at Marie’s house. From there, we had an open view of the ocean, we could hear the whole city and especially contemplate the fragmented landscape made of thousands of roofs scattered without any apparent logic, among which we could distinguish compressed voids that suggested terraces, stairs, and plazas. Valparaiso’s hills forms a labyrinth from which it can be difficult to find a way out. In these moments, just as the inhabitants of the 42 hills do, we became the voluntary prisoners of this colourful open maze. Quite naturally, the fascination and attraction that we shared for this place led us to transform what were first simple wanderings in the streets, into a long-term project, which would seek to go beyond simple observation, which would aim to discover the anatomy of the more representative organ of a city: its public space. The complex urban morphology of the city’s hills prevents planning an itinerary and from defining places of interest prior to in-situ exploration. It is a challenge to walk in Valparaiso without getting lost. The straight streets and great avenues of a ‘plan’, of many modern cities, usually guide our movements: straight lines to go from one point to another, deep perspectives to locate landmarks. Valparaiso disrupted our habits of orientation as it replaces parallelism and orthogonality with sinuosity, mixing ups and downs, corners and hidden passages. Thus, our walks through the city were defined by jumping from one space to another, discovering them by intuition or chance; at the sight of a street that would brutally turn and suggest hidden stairs, being lucky or just by following sensations or the fear produced by a dark cul-de-sac or the security that one can feel in a large open square. This way of exploring the city makes reference to the precepts dictated by

170  Marie Combette et al.

Figure 19.3 Documentation of Terrazas Rudolph. Source: Documentation by Marie Combette, Thomas Batzenschlager, and Clémence Pybaro

Valparaiso Publico 171

Figure 19.4  Documentation of Escalera Pasteur–Espiritu Santo. Source: Documentation by Marie Combette, Thomas Batzenschlager, and Clémence Pybaro

172  Marie Combette et al. the Situationists and especially to the methodology defined by Guy Debord (1981) in his essay, ‘Theory of the Dérive’. One or more people who take part in a ‘dérive’, renounce for a long or short period, the habits of moving and living in the city, the relationships of work and leisure to which they are used to, in order to give in to the requests of the land and to the encounters that correspond to it. (Debord, 1981, para 2) From these ‘dérives’ we defined a cloud of points that would then be contained in a new map, the cartography of 50 relevant public spaces of the city of Valparaiso. To the initial difficulty of finding these spaces, another was soon added, inherent to the practice of the architectural discipline: representing them. The prototype of the modern city finds its origin directly in the act of drawing the straight line, of drawing a plane with Euclidean geometry: it is the drawing itself that has created the systematisation of ordered spaces. In total opposition to this practice, Valparaiso presents a rupture within this historical continuity, creating its own geometry. It forces us to understand it before intervening in it, to survey it before transforming it. It forces us to confront our own tools with a new territory, making us explorers of the everyday. Facing the complexity of the task, we began to gather equipment, prostheses to help the body approach these spaces, equipped with cameras and tripods  – one to take pictures and another one to record movements and sounds, long distance measuring tapes to survey platforms, stairs and levels changes; and a large amount of paper to trace and draw, in-situ, the tectonic plates that form these public spaces. In this way, we would confront the archetypes of architectural representation, planes, sections, and axonometric views, with places that never suffered the dictatorship of the Cartesian order: a retrospective exercise necessary to make the dissection of the spatial beast that is Valparaiso. The sum of these different methods of surveying allowed us to recreate, a posteriori the present selection of drawings, abstractions of real spaces, extracted from their context and shown as autonomous pieces: parts of a whole. Such work could be interpreted within a long history of practices that mix disciplines of science and art, from the notebooks that describe the Egyptian civilisation during the Napoleon Empire, to the Neufert’s dictionary of measurements, from the photographic inventory of chimneys and silos made by Bernd and Hilla Becher, to the catalog of hybrid buildings: ‘Made in Tokyo’, produced by Kaijima et al. (2001). The uniformity of architectural representation applied to these surveyed spaces allows us to group them in this investigation, in a similar way as the references we mentioned, with the purpose of comparing them, and hopefully extracting one or several lessons on the crafting and use of the city, a retrospective look at what could be called a ‘contemporary vernacular’. Finally, this research is a call to reconsider the architect’s position regarding the context, in its general definition, to question it directly and to stop trusting in a generic vision of the city. Valparaiso Publico is a call to restore critical and

Valparaiso Publico 173 experimental observation in our practices, to take time to understand a context before intervening in it, in order to produce better urban and architectural designs.

Notes 1 The full publication can be viewed at: https://issuu.com/thomasbatzenschlagerportfolio/ docs/valparaiso_publico_e41d0097a9bbb3. Date accessed November 16, 2019. 2 This essay was not reviewed for publication in 1967 but formed the basis for a lecture given in 1967. Available online: https://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia/foucault. heteroTopia.en/. Date accessed November 16, 2019.

References Debord, G. 1981. “Theory of the Dérive.” In K. Krabb (ed.), The Situationist Anthology, 62–66. Canada: Bureau of Public Secrets. Date accessed November 16, 2019. Available online: www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html. Foucault, M. 1984. “Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias.” Translated from Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, 5: 46–49. Kaijima, M., J. Kuroda, and Y. Tsukamoto. 2001. Made in Tokyo. Tōkyō: Kaijima Shuppankai. Perec, G. 1974 Espèces d’espaces. Paris: Galilée. Published in English as Perec, G. 1997. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London: Penguin Books.

20 Being with Hellersdorf Performative counter-mapping as a reflexive practice between architecture and anthropology Diana Lucas-Drogan and Holger Braun-Thürmann Berlin’s suburb Hellersdorf was built as part of the housing programme of the early years of the GDR (German Democratic Republic). With the shift from socialism to capitalism 30 years ago, the district was subject to drastic change. With the arrival of refugees in 2015 the local social order of segmentation and isolation was challenged once again by the issues of global migration, which created a tense environment. It is this environment of many different actors which became the testing ground for our interdisciplinary and participatory attempt to uncover what happens to refugees and others in Hellesdorf, as part of the process of migration, and which will be described in the following essay. To serve our goal of unmasking and gaining a basic understanding of the locality, we used anthropological methods, mappings, events, and performances as tools and occasions to configure a new assemblage of unfamiliar interactions between places, public housing blocks, a university, various groups of people, an architect, and an anthropologist. The cross-disciplinary research explored techniques of being involved with the local as a research object. This investigation values rapport with the persons in the research field as an important part of anthropological methods, and seeks to affirm how important it is to regard research as something public and inclusive, and to involve the ones who have been ‘off the map before’, such as refugees and other vulnerable peoples. This project included the interaction of various parties: the Alice Salomon University in Hellersdorf, Berlin; the students with various political agendas; the local culturally and financially precarious inhabitants of Hellersdorf; and refugees in their daily lives who were confronted with many regulations and everyday life problems, such as finding medical treatment, accommodation, etc. The Alice Salomon University (ASH) was one of the first universities enabling refugees to study in Berlin. During the communist era (1945–1989) Hellersdorf was built as a satellite town for the growing GDR capital, East Berlin. After the reunification this university of applied sciences was implanted within a landscape of large prefab panel system-buildings. During the upheavals of the recent European migration crisis (2015) an empty public building near the university was provisionally converted into mass accommodation for refugees. Since that time, Hellersdorf rapidly became a hotbed for the growing far-right movement and a

Being with Hellersdorf 175 popular location for neo-fascist demonstrations. The neighbourhood associated with the university is now known as a ‘no-go area’ for people who look different from Germany’s white mainstream population. We took these particular circumstances of a university within a ‘no-go area’ as a departure point for our research with the idea to study this locality as one site of the global human migration assemblage (Collier and Ong, 2006, 2008), there by developing a local counter-assemblage that tries to combine actors, places, buildings, and maps in such a way that new conceptions of Hellersdorf might emerge through practices and representations. This research project was part of a seminar at the ASH run by the authors, an anthropologist and an artist/architect. As part of this seminar we took the opportunity to work with what was at hand, the mass accommodation in front of the university. We were not aiming for detailed research of global migration-our purpose was to facilitate encounters, meetings, and performances, to understand lives and challenge stereotypes. Central to this was organising set-ups which allowed a trustful and open accessibility for the neighbourhood. Thus, the approach of the seminar shifted from the mappings that an architect might produce, to a practice of rethinking and enacting the social in the field. Here, architectural knowledge is augmented with anthropological fieldwork, to grasp the complex systems of spatial urban uses. Mapping transformed from physical map-making to a series of acts of interaction, to explore the local relations involved in the global human migration assemblage. We used this seminar to create encounters between the students and the local experts of Hellersdorf; to challenge assumptions about the area and develop a method that copes with researchers’ hesitation and fear when confronted with the people within the study area (Lindner, 1981, 63). We had invited approximately 50 social science students to a practicebased research seminar to understand global migration issues on local ground. Researching the impact of how political decisions expressed themselves spatially in the daily practice of refugees in the neighbourhood was a whole new approach and experience for these students. Within the studio we had meetings with a support and self-help initiative called ‘Stop Deportation Group’, which included Syrians, Afghans, and Pakistanis from the asylum camp in the university’s neighbourhood. These more or less informal gatherings turned out to be a relatively easy way for the students to connect with the process of flight and migration in Hellersdorf. All students lived far away in the city centre and had not explored the daily practices around the university before. These encounters also happened at one of the ‘Art in the Underground’ locations, supported by one of Berlin’s art associations, New Society for Fine Arts (nGbK, nd), which enabled us to be outside the university. This was new for the students, and provided a space in winter for joint meetings. Methods such as ‘Go-Alongs’ (Kusenbach, 2003, 2016), field observations, and interviews were employed to try to move beyond the ‘immutability of maps’ (Latour, 1987, 220). To understand how our refugee informants engage with and comprehend their physical and social environments in everyday life, students accompanied them on their daily routes through Hellersdorf and beyond.

176  Diana Lucas-Drogan and Holger Braun-Thürmann

Figure 20.1  Meeting at Art in the Underground/nGbK Hellersdorf.

The refugees, being relatively new locals in the area, guided the student researchers through the city, describing what was relevant to them for their everyday life and ‘survival’. During the walks through the streets the informants were encouraged to comment on whatever came to their mind (Kusenbach, 2016, 156). This allowed them to talk about daily practices, and also sensitive or puzzling questions, such as, ‘why (do) women study in Europe?’, or ‘what is vegan food?’ Many of the Go-Alongs were extended by the local informants, inviting the students to meet for home meals at their places of living. These informal situations allowed the students to ask questions about the struggles of the asylum seeking/ migration process. During a cooking session within a language class, an interview partner who had lived for six months in a basketball hall in Hellersdorf, let a female student take the lead in a queue, because in Afghan culture women are ‘allowed to eat first’. This custom was unknown for the German student. Standing in the line another informant started yelling, ‘please keep in line!’, to highlight his experience of being in a refugee camp in Greece. He was repeating what the security team in the Greek camp said to handle the crowds during food distribution. Suddenly, the European border became, for the research students, a less abstract political reality. The researchers audio-recorded the dialogues and/or took field notes from these conversations which included their own subjective emotional and cognitive

Being with Hellersdorf 177 reactions. This data was coded, analysed, and later employed in an audio-installation and in different formats of mappings. The field notes became a detailed archive of encounters. Writing field notes reflected our involvement and helped us to discover, as anthropologists, architects, and social scientists, how we observe spatial practices differently: what catches our attention and what becomes a note or a line and how it might be classified. As the residents and students were entering an insecure social space, involving various possible misunderstandings and even conflicts of values, like the position of gender in Western society and life habits (e.g. veganism), it was up to all to create an atmosphere of trust to be able to get to know each other. Avoiding and overcoming such issues and crises took time and effort but paved the way for a common ground of understanding and shared knowledge. The kind of inner destabilisation that came with these encounters would enable the students and us to question and even give up our presumed disciplinary spatial views and be more open to other perceptions and views. It is not relevant or possible to produce an all-encompassing panorama of global migration. The localisation of global migration lent itself, instead, to a modest attempt at what Latour calls an oligopticon (2005, 175). An oligopticon tries to shed light onto the dynamics of highly localised processes and their global effects and vice versa. This particular oligopticum does not picture robust structures of global migration processes, but rather highlights the fragility of migrants’ connections and lack of control of the global and local network processes that they find themselves part of.

Performative counter-mapping as assemblage The results of the intimacy of the fieldwork became part of an exhibition in Hellersdorf, co-curated with the students. This exhibition was an event to open up the research of the students to the informants, refugees and non-refugees, who all live in Hellersdorf, and involved transforming the Go-Along findings and fieldnotes into forms of mappings. The mapping formats varied from installation, video, collage, and included a map which redrew all the routes and places in Berlin that were relevant to the informants, and performances by the students. Most of the mappings moved away from the cartographic view from above. Included was ‘Parka Stories’, which involved four coats hung in our presentation-exhibition space with small speakers sewn into the inlay of each coat. Voice recordings of the Go-Alongs, recorded by the students, were played through these speakers. Slipping into the ‘Parka Stories’ parkas opened up the participant to being part of the performative act and they were invited to stroll around the various mapping productions during the exhibition. The voices of the speaker inside each parka merged with the objects of the exhibition to produce interactions between various forms of understanding of the spatial potential of the neighbourhood. Besides the ‘Parka Stories’, visitors could walk along a mapping, as a colour-coded catwalk, based on photos taken by the students, which helped to re-orient the stereotyped view on Hellersdorf. In this representation of Hellersdorf, its mass housing settlement was

178  Diana Lucas-Drogan and Holger Braun-Thürmann converted into a spectrum of green and an incredible scale of grey. Architectural understanding was less relevant here. The typology of the settlement, which is omnipresent in the view from above, became less important. Instead, we started talking about the right to green areas, pharmacies as anchors in the process of arrival, and understanding buildings by signage rather than by the language of the building itself. The performative and dialogic format of the exhibition event changed the perception of this strongly determined place, Hellersdorf. Triggered by the conversion of field notes into mappings this event was not about exhibiting mappings as objects, it was about using the walk-through mappings processes to develop a dialogue between researcher and exhibition visitor, and to further engage with those who have been included in the research so far, and also with those that have not been. The exhibition visitors, including locals (refugees and non-refugees), became part of the research. The presentation of the mappings and associated actions and encounters functioned as triggers of socio-spatial production. We found that the anthropological field work gave the architect the chance to reflect on their own relationship to the situation and their assumptions, and on the value of direct engagement between different disciplinary fields. Various aspects of the mappings, already shown at the exhibition, were embroidered, sewed on the clothes (‘recording dresses’). After an open call to the various participants of the research project for volunteers to be part of the performance, the group included one male research student, two male refugees from Syria, and one woman born in Berlin, who is a professional dancer, theatre performer, and singer.

Figure 20.2  Detail of recording dress.

Being with Hellersdorf  179 The performers used the dresses to navigate through the neighbourhood and beyond to embody the abstraction of dots, lines, and patterns on the mapping. At the first performance during the day, without an invited audience, the performers opened themselves up to experiencing new encounters, walking and wearing the recording dresses along the streets of Berlin. One of the performers danced in a crowded subway full of sweat and heat and described the subway as the most ‘anonymous’ place she had ever acted. During the performance, the wide green fields between the mass housing settlements turned into a site to talk with a local cinema owner about the performance and the spatial nuances of Hellersdorf. The second, restaged performance, drew upon the experiences from the city explorations guided by the recording dresses during the night-time in Hellersdorf. This took place on a less-used boulevard between two housing blocks and an abandoned former GDR supermarket, where locals watched the performance from their balconies or joined us on the street level. The panopticon-like balconies transformed into a public playhouse, which allowed locals to informally join the performance. Suddenly, people became engaged by a Kurdish children’s song, intonated by one of the performers, and an opera by Franz Schubert. On a bench nearby a kissing couple, sitting there coincidentally, stopped kissing and the male started walking straight to the performer singing the Kurdish song. He started to cry and joined the performance till the end, and stayed with us for the rest of

Figure 20.3  Performance at the supermarket, Hellersdorf.

180  Diana Lucas-Drogan and Holger Braun-Thürmann the night, overwhelmed by the glimpse of feeling at home in a dislocated place, and finding someone to talk to in his mother tongue. The performers facilitated moments of closeness and created a social space that transformed a neglected urban location into a seductive place, even absorbing the aggression of a white racist guy shouting ‘foreigners out!’ The performers and the interactions challenged the public perception of the refugees, the locals and their relationships, the global migration process, the urban spaces, and opened a space for multivocality and multilocality (Rodman, 1992). This became an act of materialising what you just cannot redraw, but something that you can provoke by interaction and the ability of events to transform the sense of a situation; and it was agreed that this would have a significant effect on any future mappings and socio-spatial knowledge production by the designers involved.

References Collier, S., and A. Ong. 2006. “Global Assemblages.” Theory Culture & Society, 23 (2–3). Collier, S., and A. Ong. 2008. “Global Assemblages, Anthropological Problems.” In A. Ong and S. Collier (eds.), Global Assemblages, 3–21. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Kusenbach, M. 2003. “Street Phenomonology: The Go-Along as Ethnographic Research Tool.” Ethnography, 4 (3): 455–485. Kusenbach, M. 2016. “The Go-Along Method.” In A. Schwanhäußer (ed.), Sensing the City, a Companion to Urban Anthropology, 154–158. Berlin and Basel: Birkhäuser. Latour, B. 1987. Science in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lindner, R. 1981. “Lindner, Rolf, die Angst des Forschers vor dem Feld. Überlegungen zur teilnehmenden Beobachtung als Interaktionsprozeß.” Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 77: 51–66. nGbK. New Society for Fine Arts. Date accessed March 16, 2020. Available online: https:// ngbk.de/en/ Rodman, M. C. 1992. “Empowering Place: Multilocality and Multivocality.” American Anthropologist, 94 (3): 640–656.

21 The happy city An actor-network-theory manifesto Albena Yaneva

Introduction Think of a city. Say Manchester. We commonly know it either as a set of landmark buildings, by the flat plane of its map, organised into a grid with streets and recognisable structures, through an objective frame, or alternatively by the many subjective perceptions of the urban flâneurs, experiencing it, caught up in the hubbub, strolling, driving, admiring, and writing about it. Urban theory constantly reminds us of this persistence of the divide between subjective and objective interpretations of a city (Beaumont and Dart, 2010). How can we circumvent this divide? Is it possible to avoid the common simplifications of urban theory, and its classic topics: the growth of neighbourhoods, social conflicts among classes and ethnic groups, the city architecture, its labour struggles, politics, social reformers, cultural institutions, or the actions of municipal authorities? Can we focus instead on all the versatile imperceptible flows that run through a city, all these threads that make cities alive, real, working, and happy?

Dramatising urban life In ‘Hidden Cities 2’, the novelist Calvino describes a thread of happiness that runs throughout Raissa, an ultimately unhappy city (Calvino, 1972). While unhappiness is felt at every moment; ‘people wring their hands’, ‘curse the crying children’, ‘press their fists to their temples’, ‘hit their finger with a hammer’, even in that unhappy city, there is an invisible thread of happiness: And yet, in Raissa, at every moment there is a child in a window who laughs seeing a dog that has jumped on a shed to bite into a piece of polenta dropped by a stonemason who has shouted from the top of the scaffolding, ‘Darling, let me dip into it,’ to a young serving-maid who holds up a dish of ragout under the pergola, happy to serve it to the umbrella-maker, who is celebrating a successful transaction, a white lace parasol bought to display at the races by a great lady in love with an officer who has smiled at her taking the last jump, happy man, and still happier his horse, flying over the obstacles, seeing a francolin flying in the sky, happy bird freed from its cage by a painter happy at having painted it feather by feather, speckled with red and yellow. (Calvino, 1972, 181)

182  Albena Yaneva When it comes to describing cities, it is hard to think of better lines written in pleasure than these lines from Calvino. As Barthes famously put it: ‘If I read this sentence, this story, or this word with pleasure, it is because they were written in pleasure’ (Barthes, 1975, 4). Calvino’s text contents, fills, and grants euphoria to the reader, while spectacularly dramatising urban life. The reader, also caught in this thread of happiness, emerges through the description. Without knowing where she is, Calvino actively searches for her. As readers of Calvino’s account of Raissa, we witness the ‘daily life’ of the city unfolding with ethnographic precision: all the petty details, habits, schedules, meals, animals, transactions, clothing, and gestures entangled together. The story evolves in a way where there are no footlights, no hidden text, no ‘behind the scenes’. There is no active writer, who knows, or passive reader, who simply reads; or in other words, there is no subject, on the one hand, or object, on the other. Instead, superseding grammatical attitudes, the account offers an undifferentiated eye to the city. It is an infra-reflexive description that deliberately bypasses any meta-reflexivity. Yet, why focus on this account? Or even on these specific lines? Accounts like this keep the freshness of urban experiences and even the roughness of the city actors’ moves and gestures far from the reach of the prevailing meta-reflexive theories of cities. Indeed: ‘There is more reflexivity in one account that makes the world alive than in one hundred self-reference loops that return the boring thinking mind to the stage’ (Latour, 1988, 173). Such an account succeeds in tracing a city without referring to entities outside it. It is self-exemplifying and amplifies the diversity of the urban rather than reducing it to a simple set of homogenous abstractions, types, or closed categories. If we carefully dissect this excerpt from Calvino further, we will witness that instead of embracing a subjective, individualised vision of the city, or the objective vision of maps and surveillance cameras, Calvino invites us to trace cities in concreto. We are away from the abstraction of the city as perception or the city as a frame. The question to be asked therefore is not ‘what is a city?’ This very question ‘What is this?’, as Deleuze has put it, assumes the simplicity of ‘essence’. Asking it, reduces the city to a logic of contradiction, caught between the pincers of being and non-being, ordering it by what it is and what it is not, and ultimately draws us away from reality. Another way of setting the question of exploring a city’s specificity is to assume that the insignificant, the details, the banal, could contain the significant, or the ‘essential’, and only in different properties and events. The questions to ask might be: ‘how does a city work?’, ‘Who and what sets it in motion?’, ‘In what cases?’, ‘How and where?’, ‘Where and how?’, ‘What are its modalities of action?’, ‘How does a city become traceable?’, and ‘Under what circumstances can a city be seen, knowable, grasped, and composed?’ Moving beyond the existing trends of ‘subjectivist’ and ‘critical-historicist’ approaches to cities (the subject and the objective frame), and responding further to these questions by drawing meticulously on the same quasi-ethnographic vignette from Calvino, what is offered here is an argument for a richer urban anthropological

The happy city 183 practice informed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT) (Latour and Yaneva, 2008) in the form of a manifesto of four points.

Follow slowly! Do not rush to explanations! Follow a dog biting into a piece of polenta, a horse as it jumps, an officer as he smiles, a painter as he paints a colourful francolin; there is nothing behind these actions that could explain the shape they take. Social forces, economic factors, or cultural and contextual explanations despite, or because of, their simplicity are too general, too detached from the real to explain the specific actions witnessed (Latour, 1988, 155–176). Instead of these already prepared explanations, we simply witness urban life happening, and the numerous events unfolding. To be able to follow and grasp the specificity of a city, we need to embrace a ‘slow’ mode of enquiry. That is, an enquiry which reclaims the art of dealing with and learning from what some may consider messy and contingent, and what escapes the objective categorisations of traditional disciplines. Slow enquiry can also be understood as what is opposed to ‘quick’ typologies and bullet point as ways of understanding urban reality that rely on stable definitions and categories. Yet, it is impossible to understand and account for cities in concreto without tracing the paths and flows of a variety of non-humans that circulate within them. Circulate, but also connect, and thus how they enact the thread of happiness. Far from the dominant anthropocentric urban narratives, the type of description offered by Calvino gives speech to that which has no language: to the bird, the pergola, the horse, the dog, the polenta, the ragout. They are all part of the story to the extent that they rely upon action. It is through the sliding of action from subject, to model, to potential space, to objects that urban events occur, and actions are effected. In other words, what does it mean to follow the non-humans that make a city possible, coherent, graspable? Rare are the empirical accounts that attempt to do so. As Cronon argues: ‘If we concentrate our attention solely upon the city, seeing in it the ultimate symbol of “man’s conquest of nature”, we miss the extent to which the city’s inhabitants continue to rely as much on the non-human world as they do on each other’ (Cronon, 1991, 18). Instead of falling into the trap of typologisation and explanation, we need fresh accounts of the city that will describe and deploy the urban through the many traceable connections of humans and nonhumans. There is neither simply a child nor a dog, nor a francolin, a painter, nor a woman in love, and a white lace umbrella. Instead, what enacts the chain is ‘a child who laughs seeing a dog that has jumped’ or ‘an umbrella-maker who is celebrating’, or ‘an officer who is smiling as he jumps’. Follow them, trace and account for their repetitive moves as slowly as possible, and what will be seen is a city that is not made just by powerful men, but a city populated by many characters (children, dogs, masons, merchants, horses, birds, and polenta) as they do things, a city that emerges as it traces many intricate relationships with a variety of non-humans. By following how these non-humans move back and forth between sites will allow us to witness how a city emerges, becomes knowable, and works.

184  Albena Yaneva

Trace the relations and the dispositions! As the actions unfold in this urban scene, we also witness a variety of non-humans as they reveal qualities that they have not manifested before. In this active regime, the ‘knowledge that,’ as propositional explicit knowledge (theoretical or factual) about the city, and the ‘knowledge how,’ as a skill, craft, and way to put something into action, that is situated, implicit, performative and non-propositional, co-exist and define each other in a relational way. The skill behind a good ragout, well-made scaffolding, or a finely painted francolin feather gradually overlaps and defines the knowledge about the city where the ragout, the scaffolding, and painting become possible. The distinct ways of knowing how to jump, to smile, to catch the polenta, first overlap with the knowledge about that city, then rarify, and eventually lead to the production of new propositional knowledge (and ultimately, to a new knowledge that this city is experiencing a moment of happiness). Thus, moving beyond the dichotomy (Marchand, 2001) of that/how, a dispositional way of knowing emerges in the web of the actions described. In this versatile web, the modalities of the knowing how (to paint, to jump, to smile, to sell an umbrella, to make a good ragout) of some actors condition the knowing that of others, and vice versa. Disposition includes the particular arrangement of objects as well as the situation at hand. It is effective and renewable; it is flexible in terms of improvising new relationships between knowns and unknowns. Crafting new arrangements, as strategic set-ups of objects, distances, viewing and tactile positions, of gestures and moves, the web that connects the child to the polenta, to the mason, to the scaffolding, to the umbrella maker, to the white lace, to the officer’s horse, to the flying francolin, to the red and yellow hues of the painter, generate a ‘potential born of disposition’ (Jullien, 1999, 32), as a configuration of new relations where knowing that city becomes possible. As busy as they might be to pass the action, the humans witnessed in this scene, rarely have the time for a ‘WOW!’ moment to really engage with the objects with the degree of admiration that the happiness regime implies; you would hardly hear them say, ‘god, I am happy! (in this unhappy city)’. The aesthetic judgement is suspended. Rare are the moments of shared aesthetic admiration of the white lace umbrella or the francolin. The contact between humans is so mediated by long chains of actions that it becomes an additional obstacle for immediate aesthetic engagement. Even the most intimate relationship described here, between the lady and the officer in love, is mediated by the transaction of the umbrella, the jumping horse and the enigmatic smile. Non-humans glance at humans, talk back to them, who rarely have time to contemplate them. Tracing various modalities of attachment, such a description of the city makes us move both beyond the cognitivist, rationalist perspective that situates the cogito or brain processes in the centre of urban knowing, and beyond the phenomenological perspective situating the body and the senses in the centre of knowing. Exploring a different ‘way of knowing’ the city as movements, as achievements of repetitive work, of experience (Grasseni, 2007), of timing and spacing, of inter-corporal and inter-textual activities, a ‘slow’ ethnography suggests a symmetrical ecological approach to the urban. This

The happy city 185 approach emerges from the relational dispositions of humans and non-humans, in their dynamic timing and spacing, and captured both in specific sites and larger networks. Being happy in a city emphasises the active and reciprocal nature of knowing, as a way of connecting to a plethora of non-humans participating in urban life; this, in return, influences how a city is understood. The relational perspective to the city (Amin, 2007; Amin and Thrift, 2002) advocated here is one that scatters urban life along a series of sites and circulations, reinstating previously ignored areas of contemporary urban life: from the presence of non-human activity to the centrality of distant connections.

Capture the small! To gain a realistic view of the city, an oligopticon (as opposed to a panopticon way of exploring the city) is needed. By this neologism, Latour means ‘narrow windows through which, via numerous narrow channels, we can link up with only some aspects of beings (human and non-human) which together comprise the city’ (Latour and Hermant, 1996, 173). Calvino’s excerpt can be read as a perfect case of an oligopticon. Here, the city does not emerge as a framework within which we move; if we consider it as an objective frame, this prevents us from understanding what is so particular about living in a city. Alternatively, favouring the point of view of the pedestrian, of the flâneur, of the person strolling in a city, will not help us get a better understanding of cities either. Instead, we should access those channels that enable us to connect the frame with the person moving within it because the ‘frame itself is made of nothing more than traces left by other individuals who have moved about or are still there, in place’ (Latour and Hermant, 1996, 30). We can understand the specificity of a city only if we are able to follow these channels, suspend the zoom, and multiply the connections between its different views. To see Paris or Manchester, just like in Calvino’s Raissa, we should relocate the sites where we talk of a city ‘as a whole’, and focus on the fundamental invisibility of all the oligoptica: sites where very little of these cities can be seen, but it can be seen well. Some oligopticon cases are quite revealing: if, instead of embracing the official discourse of city planners, architects, politicians, or investors, we rather follow how a new building emerges and becomes a landmark, like the OMA Factory in Manchester (Mommersteeg, Forthcoming), or trace the material and infrastructural texture of the ecology that emerges in the construction of the ‘the graphene city’ in Manchester again (Blackwell, Forthcoming), or follow and map the controversies unfolding in the making of the Blanka tunnel in one of the oldest cities of Europe, Prague (Kourri, Forthcoming), we rarely witness a city, Manchester or Prague, ‘as a whole’. We rather observe cities that are composed by a mass of moves, disagreements, detours, and disconnected statements, whose circulation, from point to point, from site to site, make a city work. Accounts produced ethnographically can also better capture the practical relations between the large scale and the modification of the human and non-human associations. A better understanding of cities could be gained by literally keeping our compass sights on the paths through the city, on the paths into and out

186  Albena Yaneva of it, following the routes that link the humans with the natural world, the subjective with the objective, the built with the unbuilt, the small with the big. To miss following these traces and accounting for these paths is to miss what the city is. Trace the urban processes (ecologies, developments, unfolding controversies and disputes), suspend the zoom, multiply the adjunctions between the different statements, re-localise the sites where one talks about a city, and you will see an invisible city (rather than a visible, perceivable entity), that is to be composed, recollected, and aggregated (Latour and Hermant, 1996).

Avoid simplistic comparisons! Drop the traditional divide between the unity of urban nature versus the diversity of urban cultures! To provide slow accounts of cities would also mean to avoid falling into the trap of culturalism. But how can we trace a city without embracing the culturalist discourses of urban difference? Is a controversy in Prague different than the controversial planning scheme of the Northern Powerhouse in Manchester? The danger when we talk about different cities is that we often refer to local treatments of the universal. We often assume that there is a unique, non-situated urban nature, which makes all cities have common features: infrastructure, markets, transport networks, landmark buildings, and city authorities. While, at the same time, culture is taken as variable, relative, situated. Mancunians will always, one can easily assume, do things differently than the inhabitants of Prague. This makes us compare cities in China with cities in the United States, cities in the South with cities in the North. However, to understand the cities we trace, we need to account for what is specific to Manchester or Paris or Prague. That is, to treat these cities as pertinent ethnographic objects: the urban as describable, accountable; and culture, as an ontological quality and not just attributes. Drawing on novelists like Calvino can also inspire urban authors and designers to perfect their ‘art of describing’ cities, and to produce accounts that trace and measure the pluriverse of urban life without replacing the specific with general. It is therefore critical to reinvent the narrative techniques that help us gain access to the particular, to grasp the unique, and to offer an adequate description on the basis of the series of situations that are accounted for. Equipped with various tools of description, both discursive and visual, the accounts of the ANT-informed urban anthropologist and practitioner should deploy cities as networks, instead of merely ethnographically describing, or unveiling in a critical fashion, what is behind them: the culture or the social forces at work. To deploy means to account with meticulousness the performances of entire collectives of humans and nonhumans (reminiscent to the collective of jumping dogs, laughing children, celebrating merchants, smiling officers, flying francolins, and women in love, as witnessed in Calvino’s Raissa). Instead of relating action simply to a particular agent or explaining it with enduring historical structures and urban systems, the aim of an ANT urban anthropology is to capture that thread that connects a polenta, to a pergola, to a mason, to a ragout, to a painter, to a jumping horse.

The happy city 187 Sketching these actions in a variety of urban situations allows us to dislodge the city from the subjectivity of individual perspectives, of lone pairs of eyes or single voices. It helps us describe a city from within; a city that does not emerge in a series that implies logical sequence or a hierarchy, but rather in a network in which one can follow multiple routes and draw manifold ramified conclusions. An ANT approach also advocates a respect for what things communicate without words, tracing the irreducible proliferation of objects, buildings, times, spaces, and people, and thus placing the enquiry within the heart of urban life. That is, a better way to capture the ontological granularity of cities, both in trouble and happiness.

References Amin, A. 2007. “Re-thinking the Urban Social.” City, 11 (1): 100–114. Amin, A., and N. Thrift. 2002. Cities: Reimagining the Urban. Cambridge: Polity Press. Barthes, R. 1975. The Pleasure of Text. New York: Hill and Wang. Beaumont, M., and G. Dart (eds.) 2010. Restless Cities. London: Verso Books. Blackwell, B. Forthcoming. “Building a Graphene City: Infrastructuring a New Urban Ecology in Manchester.” PhD diss., The University of Manchester. Calvino, I. 1972. Invisible Cities. New York: Harcourt. Cronon, W. 1991. Nature’s Metropolis. Chicago and the Great West. London: W.W. Norton. Grasseni, C. 2007. “Communities of Practice and Forms of Life: Towards a Rehabilitation of Vision?” In M. Harris (ed.), Ways of Knowing: New Approaches in the Anthropology of Knowledge and Learning, 203–222. New York: Berghahn Books. Jullien, F. 1999. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China. Translated by Janet Lloyd. New York: Zone Books. Kourri, D. Forthcoming. “Unfolding the Blanka Controversy: A Tunnel of Many Worlds.” PhD diss., The University of Manchester. Latour, B. 1988. “The Politics of Explanation: An Alternative.” In S. Woolgar (ed.), Knowledge and Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge, 155–176. London: Sage Publications. Latour, B., and E. Hermant. 1996. Paris, Invisible City. Paris: Les empêcheurs de penser en rond. Latour, B., and A. Yaneva. 2008. “Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move: An ANT’s View of Architecture.” In R. Geiser (ed.), Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, 80–89. Basel: Birkhäuser. Marchand, T. 2001. Minaret Building and Apprenticeship in Yemen. New York: Routledge. Mommersteeg, B. Forthcoming. “Variations of a Building: An Ontological Politics of Architecture.” PhD diss., The University of Manchester.

22 The aesthetics of documenting urban and landscape assemblages Peter Connolly

It is an ‘on-the-street’ type of knowledge.

Gilles Deleuze (1978)

Assemblages, affects and experimentation Deleuze and Guattari attempted an ambitious task, theorising the different realms of self-organising activity in the universe: physiochemical, biological, and animal–environment combinations. This essay produces a brief, and hopefully accessible, encapsulation of the last of these ecological realms; animal– environment relations, which draws on and moves beyond the other two; this is the realm of ‘assemblages’, as most obviously presented in ‘A Thousand Plateaus’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988). I do this as there are few accounts by and for designers that stay true to the ideas of the original writers and are accessible and useful to them. This is the realm that they devote most of their attention to, and it this realm that is of most relevance to spatial designers. In their investigation of assemblages, they give particular attention to human–environment assemblages. This account draws upon other texts by them and other writers to clarify important aspects that are not explicitly spelt out in ‘A Thousand Plateaus’. This is important, to avoid the problematic ways that the notion of assemblage has been understood in contemporary discourse. Attention in this essay is focused on describing the notion of assemblage and this has meant that a presentation of examples of documentation of urban landscape assemblages is limited to three, and it attempts to briefly illustrate something of how this notion works in such documentation. Organisms are not separate from their environments. An assemblage is a complex connection between organisms and their environment. Assemblages spontaneously and continually form and reform when an animal is in life. This connection produces involuntary empowerments, or abilities to do things. These empowerments are called affects. The empowerment; the affect, is the connection, the relation. A series of other terms are equivalent or near equivalent, such as affordances, powers, propensities, tendencies, etc. Affects are what agency really is about.

Aesthetics of documenting  189 An assemblage is not just a collection of things. Nor is it an abstract relation between separable things. A separable thing is an artificial abstraction from what happens in life. To be clear, an assemblage is not an assemblage unless power/ affect is being produced. Power, in this sense, is not something that we possess (‘they are powerful’), or that one body has over another; it is a power that only exists through it being produced – it perpetually accompanies organisms-in-theworld-in-life, as part of being an assemblage. An assemblage is not something that is physically assembled; a mechanism. Deleuze and Guattari sometimes uses the term ‘machine’, as a synonym, partly to stress the involuntary nature of the workings of assemblages. As Colebrook points out, ‘machines are not . . . mechanisms’ (Colebrook, 2001, 56). In life, this connection between animals, such as humans, and their environments is perpetually changing. Assemblages are perpetually being empowered and disempowered by variations in their connections to the world. Some conceptions of assemblages posit that the perpetual physical changing nature of assemblages is what is of interest about assemblages. Despite how widespread this idea is, physical change is really only of interest if it involves change of affect, of power. Simply put, physical change in time or space is not affect. Change over time, or of arrangement or of form, is not power. The complex open system nature of assemblages means that variations in connections to the world are closely and widely distributed in space and time. Assemblages are not entities in a context. The whole world, in a very certain, very selective, and infinite way, is involved in the life/power of an assemblage. This is not just the empowerment of the organism’s body, but involves certain relations of the whole environment combining with certain relations of animal (human) bodies to produce a power that is distributed across the combined set of distributed relations in space and time. An assemblage is less a thing than a power-producing process. In writing this essay right now a number of things are part of my chapterwriting-assemblage: the sense of an impending deadline including having to finish this before going out this evening; my laptop, mouse, and attached monitor; certain slightly energetic repetitive or non-vocal music; enough sleep, coffee, and food; a relatively clear desk; comfortable room temperature; having done my fair share of the housework; having all of the paper and various tools close at hand including my many notes; the cleanliness of my glasses; access to the internet; sitting in a relatively attentive relation to the computer and screen and a process of getting myself into the right frame of mind, including having some unconscious or conscious rationale for writing the essay; and a process of organising my thoughts via a sketch outline. My writing-assemblage power, which I can become conscious of and feel, emerges when these elements or something like them are all connected together. As the reader knows, even with the equivalent of all of this ‘taken care of’, it may all still fail. An assemblage is an art, a practice, a challenge. Variations in any of these factors can be felt, and will likely affect the writing-power of the assemblage. For instance, if I turn off my attached monitor or try to write the essay with a pen, I will likely feel a loss of power. When all is going well I, or rather the assemblage, surfs and experiments with the variations

190  Peter Connolly of power that are being produced by the assemblage. So, the role of each part of the assemblage, of each relation involved in this power, can be felt by the assemblage, though not usually consciously. For territorial animals, which includes humans, territoriality is simultaneously produced by, is part of, and enables the power of the assemblage. The process of production of territory is the process of the production of the world, or ‘worlding’, that accompanies the assemblage (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, 280 and chapter 11). Territory might involve defensiveness, as found in biological science, but in terms of assemblages it instead involves and is part of the distributed power of the assemblage. Territoriality might involve the assemblage appropriating any relation or aspect of the world as part of the assemblage. ‘What we term the machinic is precisely . . . [the] synthesis of heterogeneities as such’ (1988, 330). Shifts in any relation or aspect of the heterogeneous nature of the world can be, if significant, felt by the assemblage. Assemblages are always invested, oriented, or motivated in some way and are continually improvising, experimenting, in response to changed situations in the world. Assemblages are problem-oriented. Evolution is traditionally said to involve shifts in a population of a species due to genetic variation. However, Deleuze and Guattari open the creativity of Nature way beyond genetic variation to include real-time experimentation between organisms and their environments, which they term (‘creative’) ‘involution’; to highlight a different process; that of assemblages, and their creativity. Assemblages and their creativity are an important part of Nature and are continually evolving through experimentation to solve problems, such as survival, the production of practices, and the production of joy. Assemblages have to be artfully organised and managed.

Affect, expression, and resonance Deleuze (1990, 118), following the ideas of Spinoza from the seventeenth century, says that there are two powers of Nature: the first is the power that assemblages produce, which I have been describing; this distributed power that is produced by the assemblage. This is not an organism doing something, but Nature doing something. Spinoza thought that Descartes’ separation of the subject and object had taken power away from Nature (ibid., 227–234), and so he developed the basis for what became assemblage thinking to recover the power of Nature. Spinoza can perhaps be considered the first modern ecological thinker. The second type of power, inseparable from the first, is the power of sensing the first type of power. The first type of power is useless unless an assemblage can sense and experiment with it. With this power comes a sensation or feeling of this power. Both the power produced, and the feeling of this power are produced before consciousness; and consciousness can then feed-back and feed-forward into this feeling of power. This is the power of consciousness. This sensation happens if a change in the environment is relevant to the assemblage. This happens as the brain, functioning prior to consciousness, and in relation to a future-oriented motivation, involuntarily makes sense of the present

Aesthetics of documenting  191

Figure 22.1 Fieldwork studies. The drawings on the left, which combine with text, are part of a series of fieldwork studies documenting how variations in the spatial relations between a moving walker and a coastal edge result in variations of ways of experiencing. The drawings on the right are design drawings which flow from the felt experience of the production of fieldwork drawings on the left. Source: Drawings by Jessie Wrigglesworth

192  Peter Connolly inputs through its connection to all relevant past empowerments. In this process, and before we have thought, all relevant past involuntarily experienced inputs and powers ‘come to meet’ and determine the present and involuntarily experienced inputs; so that a relevant action is able to flow from the problematic change of the situation. Deleuze calls this power-to-sense-power, ‘expression’ (ibid., 13). Expression in the Deleuzian sense is a type of knowing which has nothing to do with selfexpression or conscious subjectivity. An assemblage aesthetically evaluates what it is doing through expression. This is an aesthetics of affect, an aesthetics of the power of the assemblage by the assemblage. It evaluates the power it is producing via a feedback which Deleuze calls ‘resonance’. This is a sensation that the organism-as-part-of-an-assemblage (or an assemblage-involving-an-organism) involuntarily experiences through its participation in the power of the assemblage. Most of our responses and actions are habitual, but when something from outside demands it, we can more consciously engage this knowledge and hence power. Habit is a mechanism that allows organisms not to have to focus fully on everything. Habit forms from past experimentation with the powers of the world and also provides the means to evaluate, via resonance, a significant change in a situation and, in response, the potential of actions that are more-than-habitual. This resonance particularly happens through more-than-habitual actions and thought provoked by salient shocks to the system. An organism-as-part-of-anassemblage varies what it is doing in response to something salient and if this variation has potential in relation to the situation, it receives a feedback which not only registers the potential of its action but also intensifies the action. The same thing occurs with thought. An animal evaluates, prior to action, which way to approach prey, or how to reach some fruit, through feedback associated with the evaluation. As Bruce Baugh (2010, 93) points out, in French, the word expérience means both experience and experiment. The human animal, like other animals, can evaluate the power of something and its relevance and potential through perception and thought. When they produce an ‘adequate thought’ (Deleuze, 1990) they get an empowering feedback which tells them that they are ‘onto something’. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio (1999) highlights the centrality of affect to human life and describes the ability to sense a change in the body without it actually happening, through imagining or thinking (or drawing). This ability functions via what he calls the ‘as if body loop’. It is ‘as if’ the body had really been changed but it was not (Damasio, 1999, 76). This is the neuroscience version of the process of giving expression. Extending upon this ability to think and imagine the affectuality of experience without actually experiencing it, a well-known New Zealand dance choreographer, Michael Parmenter (2010) describes how when we watch a dancer we feel what they feel; we feel the power and potential of what they feel. Spinoza says that ‘everything we understand . . . including the essences of other things . . . we understand on the basis of conceiving our own essence’ (or power), and, ‘insofar as it expresses. . . [our own] body’s essence. . . [we have] the power to conceive other bodies’ (Deleuze, 1990, 304, 313). This allows us, if we approach them in the right way, to connect with other human–environment

Aesthetics of documenting  193

Figure 22.2 Documentation of ‘relays’: these types of drawings are combined with text to identify, in this case, how and when synergies between members of the ‘Men’s Drinking Club’ (photograph shown above) and other members of the public start and stop occurring in this public space. These synergies are affects and the product of assemblages involving the ‘Men’s Drinking Club’ and certain other members of the public in certain situations. Source: Images by Rebecca Freeman

194  Peter Connolly assemblages. As Parmenter says, we feel the dancer’s empowerments. This is not about knowing what someone is thinking, which is really not that important, but about connecting with the involuntariness of the experiencing, or the power of the assemblage. Some design schools, designers, and design writers, without knowing about Deleuze’s idea of this feedback or resonance, but through experiencing it, call it ‘friction’, ‘traction’, ‘connection’, and even ‘resonance’, as well. They have, however, tended to understand this in terms of a typological centre or as a reflection of the designer’s input, feelings, or intentions.

Expression, sense, and experimentation As mentioned, the process discussed here is called expression, and what this feedback expresses is called sense. Therefore, sense comes with affect. Sense is not meaning. Sense registers not only the power produced, but also the uniqueness and significance of this power. It is when the world floods in. The world flooding in, expressed in this sense or significance, is a certain and salient infinity of the world expressing itself in this power, in the experience and inseparably with it, comes the variability, indeterminacy, and potential of this power. The sense of a line drawn or a description given, insofar as it effectively ‘connects’ or gives expression, is an expression of the power, singularity, and potential of this line drawn or words spoken to connect to the power of what it is describing or creating. This sense allows assemblages to experiment. These powers, these affects, especially affects specific to the landscape and urban space have not been embraced in landscape and urbanist discourse. Importantly, when you connect to the power of an assemblage, you are also simultaneously able to sense the various parts of the assemblage and how they interact and this allows you to start to produce a set of drawn relations which are both an abstraction of and also referential to relevant spatial relations of the landscape assemblage. Expression allows you to feel and make a connection to the varying power of the landscape through the variation of drawn relations. Expression brings drawings to life and hence allows you to experiment with life through the drawings. For Deleuze and Guattari, to experiment is to ‘follow’. This is an entirely pragmatic type of knowledge or practice. It involves ‘intuition-in-action’ by the ‘cosmic artisan’. It is not easy to perceive affects and assemblages as they happen pre-consciously, a-consciously, impersonally. Engaging affects involves an ‘on the street type of knowledge’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1978, 23); and ‘it is not easy to see things in the middle’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, 48). Affects are challenging and require a different type of perception (Bonta and Protevi, 2004, 123). Expression makes affects ‘perceivable’. Expression is also part of everyday actions, perceptions, and thought, but common sense and habit tend to obscure it. Expression is a practice and needs to be developed. It is a key part of the ‘apprenticeship’ to the world that Deleuze and Guattari continually championed. Expression is arguably the most important Deleuzian concept and probably the most ignored, especially in the design world. It is an assumed part of the more action-oriented sense of experimentation in ‘A Thousand Plateaus’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988).

Aesthetics of documenting  195

Figure 22.3 Top: temporary squatters appropriating an area outside school gates. Bottom: section showing synergies between the informal and formal households outside the school. Source: Images by Ivy Llanera The footpaths (2m) are the only left-over spaces in this residential zone. The informal settlers normally occupy spaces near access ways, in this case, a school gate, because it allows them to interact with other people. They respect major access ways and the school gate is left unblocked. The combination of the wall and the trees, which provide shade in this hot climate, allow the dwellings to exist outside the school without disrupting any activities inside. The dwellings look tidy and do not obstruct the main street. 1 The proximity to formal middle-class houses allows the informal settlers to feel that they are part of a wider community. Children from the informal households are able to play on the streets with children from the formal households. This is very unique characteristic of Filipino residential street culture. 2 In some cases, families living in these informal dwellings become caretakers of either the school or nearby stores when they acquire the trust of those people. 3 Some informal dwellers next to the school extend their dwellings and occupy a bit of the street to use as a market stall to sell snacks to students and to neighbours.

196  Peter Connolly

Landscape and urban assemblages The practice of working with assemblages and affects is foreign and challenging enough. The challenge of working with urban and landscape assemblages and affects is only starting to be embraced (Connolly, 2002, 2004a, 2004b, 2013; Barnett, 2013; Meyer, 2015). This is partly to do with the distributed nature of landscape and urban assemblages. An urban/landscape affect or power is produced by an organism’s body connecting not only to what is close at hand, but variously to the whole geography and the whole temporal unfolding relationship to this geography. Landscape architects have affirmed the central determining importance, potential, and great challenge of engaging with the pre-existing landscape for the design of urban and landscape space. This is partly because the pre-existing landscape is an open continuum, and because we cannot presume what it might be doing, what is involved in this doing, and even where to start looking, not to mention the significant challenges of producing a repertoire of representations that allow you to engage in a medium that resists easy representation. This challenge of the pre-existing landscape has been affirmed as one of mystery, discovery, and experimentation itself. The pre-existing is complex and confronts designers with how to deal with such complexity. The notion of assemblage, whilst foreign, clarifies these challenges as the most relevant way to engage with this complexity is through what it does. Complexity is not numerical, it is not a collection of layers; it is self-organisationally coordinated, and produces very singular affects, and where the whole complexity gets expressed in the particular affect. Complexity in assemblages is not something that can be understood via science, but complexity expressed through singularity explains wonder. An assemblage is a process of coordination of complexity; a process of connecting-up that does something. So, to start to connect to affect is to start to connect to the whole connectivity, that is this complexity, and the particular way that it is coordinated. This account in itself attempts to be expressive. It works if it gets you to feel something of what it is saying. It is aimed at bringing to life the notion of assemblage. It also seeks to communicate the collectively ignored or forgotten, yet central notion of expression, which in turn allows designers a way to connect to what is meant by assemblage. In practice, assemblages and expression require each other. This essay is included in this book section partly to draw attention to the variety of existing expressive practices that can be sensed in the examples of documentation in the section. This may help to initiate further lively development with such documentation, and with ongoing experimentation with social ecologies; one that will synergise with biological ecologies and be made real through ecologies design practice.

References Barnett, R. 2013. Emergence in Landscape Architecture. London: Routledge. Baugh, B. 2010. “Experimentation.” In A. Parr (ed.), The Deleuze Dictionary, 93–95. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Aesthetics of documenting  197 Bonta, M., and J. Protevi. 2004. Deleuze and Geophilosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Colebrook, C. 2001. Gilles Deleuze. London: Routledge. Connolly, P. 2002. “What Is Design Research in Landscape Architecture? Problem, Technique, Ambition.” In P. Connolly and R. Van Der Velde (eds.), Technique: Landscape Architecture Graduate Research, 1995–2002, 20–33. Melbourne: RMIT University Press. Connolly, P.  2004a. “Embracing Openness: Making Landscape Urbanism Landscape Architectural, Part 1.” In J. Blood and J. Raxworthy (eds.), The Mesh Book: Landscape/ Infrastructure, 76–103. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing. Connolly, P.  2004b. “Embracing Openness: Making Landscape Urbanism Landscape Architectural, Part 2.” In J. Blood and J. Raxworthy (eds.), The Mesh Book: Landscape/ Infrastructure, 200–218. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing. Connolly, P. 2013. “An Affirmative Open Systems Landscape Design Assemblage.” PhD diss., RMIT University. Damasio, A. R. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. Deleuze, G. 1978. “Lecture on Spinoza 24/01/1978” (Seminars given between 1971 and 1987 at the Universite de Paris VIII Vincennes and Vincennes St-Denis). Date accessed November 2019. Available online: https://www.webdeleuze.com/textes/14. Deleuze, G. 1990 (French Ed. 1968). Expressionism in Philosophy. Translated by M. Joughin. New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1988 (French Ed. 1980). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. Meyer, E. 2015. “Beyond ‘Sustaining Beauty’. Musings on a Manifesto.” In M. Elen Deming (ed.), Values in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design: Finding Center in Theory and Practice. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Parmenter, M. 2010. Personal communication.

Part 3

Ecologies design practices

23 Introduction On the need for and potentials of ecological design practice Mark Southcombe

The importance of reciprocal relationships between place and people has become more urgent as an increasingly short-term approach to building, and the realities of climate change and our effects on the planet compound over time. Three stories that follow demonstrate the problem with, need for, and positive potential for changed practices. 1

In 1976 Architects JASMaD designed and occupied a sweet little six floor building at 2 Whitaker Place, Auckland. It was well located, modest, human scaled, and resourceful. The windows opened for natural ventilation and the flared red spandrels gave shade and sun protection. The floor plates were not too deep so everyone got natural light and outlook. The upper floor had gently sloping sarked timber ceilings, and a tiny upper attic level above was a great place to gather and meet, crafted around an understanding of retreat. It was located sensitively within its site and contours on the edge of a hill with glimpses of the harbour down Grafton valley. Entry was to an upper floor over a small bridge with gardens on each side. It was of its place and time, its character based on its specific relationship to place, climate, and the values and needs of the people who designed and constructed it. It actively contributed to and in a small way helped craft the wider urban environment through its sensitivity to its urban fringe context.

No. 2 Whitaker Place is now crowded in by developer buildings focused on maximising short-term profit over the qualities of the architecture, landscape and place that they collectively create. They seem indifferent to, or unable to connect with the effects of the buildings on the collective wider environment. Most urban environments are built in this mean-spirited, exploitative, and transactional way, as a fast means for people with no real connection to place to extract short-term economic value. The building, its means of production, and its wider environmental consequences for the ecological contexts are a bi-product of the extraction of financial resources. 2

I spent some time in Browns Bay, Auckland in 1985 when it was in transition from a beach holiday place to a regular suburb. Each day I would sketch

202  Mark Southcombe the place, its people, and everyday life. There were a series of unoccupied houses close to the suburban shopping centre that had overgrown established gardens that created a green oasis in the city used by people as an informal park. One destructive day bulldozers completely destroyed the precinct. With a noisy rush of diesel fumes the houses were wastefully crushed and disposed of. The ecological wealth in topsoil, trees, and gardens was stripped from the site as it was reshaped into a flat clay pad devoid of its previous connections to its gently sloping context. It wept water from its cut edges and the underlying water table. This story highlights the ecological reality of interconnected sites and building processes, alongside the disempowering dilemma of separated, individual, disconnected sites, and building processes. How can the building industry be different through its design and building and un-building processes to reverse its destructive effects on wider living ecologies that it is a part of? How can it recognise, maintain, and augment the cultural, biological, and geological networks of systems inherent to places? As a young architect the only way I could resolve this ‘have to break some eggs to make an omelette’ dilemma was with the intention to make a difference myself; to somehow design as an ‘aligned other’ with sensitivity to site, people, and places. Where you build you plant trees, you repair what you have deformed to restore and remake a renewed environment. This individual integrity is of course the starting place, but it can also have a limited effect because of separation of individual property parcels and building projects. The separation of design and construction production systems, dispersed multiple global material supply chains, and the economic and physical separation of projects from each other all artificially sever connections to underlying ecologies and frustrate ecological design. 3

A very large country villa designed by Sir Miles Warren in Whanganui, New Zealand, was for a time in 1990 left unoccupied and unmaintained. Within 12 months the manicured garden and landscape had become ‘overgrown’, encroaching on the house and growing over many of its surfaces. The natural environment without the help or interference of humans was quickly regenerating. Such is the positive potential of natural ecologies.

The proposition that ecologies can be designed is challenging. Biological ecologies don’t need human intervention to exist. But they are affected by human cultural ecologies, and we are in a period of history when the effects of human settlement and expanding resource use on biological ecologies are significant. They impact, change, constrain, displace, degrade, and at times destroy underlying host ecologies. Ecologies are being transformed through ignorance and unintended consequence. The question this section of our book addresses is how can design occur integrally with its ecological effects? A series of critical essays and case studies in this book section explore processes, realities, and contexts for working in an ecological manner. The interrelationships

Introduction 203 of Indigenous people to land and places, and the associated sensitivity of Indigenous practices to their ecological contexts is one theme. Kiddle’s essay introduces Indigenous Aotearoa New Zealand practices such as the embedded idea of belonging to a place through ancestry. This reverses the western ownership model and creates a different framework for design practices. This inextricable linkage between people and place brings with it the responsibility of kaitiakitanga (stewardship) of the natural living environment. Linked to this is the effects of time; ‘people pass but the land remains’, for example. The effects of changing needs and a functional or economic obsolescence are discussed by Barber, Hirth, Southcombe and Tenorio, and Pelsmakers, Poutanen, and Saarimaa. Buildings are typically static and fixed in a certain place and time. They are designed, built, and remodelled over time, and these essays discuss how they need to react and adapt. The three case studies by Partington and Pedersen Zari, Buxton, and Ibell model and explore how different types of practices can create different ecological outcomes. This occurs through an important case study for a socially and ecologically regenerative architecture that contributes more than it takes, and through theoretical design responses that acknowledge and empower the agency of living systems as a means to respond and adapt strategically in association with an ecological entity and host ecologies. Chicca discusses the effects of unsustainable practices and the urgent need for interface between ongoing sustainable practices and sustainable design; Hirth, Southcombe, and Tenorio discuss the need for a different type of architectural education to better connect design practices to need and ecologies; and Deamer critically considers wider exploitative global socialeconomic forces at play in the labour market, and ethical implications for the ecological practice of architecture. Issues related to comfort, and consumption excesses are discussed by Barber and lead to the final essay by Pelsmakers, Poutanen, and Saarimaa on buildings and their ecological adaptability. Our architecture and design processes affect other projects and contexts in their making, over their lifespan, and beyond. The provocation of this section of Ecologies Design: Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism is that we can evolve how we design and build to recognise, respond to, and connect to the ecological communities we are integral with to create ecological design practices.

24 Indigenous ecological design Rebecca Kiddle

Ko Hikurangi te maunga (Hikurangi is the mountain I  belong to), Ko Waiapu te awa (Waiapu is the river I belong to), Ko Ngāti Porou te iwi (Ngāti Porou is the tribe I belong to). This is my pepeha, a tribal proverb of introduction, (Moko Mead and Grove, 2004) said at meetings, presentations, really anywhere where introduction is needed. These types of proverbs are said before one reveals one’s name as the name is understood to be least relevant to the building of connections between the speaker and the audience. Rather, connections between people and the land are privileged. The name given to the people group Māori is tangata whenua, literally meaning ‘people of the land’. At the very heart of Māori and other Indigenous communities’ knowledge sets and worldviews is an understanding that we are inextricably connected to the physical environment. Indigenous communities around the world have thought about, responded to, embedded themselves in and enacted sustainable practice with respect to the physical environments for mai rānō (from long ago). Biological and human or social understandings of ecology then are inextricably linked. This chapter focuses on the implications of Indigenous knowledges using the case of mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledges) for spatial design in Aotearoa New Zealand. According to Kia Eke Panuku (n.d.), mātauranga (knowledge) Māori provides insight into Māori worldviews and ways of knowing. Specifically, a Māori way of knowing centres on understanding the whakapapa (where and who someone or something is from) and the inter-relationships between people and nature. They write: The Māori epistemological penchant for trying to understand the connections and relationships between all things human and non-human first, ‘what is its whakapapa?’ [geneology] provides a contrast to the western paradigm that tries to seek knowledge and understanding by a close and deep examination of something or someone in isolation first, ‘what does it/he/she do? What is it for?’. This overarching principle of interconnectedness is important in understanding what Indigenous ecological design might look like in today’s world. However, in order to move towards something more tangible, a more detailed analysis is

Indigenous ecological design 205 needed. Unfortunately, colonisation has left many of us without a deep and sustained understanding of mātauranga Māori. The handing down of Indigenous knowledges has perhaps been made more challenging by the fact that Māori traditionally transmitted knowledge orally. If this transmission is severed, there is no easy way back to securing knowledge again. Nonetheless, whakataukī or proverbs do provide insight into Māori (or particular tribal) ways of knowing the world. Overwhelmingly, nature is used in these proverbs to convey metaphorical or actual meaning. Basil Keane (2007) writes, ‘in traditional Māori society, people looked to nature for sayings and whakataukī (proverbs) about human activity. This practice continues today’. Paul Moon (1997) adds that these proverbs established standards of behaviour. As with most oral cultures, proverbs fulfilled an important function in traditional Maori communities. They could serve as a generalised code for establishing standards in ethical and moral behaviour. This was particularly so in traditional Maori communities, where many proverbs emerged which had widespread application, and became almost part of a moral code. This chapter draws then on commonly used whakataukī to elicit key principles important for building an ecological design rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing. There are thousands of whakataukī that one might draw on (see for example Mead and Grove, 2004) however, this chapter identified ones that are in common and current parlance.

He aha te raruraru? (What is the problem?) Spatial design in New Zealand does not, for the most part, engage with Indigenous knowledges. Architectural education typically is steeped in Western theory and practice and Indigenous knowledge sets are largely avoided or not known to educators. When Indigenous knowledges are used in practice, the weight of centuries of Indigenous knowledge is often simplified to be about superficial patterning on facades or the planting of native trees and bushes. This is further complicated by a lack of focus in architectural education on the political nature of spatial design and the spatial design histories of Aotearoa New Zealand rooted in the colonial project. Consequently the importance of good processes that enable Indigenous groups lacking power in the design of space is lost on all but the most conscientious of graduates and those forced, through winning projects with Māori communities or large civic projects with a government prescription, to engage with tribal groups. Relatedly, currently the only review of Indigenous knowledges with respect to spatial design in Aotearoa at any of the spatial scales talked about in this book happens in Auckland and Christchurch (post-earthquakes) through urban design review panels on which representatives of the Māori design community sit. Even then, only projects which are deemed by local government officers to have particular relevance to Māori are reviewed on this basis.

206  Rebecca Kiddle Alongside this, urban planning regulation has worked to actively deny Māori ways of living and the Indigenous ecologies that underpin this. For example, many Māori living in rural areas prior to a period of rapid urban migration postWorld War II, lived in and around marae (meeting houses) in small settlements called papakāinga. In 1953 the Town and Country Planning Act was brought in, in response to concerns of sprawling towns and cities and the loss of agricultural land, amongst other things (Perkins et al., 1993, 19). One of the outcomes of the Act was to zone these essentially small urban settlements as rural land inhibiting the number of dwellings that could be built on the land surrounding these marae. This discouraged both traditional Māori ways of living and the ongoing occupation of ancestral land, bleeding tribal resources as tribal members dissipated to find work and housing in the cities (personal communication with Hirini Matunga, 2015). This response to planning policy privileged the productive, capital-creating capacity of land over all other landforms, uses, and meanings. Once Māori families arrived in the city they were pepper potted (spread) by the government housing department throughout the city, with the motivation to assimilate Māori families into a Pākehā way of life, which ultimately led to many Māori losing connection with their culture and language. Māori families were forced into the only housing available – generally suitable for nuclear families – despite many Māori families being multigenerational in nature. Again, mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge), with respect to housing design, was disregarded by government, one of the largest house builders of this time, until 2002 when the government’s housing provider, Housing New Zealand Corporation, commissioned its first Māori housing design guide, Ki te Hau Kainga: New Perspectives on Māori Housing Solutions (Hoskins et al., 2002). Alongside this, a further travesty is the inability of some to see the possibilities inherent in mātauranga Māori for responding to the ‘wicked’ problems of climate change and the depletion of our environmental resources. It would seem foolish to disregard a robust knowledge set that has developed iteratively over time and which, at its heart, acknowledges that human beings can only ‘be’, if the ecosystems around them are healthy. To date, the predominately Western approach to environmental concerns has not worked given an often myopic focus on just one part of the ecosystem (Bentley and Kiddle, 2014) and some now believe that Indigenous people and their knowledge sets and worldviews, are the only hope of the world surviving environmental problems. See for example Chomksy (2016) who suggests that Indigenous people are the only group working to halt the impending doom that is climate change. Myopic responses to these environmental problems have disregarded the interrelatedness of all things. Bentley and Kiddle (2014) offer the following example, To take a well-known example, traffic congestion has been tackled through increasing road capacity which, in turn, has encouraged automobile dependency. This has reduced opportunities for natural exercise, which facilitated, in part, an increasing incidence of obesity. This has led to growing problems of public health, exacerbated by increased exhaust pollution, which contributed

Indigenous ecological design 207 to increased carbon emissions, which played a role in climate change, which led to flooding in some places and desertification in others, which reduced agricultural yields, which supported the increasing use of chemical fertilisers, which leaked into water systems and created oceanic dead zones and so on. It would seem clear that a holistic response is required. If Indigenous ecological design might offer some solution/s here, what exactly does this look like? Analysis of whakataukī (proverbs) suggests four key ideas of relevance: 1) The importance of a temporal approach, 2) The overarching importance of Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) and ecosystems, 3) The importance of a collaborative approach, and in contrast to the infamous words of Rem Koolhaas, 4) ‘Don’t F@#k the Context’ (Koolhaas and Mau, 2002). These are explained in detail in the following section.

The importance of a temporal approach An Indigenous ecological approach would foreground a temporal methodology as exemplified in many whakataukī. Key ones commonly used include, Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua (The land is permanent, people disappear) used to highlight the transitory nature of human beings as compared with the permanency of land. Ka mua, ka muri, (Looking back to move forward) talks of the need to respect and learn from what has gone before in order to make the best decisions for the future. Indigenous peoples across the globe have similar philosophies to this including some Native American tribes who talk of seven directions. These include north, south, east and west along with upwards towards father sky, down towards mother earth and inward to our hearts (Portman and Garrett, 2006; S7 Directions Architects, n.d.). Finally, Ki te Kahore he whakakitenga ka ngaro te iwi (Without the foresight of vision the people will be lost) a proverb said by Kingi Tawhiao Potatau te Wherowhero, to highlight the urgency of unity and strong Māori leadership. All of these proverbs demonstrate the importance of time, of looking forward and backward, up and down and holding all temporal dimensions when considering the actions of the present.

The overarching importance of Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) and ecosystems As noted earlier, many proverbs draw on natural elements to convey meaning. In addition to that, a number of proverbs specifically speak to the importance of ecosystems. ‘Te toto o te tangata, he kai; te oranga o te tangata, he whenua’ (While food provides the blood in our veins, our health is drawn from the land) clearly equates human wellbeing with land. If the land is not well, the people cannot be well. Manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata, haere whakamua (Care for the land, care for the people, Go forward) again speaks to the interconnectedness of people and land and the need to care for both in order to move forward. And, finally Toitū te kupu, toitū te mana, toitū te whenua (Hold fast to Māori culture; if you hold fast to the language, the authority and the land, the essence of being Māori remains).

208  Rebecca Kiddle Land is held up as being of equal importance to the language and culture and there is a sense that these are connected. Indigenous ecological design has long considered the importance of the interrelationship between humans and ecosystems.

The importance of a collaborative approach Collaboration is another key theme found in common whakataukī. Nā tō rourou, nā taku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi (With your food basket and my food basket, the people will thrive) suggests that if we work together, this brings prosperity to all. Ki te kotahi te kakaho ka whati, Ki te kapuia e kore e whati (Alone we can be broken; standing together, we are invincible) is self-explanatory, conveying that there is strength in collaboration and working together. He rau ringa e oti ai (Many hands make light work) parallels the well-known English proverb. And finally two whakataukī that acknowledge success as a collective attribute. Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini (My success is not my own, but from many others) and He ora te whakapiri, he mate te whakatakariri (There is strength in unity, defeat in anger/division). These all suggest that Māori have always been aware of social ecologies. Extrapolated to ecological design thinking, collaboration between stakeholders and designers to develop solutions to design problems is essential. For the most part, Māori communities have been left out of design conversations even when these decisions have impacted heavily on Māori communities. The role of mana whenua (tribal group of a particular place) has more often than not been side-lined in spatial design projects despite the fact that the very role of mana whenua is to hold kaitiaki (be guardians) of that particular piece of land. These groups should be at the centre of spatial design decision making.

Don’t F@#k Context Finally, an Indigenous ecological design approach would respond meaningfully to the context in which a project is located. Rem Koolhaas’s infamous proclamation ‘F@#k Context’ seems to support a kind of globalised design approach, the antithesis of Indigenous worldviews. Yu Kongjian, author of another chapter in this book, asserts the need for a new type of landscape that respects context. He is critical of the work of international architects like Rem Koolhaas noting their irresponsible response to working in the Chinese context. He states: Architects who want to design in China need to understand what the vernacular actually is, how you grow rice, how you can build a productive landscape. The Westerner’s understanding of Chinese culture is all about high culture. . . . The real landscape of the people who live and produce is disappearing. . . . Many architects are like emperors; they want their buildings to dominate, to construct objects that are very monumental that’s Rem Koolhaas. . . . It makes society go down the track of already abandoned values. The values of the emperor become dominant, going against democracy. (Yu in Miller et al., 2006)

Indigenous ecological design  209 Māori worldviews are similar to Yu’s inference that the values articulated by spatial design outcomes matter and those values should work in harmony with local context and culture. Common whakataukī that exemplify the inextricable link between Māori and their context include the famous, Ko te awa ko au, ko au te awa (I am the river and the river is me). This proverb, originating in the Whanganui region, has led to an innovative legal framework Tutuku Whakatupua Te Mana o te Awa Tupua that recognises ‘the intrinsic ties that bind Te Awa Tupua [the Whanganui river] and its people to each other’ (Te Aho, 2014). The river now has legal personhood in order to protect the river’s interests (New Zealand Parliament, 2017). A second commonly used whakataukī, E kore au e ngaro he kākano i ruia mai i Rangiātea (I will never be lost for I am the seed that has been scattered from Rangiātea) speaks to the fact that we are always connected with our tribal roots no matter where we are. The corollary of this is that every context in Aotearoa is special with people who have tribal affiliations and associated culture and even language particular to that place. Ruia’s explanation of the proverb states, ‘A person, like a seed, is inextricably linked to generations who have gone and are yet to come. He kākano [the seed] comes from somewhere, it belongs to someone or something, and it cannot be isolated or detached from those connections. It has both history and potential’ (Ruia website, n.d.). In Māoridom, our home contexts are special and despite talking, in the pepeha of the mountain, river, and tribe to which I belong, I have never lived in this area. Yet there will always be a connection between me and that place as it is where my ancestors are from and where my tribal roots lie. All good spatial designers working in New Zealand should start with trying to understand the values of the mana whenua of the place in which they work, drawing off these to develop a sense of rooted identity in their designs and re-right historical injustices which have meant that Māori identities have been erased from the landscape. Context then, is fundamental to Indigenous ecological design.

Conclusion If Chomsky (2016) is correct and Indigenous people and their knowledge sets are key to the survival of the planet, spatial designers need to take heed of Indigenous ecological thinking. Using whakataukī (proverbs) as a way into Māori worldviews and values is one way to understanding relevant Indigenous knowledge relevant to an ecological design approach. Four relevant themes emerge. The first is acknowledging the importance of a temporal approach. Spatial design should then draw from not only contemporary innovations but look to the past to understand knowledge that has to be built up iteratively over time. An example of this from Indigenous knowledges is the concept of mauri (life force). For Māori, all living things have mauri include ecological systems so spatial design needs to constantly respond to supporting non-human and human ecosystems simultaneously. Relatedly, the overarching importance of Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) and ecosystems is a key tenet in Indigenous ecological thinking. Third, Indigenous

210  Rebecca Kiddle knowledges suggest the Importance of collaborative approaches to spatial design in contrast to the pernicious ‘star-chitect’ philosophy that underpins some design practice and theory building. Finally, resiling from spatial design rooted in an approach that does not respect context is central to Indigenous ecologies design. Place and Indigeneity are inextricably connected, and to design without a deep appreciation of the context and particularities of that place supports, I  would argue, ongoing colonisation of these very spaces. To this end, more work is needed to both understand, and then spread understanding, of the confluence of Indigenous worldviews and spatial design. We need to be conscious of the whakapapa (genealogy) and the connections between humans and nature if spatial design is to meaningfully respond to the world’s most wicked of problems.

References Bentley, I., and R. Kiddle. 2014. “The Performance of Place.” Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Urban Design and Planning, 168 (1): 42–48. Chomsky, N. 2016. Chomsky: World Indigenous People Only Hope for Human Survival. Date accessed May 1, 2019. Available online: www.telesurenglish.net/news/ChomskyWorld-Indigenous-People-Only-Hope-for-Human-Survival-20160726-0040.html. Hoskins, R., R. Te Nana, P. Rhodes, G. Philip, and C. Sage. 2002. Ki te Hau Kainga: New Perspectives on Maori Housing Solutions. A Design Guide Prepared for Housing New Zealand Corporation. Date accessed April 30, 2019. Available online: www.hnzc.co.nz/ assets/Uploads/ki-te-hau-kainga-new-perspectives-on-maori-housing-solutions.pdf. Keane, B. 2007. Kōrero taiao – Sayings from Nature – Sayings and Proverbs from the Natural World, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, September 24. Date accessed May 5, 2019. Available online: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/korero-taiao-sayings-from-nature/page-1. Kia Eke Panuku. n.d. Mātauranga Māori. Date accessed May 5, 2019. Available online: https://kep.org.nz/assets/resources/site/Voices7-16.Matauranga-Maori.pdf. Koolhaas, R., and B. Mau. 2002. Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large, 2nd ed. New York: Monacelli Press. Mead, H. M., and N. Grove. 2004. Nga pepeha a nga tipuna. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press. Miller, A., C. Martin, and S. Kerr. 2006. “Landscape Urbanism: Kongjian Yu Discuss Ecology, Cultural Identity.” Landscape Urbanism, (15): 30–32. Date accessed May 6, 2019. Turenscape Available online: https://turenscape.com/en/news/detail/146.html. Moon, P. 1997. Traditional Maori Proverbs: Some General Themes in Deep South, 3 (1) (Autumn). Date accessed May 1, 2019. Available online: www.otago.ac.nz/deepsouth/ vol3no1/moon2.html. New Zealand Parliament. 2017. Innovative bill Protects Whanagnui River with Legal Personhood, March 28. Date accessed May 1, 2019. Available online: www.parliament.nz/en/ get-involved/features/innovative-bill-protects-whanganui-river-with-legal-personhood/. Perkins, H., P. A. Menon, S. Swaffield, and L. Gelfand. 1993. “The Urban Environment.” In P. Ali Memon and Harvey C. Perkins (eds.), Environmental Planning in New Zealand, 19–32. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press. Portman, T. A., and M. T. Garrett. 2006. “Native American Healing Traditions.” International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 53 (4): 453–469.

Indigenous ecological design 211 Ruia website. n.d. Whakataukī. Date accessed May  5, 2019. Available online: http:// appraisal.ruia.educationalleaders.govt.nz/About-this-website/Whakatauki. S7 Directions Architects. n.d. Approach. Date accessed May  1, 2019. Available online: www.7directionsarchitects.com/approach/. Te Aho, L. 2014. “Ruruku Whakatupua Te Mana o te Awa Tupua – Upholding the Mana of the Whanganui River.” Māori Law Review. Date accessed May 1, 2019. Available online: https://maorilawreview.co.nz/2014/05/ruruku-whakatupua-te-mana-o-te-awatupua-upholding-the-mana-of-the-whanganui-river/.

25 Ngāi Tūhoe’s Te Kura Whare Our living building Jerome Partington and Maibritt Pedersen Zari

Introduction: the historical and cultural context of Te Kura Whare Tūhoe are Ngā Tamariki o te Kohu, the children of the mist. They are the descendants of the mountains, waterways, and the ever-present mist. Tūhoe origins therefore lie in the land itself. Te Urewera is the homeland and the heartland of the Tūhoe people, and expresses and energises Tūhoe identity and way of life. It is made up of dense native forests, lakes, and mountains in the eastern middle part of Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island) of Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Ao Tūhoe (the Tūhoe world view) is a living system worldview. If the land, air, water, and ecologies are healthy, then the people are healthy too, but only when they are in purposeful relationship with each other and the land. After the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, colonisation accelerated in Aoteaoa New Zealand. Tūhoe continue to experience severe negative social and economic impacts as a result of this which has included confiscation of land and other injustices (Hill and McKay, 2018). A suppression of mauri (life force) and wairua (spirit) has occurred, leading to economic, social, cultural, and ecological values, policies, laws, and practices that are at times inappropriate for Tūhoe. Many of these practices and laws have directly prevented Tūhoe from living within and managing their living socio-ecosystem. Lack of access to land, waters, and biodiversity has resulted in degraded ecologies, infrastructure, and housing, while constricting potential Tūhoe economic activities. After a long fought for settlement with the Crown (through the Government of New Zealand, New Zealand is part of the British Commonwealth), an apology was made and a re-designation of Te Urewera occurred, from a government owned ‘National Park’, to the forests, lakes, and mountains having the status and rights of a living entity (Kawharu, 2018). The Te Urewera Act of 2014 set this into New Zealand law (New Zealand Government, 2014). The purpose of the Act was to establish and preserve in perpetuity a legal identity and protected status for Te Urewera for its intrinsic worth; its distinctive natural and cultural values and the integrity of those values; its national importance; and in particular for the strengthening and preservation of the connection between Tūhoe people and Te Urewera. Part of this act called for the creation of the Te Urewera Board. The

Ngāi Tūhoe’s Te Kura Whare 213 board’s role is to speak as Te Urewera’s voice, and to provide governance and management in accordance with the principles of the Act. The board is made up of six Tūhoe and three Crown members. The board produced Te Kawa o Te Urewera in 2017. Its purpose is not to act in the same way as a normal management plan, but rather to ‘record principles as law, and traditions and beliefs in the sense of a better future’ (Te Urewera Board, 2017). It states: ‘Tūhoe tikanga (cultural practice) mirrors Te Urewera lore and accepts responsibility for the impact of peoples’ needs and lifestyle on her ability to balance the needs of all that rely on her living system. With a sense of moral duty Tūhoe accepts a responsible living standard, living within her means, and respecting the need for everyone’s sustenance and benefit.’

Te Kura Whare: a gateway to the future The 2014 design and construction of Te Kura Whare, Tūhoe’s political and cultural hub, was a critical and purposeful step in providing the platform and space for Tūhoe to engage with past and current issues stemming from colonisation in a way that arises from the core of Tūhoe’s relationship with Te Urewera on their own terms (Figure 25.1). The 540 m2 Te Kura Whare led, through practice of Tūhoe culture, to regenerative opportunities designed to sustain future generations (International Living Future Institute, 2019). Te Kura Whare is strategically

Figure 25.1  Te Kura Whare, Dawn Opening. Source: Samantha MacGavock

214  Jerome Partington and Maibritt Pedersen Zari located at the entrance to Tāneatua, a town on the edge of Te Urewera, 20 kms inland from Whakatāne in the Bay of Plenty, Aotearoa New Zealand. The core purpose for the building was one of regenerating the mauri (life force, vital essence) of Tūhoe and their relationship to Te Urewera. It affirms mana motuhake (selfdetermination and independence) of Tūhoe over the lands of their tīpuna (ancestors), creating a place of support for the tribal advancement under the umbrella of Tūhoe Te Uru Taumatua (International Living Future Institute, 2019). The project team was led by Tūhoe including Kirsti Luke (chief executive), Tamati Kruger (chair of the board) and Te Hau Tutua (Tūhoe Whaira infrastructure and resources general manager). Design began in 2011 facilitated by the leadership and listening skills of Ivan Mercep, co-founder of Jasmax, the project architects. Tūhoe wanted the building to explore the question: ‘how can we live here in our places, as kaitiaki (guardians/protectors), adding vitality and health to the living system so that we can sustain ourselves, generation after generation?’ The building was to materialise and symbolise opening the Tatau Pounamu (greenstone door) to Tūhoe’s evolving future, so that people gained motivation, skills, and hope as a step towards sustaining life. Te Kura Whare was intended to be not just a functional administration, learning, and meeting place, but also a place to further Tūhoe self-determination and land management, and to act as a ‘wake-up call’ and a physical marker of the journey ahead. It was designed to enable remembrance of what it means to be Tūhoe and to be part of a healing process. Protection, display, and access to taonga (historic and valuable documents and artefacts) required a library and archive. A core Tūhoe value of manākitanga (hosting and care responsibilities particularly of manuhiri or visitors) required expression through a welcoming reception area, a café that would serve healthy nutritious food, and a commercial kitchen supplying both the daily café and large hui (gatherings) in the hall.

Tūhoe’s living building The Living Building Challenge (LBC) was adopted as a tool to drive successful transformational outcomes in the Te Kura Whare project. The LBC is a philosophy and an advocacy tool for transforming the architecture and building industry with a detailed post-occupancy certification pathway (International Living Future Institute, 2016). The International Living Future Institute based in Seattle launched the LBC in 2006 (Kwok and Grondzik, 2018, 267). Rather than simply ‘doing less harm’, which is often the case in green or sustainable architecture (Reed, 2007), the LBC asks ‘what does good look like’? And ‘how can we see nature and living systems as the benchmark of our success’? LBC imperatives (Table 25.1) provided a detailed holistic design framework for the expression of Tūhoe lived values, and a means for community engagement in design and construction processes. What made the LBC a powerful tool in this project was its alignment (in some areas) with the Tūhoe purpose of regenerating their future, through strengthening their relationship with each other and Te Urewera. Construction led by Arrow was complete by 2014. A minimum Living

Ngāi Tūhoe’s Te Kura Whare 215 Table 25.1  Te Kura Whare Living Building Challenge imperatives LBC Petals and Imperatives

Examples of how Te Kura Whare meets LBC imperatives

Place

The site is located on a greenfield. Long-term planting strategy that comprises of a combination of native trees, fruit trees, bee friendly plant species, and edible gardens. The relationship of Tūhoe to Te Urewera implies that Tūhoe already meet the spirit of this imperative. A fleet of 4 hybrid vehicles is an initial approach to more sustainable transport. 100% of water used is collected and discharged on site; maximum rainwater catchment is 123,000 litres per month; 2 storage tanks of 25,000 litre capacity; estimated water use per month is 40,000 litres; black water is filtered via a botanical wastewater treatment system (5,000 litres per day). Passive solar design; natural ventilation; bank of photovoltaic panels (grid connected); batteries, solar hot water heaters; heat pumps. Carefully proportioned window panels ensure visual external access, fresh air and adequate day lighting. Building tested for levels of Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide, Respirable Suspended Particulates and Total VOCs. Ongoing management includes cleaning using non-toxic products. Several biophilic design elements including timber ‘forest’ structure and the giant timber arch, which simulates the flight path of Tama-nui-te-rā (the sun) across the sky. This represents the potential to fulfil the aspirations of the people. The Red List (worst class in toxic chemicals) free specification of materials raised awareness across industry. Reduced use of concrete. Predominantly timber building and local sourcing of materials creates a significantly low footprint. Offset with Carbon Credit purchase. Forest Stewardship Certified (FSC) timber is used; work to shift NZ certification industries. Native timber sourced from dead and downed native trees within Tūhoe lands; earth building (local clay and labour used. See Figure 25.2). Holistic lifecycle material conservation management plan formulated; ongoing waste reduction practices.

1 Limits to growth 2 Urban Agriculture 3 Habitat exchange

Water

4 Human-powered living 5 Net Positive Water

Energy

6 Net positive energy

Health and Happiness

7 Civilized environment 8 Healthy interior environment

9 Biophilic environment

Materials

10 Red list 11 Carbon footprint 12 Responsible industry 13 Living economy sourcing 14 Net positive waste

(Continued)

216  Jerome Partington and Maibritt Pedersen Zari Table 25.1  (Continued) LBC Petals and Imperatives

Examples of how Te Kura Whare meets LBC imperatives

Equity

Cultural café; hosting of iwi events (expression of manākitanga). Interactive outdoor space for people to congregate; absence of fencing; publically accessible space. Locally sourced materials and labour; certified materials used.

Beauty

15 Human scale/ humane places 16 Universal access to nature 17 Equitable investment 18 Just organisations 19 Beauty and spirit

20 Inspiration and education

Incorporation of Tūhoe tikanga in the design and building process. There is a source of beauty associated with this kaupapa (thinking foundation) that is able to transcend time and generations, therefore connecting past, present and future Tūhoe. Interactive touch screens display current building performance; Tūhoe art works; community skills development; open days and tours; publications in media.

Source: Adapted from: International Living Future Institute, 2019

Building Challenge compliance intention has arisen for all future Tūhoe design and construction projects. The project was the first of its kind in Aotearoa New Zealand. It followed a more traditional linear design process guided by highly engaged clients. Throughout the design and construction, Tūhoe made decisions and set the direction as guided by their principles and culture. The consultants and contractors benefitted from the generous sharing of Tūhoe and as a result took a principles-based exploration approach, bringing all ideas to the table. This creative mixing and testing of ideas and solutions, coupled with Tūhoe aspirations, was common to all stages from briefing, through to handover and operation, and even LBC certification in 2017. Non-Tūhoe people involved in the project greatly developed their understanding of Indigenous approaches to land, design, and space in general. This influenced their practices, and motivation to do similar work in the future.

Te Kura Whare’s impact on Tūhoe Important to the project was a strengthening of Tūhoe unity, independence, and self-awareness through active engagement with the design process, ecological technologies, inclusion of arts, and the local sourcing of materials, thinking, and people. Approximately 70 per cent of the project construction cost was spent within 100 km radius of Tāneatua. This generated income for local people and businesses as well as new knowledge. The construction contract was set up to maximise inclusion of many Tūhoe tāngata (people) and local subcontractors (Figure 25.2).

Ngāi Tūhoe’s Te Kura Whare 217

Figure 25.2  Te Kura Whare making of Earth Blocks. Source: Ana Dermer

Te Whare Kura’s ecologies impact Demonstration of Tūhoe connection to Te Urewera through Te Kura Whare set a high bar for artistic and architectural expression. The LBC helped to define this for the project (Table 25.1). This is expressed through: all energy being generated on site from low carbon solar technologies and batteries, which also offers resilience in the event of extreme climatic events and climate change in general; storage of carbon in the timber structure to reduce climate change impacts on the health of people and place; elimination of the use of any toxic chemicals in the materials used; self-sufficient water cycles including harvest, use, and treatment; constructed wetlands using native plants to remove nutrients and bacteria from wastewater; replanting of the site with edible species where appropriate; and extensive planting of native plants and trees.

Te Whare Kura’s impact on architecture and construction in Aotearoa New Zealand Te Kura Whare is the first Certified LBC project outside the USA and set a new standard of ecological building performance in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is also

218  Jerome Partington and Maibritt Pedersen Zari a powerful gateway to encourage project teams to engage with the potential of local living socio-ecosystems and to deliver regenerative development. Living Future New Zealand Rākeiora is the not-for-profit volunteer home of the LBC in Aotearoa New Zealand. It started during the Te Kura Whare project and has continued advocacy work and stimulated the market for more LBC projects in Aotearoa New Zealand since, accelerating perhaps a shift towards a Living Future; one where built environment thinking, investments, and efforts, create value in the whole socio-ecosystem, not just value in terms of financial and infrastructure aspects. The project generated significant awareness of Living Buildings in Aotearoa New Zealand and attracted international interest. The making of the documentary Ever the Land (Grohnert, 2015), contributed to this in part and captured this moment in time of creating Te Kura Whare, during the final negotiations of settlement with the Crown and when Te Urewera was re-designated as a ‘living entity’. Interest has also been fuelled by extensive materials research which engaged the construction industry, and began a process of transformation in the materials industry, to one where transparency of the make-up of building materials and components is accompanied by a desire to eliminate toxic chemicals from construction. Working within the LBC framework was an ‘unknown’ when the team began and a large amount of resource and time went into researching how to achieve the net positive energy and water aspects of the project, along with how to eliminate waste from landfill, manifestation of biophilic responses, and in particular the investigation of the 750 building materials used in Te Kura Whare so that they would meet LBC requirements. Because this research barrier has been removed to a certain extent in the New Zealand context, subsequent projects have benefitted from this intensive research work. This has resulted in a steady stream of LBC projects being completed in New Zealand including: Camp Glenorchy (near Queenstown); Sustainable Coastlines (Auckland); and several houses (Living Future Institute, 2019; Gulcher, 2018; Vector, 2018). Te Kura Whare has directly influenced two further developments including the Waikaremoana Visitors Centre and Te Tii, a business and visitor hub in Ruatāhuna, both Tūhoe led projects in Te Uruwera, designed by Tennent Brown Architects. Tūhoe are also engaged in developing a prototype LBC living village of 25 houses and shared facilities as a model for housing their people and sustaining Te Urewera. Te Kura Whare’s success is also influencing the early stages of development of the Living Pā LBC campus development at Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Lessons for practitioners from Te Kura Whare Jasmax’s experience of being architects for this project led them to suggest that replicating a project like Te Kura Whare within a traditional developer framework will require an Integrative Design Process (Reed, 2009), based on a deep understanding of the essence of the place (wider site context), and an honest

Ngāi Tūhoe’s Te Kura Whare  219 engagement with all stakeholders including the living ecologies of the site itself. This should be explored through whole living systems nested thinking (Mang and Haggard, 2016), in order to deliver similar outcomes and create value adding relationships through architectural interventions. Further lessons for practitioners that have emerged from the Te Kura Whare project include: • • •

• • •

Working with passionate and informed clients is important in the creation of more exemplar projects such as Te Kura Whare. Design teams should allow for extra time in the early design process to ensure that the fundamental purpose of the project is defined, understood, and shared by all stakeholders. Working with and learning from Indigenous cultures provides important and meaningful opportunities to shift built environment paradigms. Design teams must genuinely listen and create space for Indigenous peoples to lead. The formation of personal relationships takes time and is key to success. It is important not to prejudge potential outcomes through unconscious biases; the project should be explored using collective intelligence by ensuring all stakeholders are at the ‘table’ from the beginning of the project. Harmonise rather than compromise; seek the greatest ecological and social value, and wellbeing benefits from each aspect of the design. Utilise challenging ecological performance goals and tools (such as LBC) in order to push design thinking and to help generate better built environment and social outcomes.

Tensions created with projects like Te Kura Whare centre relate to the current development paradigm that degrades ecological, human, and social systems to maximise profit and the quantity (rather than long-term quality) of built infrastructure (Pedersen Zari, 2018). Te Kura Whare and the LBC directly challenge the acceptability of typical notions of lowest first cost, and lowest acceptable quality models which ignore future liabilities and degrade people, society, and ecosystems to maximise profit. By integrating ecosystems and people along with the need to sustain future generations, architectural professionals and indeed all those involved in the building industry can reach a different value proposition. It is true in the Aotearoa New Zealand context that the costs to realise LBC projects in terms of the fees, time, and money needed to research technical solutions have dropped. This has occurred at the same time as the need to add serious considerations of ecological system health into built environment design projects has increased (Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ, 2019).

A call to action As regenerative thinking and integrative design are increasingly practiced in an architectural design sense, measuring outcomes (both qualitatively and quantitatively), and sharing findings can be an important catalyst that serves to create an environment where built environment professionals can evolve and embrace all

220  Jerome Partington and Maibritt Pedersen Zari stakeholders, including Nature, in all stages of building projects. Architects and related building professions need to actively seek clients, projects, and opportunities to explore and consolidate new living building practice. Changes are urgently needed to shift conventional architectural and design practices to embrace a more holistic notion of ecological design; one that embraces culture and greater meaning. Living buildings created within a regenerative design context demonstrate that it is possible to build in a manner that leaves the whole living system, including social and cultural ecologies and the people within them, healthier and able to evolve over time. Te Kura Whare exemplifies one possible pathway towards this.

Acknowledgements Jasmax’s architect lead on the project was Ivan Mercep (1930–2014). Jasmax’s Brendan Himona, Jerome Partington, and Michelle Johansson were also integral to the project, particularly in terms of LBC certification. The LBC engineer was Trish Love (Trish Love Consulting). Michael Newcombe was the structural engineer, and David Thomas led the BECA team for electrical, hydraulics, mechanical, and data engineering services. Other specialists included: EWATEC solar hot water; Alphatron for solar electric; Quasar for metering and displays; and Pure by Plants for the constructed wetlands. Construction was by Arrow, lead by Jeff Vivian. Sam McGavock led the community engagement projects.

References Grohnert, Sarah. 2015. Ever the Land. New Zealand: Moonsoon Pictures International. Gulcher, F. 2018. “Camp Glenorchy: Net Zero Accommodation.” Architecture Now, March 27. Hill, C. J., and B. McKay. 2018. “Binding Significance: Reflections on the Demolition of the Aniwaniwa Visitor Centre, Te Urewera.” Fabrications, 28 (2): 235–255. International Living Future Institute. 2016. Living Building Challenge 3.1. Canada: International Living Building Institute and Cascadia Green Building Council. International Living Future Institute. 2019. Living Certified Te Kura Whare. International Living Future Institute. Date accessed August  2019. Available online: https://livingfuture.org/lbc/case-studies/te-kura-whare/. Kawharu, M. 2018. “The ‘Unsettledness’ of Treaty Claim Settlements.” The Round Table, 107 (4): 483–492. Kwok, A. G, and W. Grondzik. 2018. The Green Studio Handbook: Environmental Strategies for Schematic Design. New York: Routledge. Living Future Institute. 2019. Net Zero Energy Certified Zero Energy House. Living Future Institute. Date accessed August  2019. Available online: https://living-future.org/lbc/ case-studies/zero-energy-house/. Mang, P., and B. Haggard. 2016. Regenerative Development and Design: A Framework for Evolving Sustainability. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand. 2019. “Environment Aotearoa 2019.” In New Zealand’s Environmental Reporting Series. Wellington: Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand.

Ngāi Tūhoe’s Te Kura Whare 221 New Zealand Government. 2014. “Te Urewera Act 2014.” In Public Act 2014 No 51. Wellington: New Zealand Government. Pedersen Zari, M. 2018. Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry. Oxon: Routledge. Reed, B. 2007. “Shifting from ‘Sustainability’ to Regeneration.” Building Research and Information, 35 (6): 674–680. Reed, B. 2009. The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building: Redefining the Practice of Sustainability. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Te Urewera Board. 2017. Te Kawa o Te Uruwera. Te Urewera: Te Urewera Board. Vector. 2018. Leading eco Building Latest Evidence New Zealand is Switching on to Solar. Vector. Date accessed August  2019. Available online: www.vector.co.nz/news/ leading-eco-building-latest-evidence-new-zealand-i.

26 Design in relationship with an ecological entity Bridget Buxton

Cultural context Understandings of humans as distinctly separate and dominant over nature are increasingly unhelpful as people try to find solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss. To improve humanity’s existence on earth people must understand the limitations of human-centric thinking, and become aware of complex ecosystems and people’s place in them. Here I explore the implications of changing relationships between people, culture, and an ecological entity, Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River), New Zealand (NZ). In 1840 NZ’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, was prepared by representatives of the British Crown, who signed the English version. Indigenous Māori chiefs predominantly signed the Te Tiriti, Te Reo Māori (Māori language) version. Discrepancies in the translation between the two versions meant they were fundamentally different documents. Te Tiriti did not suggest to Māori leaders that they were transferring any real authority over their people and lands to a foreign power they had never met (Mikaere, 2013, 163). For the Crown however, their sovereignty was what the English version promised. The following decades saw Māori land stolen, divided, and developed by settlers with little regard for Māori or the unique NZ native ecologies. There was widespread clearing of bush and draining of swampland to create land suitable for housing, farming, and industrialisation. In just a few decades NZ’s landscape changed from being mostly forested to predominantly pastoral (Park, 1995, 13). Māori have lived in NZ for over a thousand years and have a well-established, intimate relationship with land, oceans, and ecologies (Mikaere, 2013, 157). Fundamental to their laws is the view that they are a part of the whenua (land) and the whenua is a part of them – an ancestor. Whakatauki (Maori proverbs) emphasise this relationship, for example: Kei raro i te tarutaru, te tuhi o nga tupuna The signs or marks of the ancestors are embedded below the roots of the grass and herbs (Wai 38, 1992, 49)

Relationship with an ecological entity 223 With this view comes responsibility or kaitiakitanga (guardianship) for the ecologies that support and provide for their people. Iwi (Māori kinship groups) such as Ngai Tahu have been protesting the failure of the Crown to uphold the terms of the Treaty since the 1840s (NZ Government, 1997, 13). In 1975 the NZ government created the Waitangi Tribunal to investigate Māori Treaty claims, and in 1985, extended the Tribunals mandate to allow claims back to 1840 (Ministry of Justice, 2017). A hugely significant new Act of the NZ Parliament has recently emerged from this process. To resolve a 160-year-old dispute, the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement Act) was passed in 2017. Significantly, the Act recognises that the Whanganui River has the rights of a legal person and therefore has self-ownership (Te Awa Tupua Act, 2017, 15).

Self-ownership of an ecological entity The recognition of an ecological entity as a legal person was a world first; a collaboration between Māori world views and the English common law system. It is an example of how Indigenous knowledge of nature–human kinship can influence Western legal systems and legally support symbiosis between humans and an ecology. The Te Awa Tupua Act illustrates the Awa (River’s) rights as if it was a person, and ensures humans uphold their responsibilities towards ‘her’. The term Te Awa Tupua (The River Ancestor) is all-encompassing; ‘Te Awa Tupua means the indivisible and living whole comprising the Whanganui River from the mountains to the sea, incorporating its tributaries and all its physical and metaphysical elements, and includes Te Awa Tupua as a legal person under the Te Awa Tupua Legislation’ (Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui, 2015, 9). The changed status of the Awa is also a call to action for design and planning professionals. What does it mean for design practices to recognise the innate value and rights of an ecological entity? The following case study is of an inquiry into how architecture and design practices and outcomes can recognise the Awa and respond to her as an ‘indivisible and living whole’ (Te Awa Tupua Act, 2017, 14). It responds to the wairua (the spirit) of Te Awa Tupua. This is more than the physical form of the Awa, its channel and bed. It also comprises her people, her history, her tributaries, her floodplains, and her spiritual presence. A series of architectural experiments explore relationships the Awa has with different scales of human presence such as the person, the town, patterns of settlement, and in the past, present, and potential future.

Whanganui historical context The Whanganui Awa has been shaped by distinctly different cultural relationships. It is NZ’s longest navigable river; which led to Whanganui town being constructed strategically close to the river mouth early in the 1840s. Over the next 150  years port dredging, channel blasting, wastewater depositing, hydropower

224  Bridget Buxton diversions, and agricultural development fundamentally changed the river and the way she makes her journey from the mountains to the sea. Settlers saw the river as a natural resource to be manipulated for their benefit. Environmental historian Catherine Knight, when discussing the Whanganui Awa, says: ‘the creation of a culturally desirable landscape from a European perspective meant the destruction of culture from a Māori perspective’ (2016, 64). In contrast, Māori understanding of the river as an ancestor comes with responsibility for guardianship of the river’s wairua. The river was relied upon for food, transport, and cultural customs. With this reliance came a lived understanding of the interconnectedness of ecology and humanity (Knight, 2016, 244). The four case study design experiments that follow aimed to provide design outcomes that could express and support the relationships between humans and the Awa, but also support its wairua and health beyond human interaction. They provide examples of how designers can interact with and respond to ecologies in an ethical, responsible, and empathetic way.

Design experiment 1: The Watchtower; the individual and the Awa, a sensory relationship This design experiment was a response to periodic flooding of suburban housing adjacent to the Awa in East Whanganui. In 2017 Horizons Regional Council announced that defensive stop-banks would not be maintained, and advocated a managed retreat of 100+ effected dwellings (2018, 15). The proposed Watchtower was a poetic response to emerging wetland conditions of the post-managed retreat zone (see Figure 26.1). The towers present a compelling imagined future designed

Figure 26.1  Design experiment 1: the Watchtower from the banks of the Awa.

Relationship with an ecological entity 225 to intensify the personal human–river relationship through attention to sensory experiences of place. The site is Kowhai Park, a linear park along the river’s ephemeral edge. Access to the Watchtower is over a bio-swale on floating boardwalks that rise and fall with tidal fluctuations. The towers lean in, facilitating visual connection and listening to the river. Their conic forms are rooted in the earth, the solid belly of the Awa, recognising her interrelationship with Papatūānuku (Mother Earth). On ascent of the largest tower occupants can see upriver and down towards the mouth, reflect on the Awa scale, and see her tidal and seasonal changes. A series of floating buoys pick up scientific readings that are displayed through interactive visual cinema in the base of the tower. The northern shoreline tower acts as a nursery and seedling centre, growing plants to help regenerate the floodplains. The third tower is a club house, boat launch area for waka ama (traditional canoe practice), and a jetty for fishing. It encourages physical interaction with the Awa and provides a platform for learning about her by the direct experience of being with her. The Watchtower is a lyrical, ephemeral response to the landscape. It is concerned with ‘hybrid’ conditions where multiple natural and social ecologies coexist and interact in a similar manner to the work of Matthew Butcher (Butcher, 2015, 226).

Design experiment 2 and 3: The Bridge and The Lookout; the town and the Awa, a collective history Another famous Whanganui whakataukī notes: ‘Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa ko au’ ‘I am the River and the River is me’ In Māori culture the stories of the Awa and the people of the Awa interweave inseparably. A series of design projects in the central town were devised to respond to the Awa by moving from the sensory experience of her physical form, to manifest her history and people. This occurs through an urban planning strategy to reconnect the town to the river, and link sites of important moments from her past. A floating pedestrian ferry bridge is a dynamic structure that connects the banks of the river and responds to the Awa in flux. Instead of spanning bank to bank, with piers within the Awa body assuming solidity and permanence, The Bridge is a more temporal ferrying system with jetty docks on either side (see Figure 26.2). The user descends and embarks on a journey across the water, feeling the rise and fall of Awa tidal fluctuations and downstream pull, smelling her salt and sulphur levels. Stories of ancestors on waka (traditional canoe) or steamboats, and the cable cars that were used to get from steep bank to bank are embodied through direct travel in her surface. The Bridge design also drew from historical references of pā auroa (a style of eel weir specific to the Whanganui region). These structures were set up seasonally

226  Bridget Buxton

Figure 26.2  Design experiment 2: the Bridge from the banks of the Awa.

along the edges of the Awa, to catch tuna (eel), a primary protein source for Awa people. Work to clear the Awa for steamboat navigation, and to control her flow, began in the mid-1880s (Wai 167, 1999, 70). The removal of rapids and building of groynes led to the destruction of eel weirs, and changes in Awa flows weakened the structures and affected fish movement patterns. The way pā auroa respond to specific Awa conditions provided precedent for the architectural approach. Their design responds to river forces and flows to form a structure that withstands the current without major land works. Textural qualities, layering and the form of The Bridge are reminiscent of pā auroa. Design Experiment 03: The Lookout links the important historical sites Pākaitore (Moutoa Gardens) and Pukenamu (Queens Park) with Mt. Ruapehu; the physical and spiritual source of the Awa. Pukenamu was a Pā (Māori fortress) in the 1830s before being occupied by British troops in the 1840s (Whanganui District Council, 2018, 14). Pākaitore was the site of a 79-day occupation in 1995, protesting ownership of the site, and also the wider ‘systematic alienation of land and river from Whanganui iwi’ (Harris, 2004, 134). The Lookout and associated path link these two significant sites and visually connect them to the maunga (mountain) source of the Awa, weaving historic, cultural, and ecological stories together. ‘The river is the central part of the history of this place, the carrier of the story, the bearer; the river is a waka itself’ (Sharpe, 2018). The design expands the colonial mind-set of a river being water in a channel. By weaving the stories of the Awa and her people into her associated public architecture, the design becomes an advocate for understandings of collective cultural history.

Relationship with an ecological entity 227

Design experiment 4: River Mouth Release; settlement patterns, relinquishing human control The role of architecture was questioned by the research process. The designs were inspired by the Awa, but were they acting reciprocally with her? Were they doing anything for her? Another Whanganui Māori whakataukī notes, ‘The Awa says “don’t talk about me, talk to me” ’. The question, what does the Awa want, emerged as the motivator for the last design test. With this came an emphasis on informing the project design as embodiment of an empathetic relationship that had been formed between the Awa and the author, and an objective to relinquish human dominance and find ways to help rectify past detrimental human interventions. River Mouth Release is a plan that returns agency to the Awa as she negotiates her exit into the Tasman Sea. The river mouth was shaped and controlled by settlers to facilitate shipping and port activities. In the early 1900s two large moles (piers) were constructed at the river mouth to help maintain adequate depth for shipping activities (Burgess, 1971, 11). This had significant effects on the river mouth and coastline; disrupting currents, sediment movements, and channel migrations. In recent decades port use has declined and maintenance of the moles and port basin have stagnated. Analysis of the river’s past and future flows and water level projections explored the impacts of engineered channelisation and its potential removal. The design proposal restores the estuary condition, widening the river mouth and facilitating new channel formation through the South Spit. This will once again allow the Awa waters to flush out to sea unobstructed. Current port operations interfere with the freedom and wairua of the Awa, so are reconfigured to act independently separating the port from the river mouth (see Figure 26.3). This is a significant shift from away from the dominant utilitarian view of rivers, recognising the intrinsic value of the Awa, and allowing her to redefine her fluctuating boundaries over time. The widening of the river mouth and the creation of a marginal tidal zone are also likely to have positive human benefits allowing port restoration and maintenance free of tension with the Awa, and also flood minimisation, habitat restoration, and natural water filtration. ‘Potentially the best way to prevent flooding is to give land back to our seas and river’ (Butcher and Noonan, 2013, 18).

Conclusion Te Awa Tupua Act is a unique and important step recognising the intrinsic value and potential agency of ecological entities within a European based legal system. The Act is a call to action for designers to recognise they are part of a wider cultural-environmental system. As a part of interconnected ecological and cultural systems design practices need to adapt to and respond to these systems with inquisitive, sensitive, and reciprocal proposals that accommodate rather than dominate. The case study entered into a relationship with the Awa through research and a series of architectural experiments specific to their site conditions; past, present,

Figure 26.3 Design experiment 4: map of imagined future once River Mouth Release has been implemented.

228  Bridget Buxton

Relationship with an ecological entity  229 and future. The Awa, or more fully Te Awa Tupua, was understood as an ‘indivisible and living whole . . . incorporating its tributaries and all its physical and metaphysical elements’ (Ngā Tāngata Tiaki, 2015, 9). With this as a primary concern of the design projects, every move was questioned as to how it impacted the multi-dimensional Awa. The design proposals recognise they are but a part of a wider, interconnected system beyond a single project site and time. The proposals can be assessed for their effects on the wellbeing of all cultural and ecological elements integral and connected to the Awa. These create a wider, extended context for design and its critique. The case study occurred through an interdependent process between a designer and an ecological entity. Spending time with the Awa and getting to know her improved design decisions, and inspired design critique and development. In this way, the Awa herself became an intrinsic partner in the research, and the design experiments became ways of interacting with her and getting to know her better. The process was a series of calls and responses; unique to their context and aware of their history. As Catherine Knight says: ‘It is only by knowing how we have treated our environment in the past that we know how much has been lost or degraded beyond repair already. Without this knowledge how can we know what more we are willing to sacrifice?’ (Knight, 2017, 1:49). This research provides a precedent as to how to work in relationship with an ecological entity of importance. The process included: • • • • •

Understanding physical and metaphysical contexts. The best knowledge came from people who have long-term deep relationships with the Awa. A designer must build their own relationship with an ecological entity, and see the relationship as reciprocal. Human interests should not be allowed to surpass others. The definition of an ecological entity as an ‘indivisible and living whole’ is a powerful way of checking that people’s actions are not purely for human/economic gain. A designer needs to work over a wider time frame, understanding the ecological history, and be informed of past human intervention. This facilitates formation of projections of how the entity ‘wants to be’. A designer should act as ‘aligned other’ sensitive to triggers and traces that indicate an entity’s tendencies, and suggesting changes that will result in a net benefit to the entity.

Architecture sensitive to its cultural/ecological contexts can facilitate relationships between humans and our host ecologies. Through fostering these relationships we become more aware of our environment, our place, ourselves, and our connections to place.

Bibliography Burgess, J. S. 1971. “Coastline Change at Wanganui, New Zealand.” Doctoral, University of Canterbury.

230  Bridget Buxton Butcher, Matthew. 2015. “A  Lyrical Architecture of the Flood: Landscape, Infrastructure, and Symbiosis.” Architectural Research Quarterly, 19 (3): 226. doi:10.1017/ s1359135515000482. Butcher, Matthew, and Tom Noonan. 2013. “The Filter House.” P.E.A.R Paper for Emerging Architectural Research, 4: 18–23. Harris, Aroha. 2004. Hīkoi: Forty Years of Māori Protest. Thorndon, Wellington: Huia Publishers (NZ) Ltd. Horizons Regional Council. 2018. “2018–28 Long Term Plan Consultation Document.” Horizons Regional Council. Knight, Catherine. 2016. New Zealand’s Rivers: An Environmental History. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press. Knight, Catherine. 2017. “New Zealand’s Rivers: Can We Learn from History?” NZ History Podcast, Available online: newzealandhistory.podbean.com/e/new-zealand’s-rivers-canwe-learn-from-history/. Mikaere, Ani. 2013. Colonising Myths – Maori Realities: He Rukuruku Whakaaro. Thorndon, Wellington: Huia Publishers (NZ) Ltd. Ministry of Justice. 2017. “Past, Present  & Future of the Waitangi Tribunal.” Waitangi Tribunal. Available online: www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/about-waitangi-tribunal/ past-present-future-of-waitangi-tribunal/. New Zealand Government. 1997. “Ngai Tahu Deed of Settlement Introduction.” New Zealand Government. Available online: www.govt.nz/assets/5313Ngai-Tahu-Deed-of-Settle ment-Introduction-21-Nov-1997.pdf. Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui. 2015. “Ngā Tāngata Tiaki O Whanganui Trust Deed.” Whanganui. Available online: www.ngatangatatiaki.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ Ng%C4%81-T%C4%81ngata-Tiaki-o-Whanganui-Trust-Deed-Final-Executed-Deed4-August-2014-1.pdf. Park, Geoff. 1995. The Groves of Life = Nga Uruora: Ecology and History in a New Zealand Landscape; [Colour Photography, Craig Potton]. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Sharpe, Libby. 2018. “Interview by Bridget Buxton. Whanganui River Conversations.” Personal Interview. July 4. Whanganui, 4. Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act. 2017. Vol. 2. Wellington: New Zealand Government. Waitangi, Tribunal. 1992. Wai 38: Te Roroa Report. Wellington: Brooker and Friend Ltd.Available online: http://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68462675/ Te%20Roroa%201992.compressed.pdf. Waitangi, Tribunal. 1999. Wai 167: The Whanganui River Report. Wellington: GPPublications. Available online: http://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68450 539/Whanganui%20River%20Report%201999.pdf. Waitangi, Tribunal. 2011. “Ko Aotearoa Tēnei: A  Report into Claims Concerning New Zealand Law and Policy Affecting Māori Culture and Identity. Te Taumata Tuatahi.” Legislation Direct, 105–115. Available online: https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Doc uments/WT/wt_DOC_68356054/KoAotearoaTeneiTT1W. pdf. Whanganui District Council. 2018. “Pukenamu Queen’s Park Reserve Management Plan 2018.” Whanganui. Available online: www.whanganui.govt.nz/our-council/publica tions/plans/Documents/Pukenamu%20Management%20Plan%202018.pdf.

27 On the rise A coastal planning strategy for adaptation in response to climate change Kieran Ibell Introduction The scale and ramifications of climate change are far reaching. Not only does climate change threaten the intricate ecosystems that human activity depends on, it exposes coastal communities’ ongoing existence, making them vulnerable to displacement. Climate change and its anticipated impacts on sea-level rise and inundation have gained much attention over the past decade. The natural shifting and variation of natural systems is often hampered by human control in the form of hard defences. These static defences, such as sea walls, attempt to hold back the extreme effects of natural processes such as coastal erosion and inundation. As the effects of climate change are becoming more apparent, the necessity for strategies to address both immediate and more distant crises over time is vital. If we wish to protect communities, infrastructure, and ecologies at risk, strategies need to change the ways they address effects of climate change based on short-term need in isolation to a wider holistic systems approach. Strategies need to evolve into resilient and dynamic systems working in association with their host ecological contexts. This case study advocates a planning resolution at the interface of mitigation and adaptation; it seeks a synergy and balance between infrastructure and natural systems. Located in Otaki, on New Zealand’s Kapiti Coastline, the motivation of the scheme was to enable residents of a coastal community to continue to occupy the coastal environment. This occurred through a plan that accommodates and works with the impending fluctuations of landscape as a means to proactively inform and facilitate long-term coastal inhabitation and community. The case study explores implications of continuing to occupy coastal margins at two scales. The urban scale, looking at existing settlement, and the residential scale that investigates what impending implications may be for architecture. The urban scale of the case study explores mitigation and adaptation resolutions that enable an existing settlement to remain on the coast, and new dwellings introduced over time. This scale also explored the investigation of place-making within coastal communities to maintain a sense of the original place whilst the physical place is reclaimed by the sea. The residential scale explores how to retain and embrace local identity within the new architecture. When the urban and

232  Kieran Ibell residential scales collide, they advocate a resolution to the impending implications of climate change; anchoring the community and residents through clear future focused and related design strategies in a context of uncertainty and change.

Background As a long thin island nation, New Zealand has an extensive coastline. The New Zealand lifestyle embraces coastal margins for inhabitation, business, and recreational activities. In the wake of climate change, this poses significant challenges. To lose parts of this existing environment and infrastructure will have drastic effects on the way New Zealanders can continue to live on, and occupy our coast. Numerous reports released by New Zealand organisations highlight the issues our coastlines are facing (Wright, 2015) (Bell and Hannah, 2012) (The Royal Society of New Zealand, 2016) (Ministry for the Environment, 2017, 27), however, several of these neglect to recommend action. Current ‘hold the line’ coastal defence measures leave communities in low-lying areas susceptible to inundation. Alternative resolutions to managed retreat are required to prevent demolition, abandonment, and displacement of communities. Debate surrounds the issue of climate change and the predicted measurement of sea level rise. Some periodicals believe the International Panel on Climate Change’s prediction of 0.82 m by 2100 is too conservative and the realistic rise is likely to be 2 m by the end of the century (Ritchie, 2018). Research revealed a sea-level increase of up to 2 m is widely accepted as a worst case scenario by both national and international sources (Almeida and Mostafavi, 2016) (Renwick, 2018) (Sweet et al., 2017, 1). What is consistent across many reports is that while the global mean sea level is rising, the exact sea-level rise on any coastline will be based on regional factors (Sweet et al., 2017, vi). The case study explored the implications of a predicted rise in sea levels of 2 metres by the year 2100 with adaptive strategies that can adjust, adapt, and accommodate beyond this measure. Otaki Beach at the mouth of the Otaki River is the location of the case study. Kapiti Coast’s long history of coastal fluctuations has regularly reclaimed mitigative interventions, for example, the Paekakariki seawall (CH2m Beca Limited, 2016) (Lange, 2006). The Kapiti Coast District Council attempted an alternative approach in 2012 by conducting a coastal erosion assessment to aid in revising the District Plan’s building setback lines. The resulting report mapped the predicted erosion zones over the next 50 and 100  years. These findings were released in 2012 affecting 1800 properties. This action was met with legal backlash from local property owners as it directly affected their property values, development, and insurance policies (Coastal Systems Limited, 2018). Analysis of this report highlighted Otaki as the area set to lose the largest area of land with the greatest number of houses at risk. The case study addresses the implications of sea level rise and suggests an adaptive strategy that protects the Otaki community and facilitates the agency of its key ecological elements. The case study defined mitigation as the action of reducing the impact, severity or seriousness of climate change. Mitigation methods refer to hard engineering

On the rise 233 structures such as sea walls or dykes that tend to only delay the impending risks of climate change and rising seas (Ministry for the Environment, 2017, 27). Adaption is defined as the processes of adjustment in human or natural systems, responding to actual or expected climate, its effects and exploiting any potential benefits. Where mitigation seeks to reduce the impacts of climate change and rising seas, adaption prepares for both expected and unexpected changes regardless of mitigation interventions. Each method is necessary in creating a comprehensive social and ecological response (International Panel on Climate Change, 2014).

Understanding the local ecology To understand a design intervention, the context and landscape must first be understood. Italian architect Vittorio Gregotti suggests an awareness of the landscape as an ensemble, or sum of all things, allows the designer to see landscape and architecture as a system of relations and distances, ‘as the measurement of intervals rather than isolated objects’ (Gregotti, 1985, 342). Understanding how the wider environmental context is based on ‘adaption, appropriation, and flexibility’ (Reed and Lister, 2014, 25) provided a framework for the design interventions to be able to tactically respond to immediacies, scales, and different timings of climate change implications. The Otaki River meets the sea with a tidal estuary to the north of the river mouth. Understanding the natural process of the beach and estuary required an in-depth analysis of the role the river plays in the immediate environment and natural systems. A series of maps were undertaken as a means to understand the reciprocal relationships between river mouth, sea, estuary, and wetlands. Mapping of inundation levels at 1-metre and 2-metre intervals revealed details of how the estuary plays a significant role accommodating and mitigating floodwaters. The location of the estuary allows floodwaters to flow behind the closest sand dunes to the coast. The 2-metre inundation mapping identified the places where water breaches the current stop-banks. These findings reveal that the properties that occupy the shoreline are not the properties at greatest risk. It is the many properties situated behind the seaward sand dunes and stop-bank that are under threat. In this location, ‘the impact zone’, the convergence of two streams also swells up behind the stop-banks during incidences of high rainfall and inundation. The dual effects of inland rainfall collected in streams temporarily not able to discharge to the coast, combined with coastal inundation from the high sea levels were both evident in the most recent flooding event in 2017.

Design overview On the Rise design proposition is for a new dune in the form of an elevated landform (a dune-shaped stop-bank) to protect an inland suburb from inundation and to accommodate the relocation of existing residences from the immediate impact zone. Phased relocation of existing homes is proposed, with clusters of new densified dwellings that enable denser occupation in response to the demand for coastal

234  Kieran Ibell

Figure 27.1  Proposed Master Plan, South Otaki Beach.

On the rise 235 housing and projected population increases (Kapiti Coast District Council, 2018). The fundamental adaptation strategies are: hard protection of inland existing houses via an elevated landform; phased retreat of 61 houses in the impact zone with several of these relocating to the elevated landform; a dynamic green buffer zone (new wetland) on the estuary side of the new dune to accommodate inundation fluctuations and mitigate extreme events from sea-level rise. A second major design intervention is an experiential wharf that extends over the buffer zone to the existing coastline as an architectural register for measuring, reviewing, and observing the impacts of climate change over time. The case study design highlights the challenges and opportunities with addressing sea-level rise, the potentials of planning strategies that respond to local risks, topography, community, and the opportunities for increased resilience at the interface of mitigation and adaptation.

Landform fingers A new dune topography is introduced behind the existing front dune to augment the existing coastal topography. This hard-engineered ‘constructed site’ (Gregotti, 1985, 342) also provides an area of new higher ground as a location for existing at risk structures to retreat onto. The form of this land responds to the natural processes of windblown sand accretion that form dune structures along the coastline and so it builds upon the local topographies and formal geometries of the land. The main landform structure extends on a north to south axis, acting as a dyke, protecting a majority of the housing susceptible to inundation. The new landform western edge has a series of finger protrusions that project towards the current coastline. These protrusions increase the length of the future coastline and utilise variable low gradients so the land and sea interaction can be moderated through the formation of a new feathered estuary edge. This offers a more dynamic dialogue between the rising water and land by allowing areas for water to retreat from and to. The landform’s final topography is as much about the wider natural basin that is created as it is about the landform. The interaction between new landform and estuary, where the land water drains and ocean water infiltrates, together creates a dynamic changing coastal environment able to respond to the inevitable seasons of change ahead. The location of the new elevated landform was important when considering the natural processes that take place along this specific coastline. The unique issue facing the Otaki River mouth is how floodwaters and incidences of inundation flow behind the current coastline and dunes. The modified higher ‘back dune’ will allow the natural processes of dune retreat and formation to occur as flooding increases and sea levels rise, and importantly, for a mediating wetland (soft engineering) to establish. The wetland between the current shoreline and the elevated landform will act as a green buffer zone and native plant nursery, developing over time and accommodating temporary inundation. Phased relocation of houses from within this ‘impact zone’ onto the new dune will create the space for the green buffer zone.

236  Kieran Ibell

Wetland and retention ponds Two streams that funnel through South Otaki Beach and connect to the Otaki River required a response due to their active role in the environment. The convergence of the streams on the inland side of the current stop bank is where pooling of water and flooding occurs when the river is flooded and the tide is high. This storm event pooling problem is mediated further upstream through the introduction of two large retention ponds. The retention ponds also provide two paths of least resistance during ocean and tidal surges protecting existing residential areas from flooding and reducing storm surge flooding impact on the new landform. The combination of a new mediating wetland and the two retention ponds offers a highly dynamic buffer zone. The wetland aids the movement of water to and from the retention ponds by providing overflow paths with significantly more capacity to accommodate changes in water volumes. This also relieves the pressure on the retention ponds. The wetland area adds to the existing coastal environment offering a new recreation zone for residents and users with the inclusion of boardwalks and lookouts, extending the recreational amenities available in the Otaki River estuary.

Wharf datum The wharf communicates the increasing hazards facing the Otaki community. It extends to the west across the estuary from the existing stop bank structures and meets the new elevated landform at its southern tip. Impacts of climate change are incremental and continual so not readily seen. The wharf acts as a datum for the coastal and estuary water fluctuations. It plays an important role, educating users as an architectural register for observing, monitoring, and reviewing the impacts of climate change. Its experiential qualities allow residents to engage with and informally measure water levels against the structure, communicating changes that are occurring to the coastal landscape and the threat posed to currently inhabited land. In time as the coastal condition changes and land is taken by the rising seas, residents will still be able to reach and observe the environment they once occupied.

Housing New housing proposals were developed in parallel to the modification and adaptation of the landscape. The phased relocation of houses from the impact zone and design of new densified dwellings builds upon the informal coastal identity of the Otaki beach settlement, and responds to the new elevated topography. Densification is in response to the reducing areas of land available for coastal settlement and to model a more sustainable way to occupy the coastline. The densified housing in one location allows more land area to be allocated for coastal fluctuations to occur. Increasing the number of houses that originally occupied the area also responds to improved accessibility to the Kapiti Coast from the Wellington region and the associated predicted population increase, along with the continued demand for coastal housing. The designs of new dwellings are based on the orientation of

On the rise 237 the new dune topography, and react to the increasing prolonged warmer weather and more severe storm occurrences. They utilise verandahs and thresholds, stilts, sliding screens and shutters, and orient to ocean views. The houses, like their wider site, can adapt to their changing environment.

Conclusion Climate change implications will affect the way we design for and occupy coastal sites. Coastal ecologies are an amalgamation of interdependent systems. In the wake of climate change ecological balance is constantly under threat due to the changes in environmental stressors. The effects of this are heightened when human intervention takes the form of unforgiving interventions that hamper natural occurrences. Responses to climate change in any context need to be an interrelated series of adaption strategies modelling the interrelationships of natural ecologies. The process of climate change is successional. There are observable and immediate environmental threats that will underpin longer-term environmental and related socio-economic challenges. In order to address the time period and scale of the problem the case study models a strategy based on natural processes. It reshapes and facilitates ecological processes to restore and maintain balance over-time. The case study design strategies illustrate that adaptation to climate change can be accomplished by close study of landscape formation processes over time and working with these to identify key areas of risk to be addressed through design interventions based on the same natural processes. Through the study the potential for increased resilience at the interface of mitigation and adaptation was discovered. In this case, the dynamic elevated landform back dune was created, offering a retreat location and a defence measure for two different groups of existing houses at risk. Setting the hard-engineered elevated landform back from the current coastline also facilitated a more dynamic dialogue between land and sea. Creating the green buffer zone between the existing coast and the existing settlements allowed for natural process to occur and a mediating wetland to establish and develop progressively with time. Local impacts including the social implications of an increasingly urgent climate change problem require specific local adaptation measures that respond to unique local conditions only evident through close study. These can be tested and addressed through specific designed responses, and they can maintain the social sustainability of an existing coastal community. The Otaki Beach and river mouth case study demonstrates how an ongoing future for an at-risk coastal community can be facilitated over time through a hybrid landscape and architectural resolution.

References Almeida, Beatriz Azevedo de, and Ali Mostafavi. 2016. “Resilience of Infrastructure Systems to Sea-Level.” Sustainability (MDPI), 8 (11). Date accessed July 2018. Available online: www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/11/1115. Bell, R. G., and J. Hannah. 2012. Sea-level Variability and Trends: Wellington Region. Hamilton: NIWA. Date accessed 2018.

238  Kieran Ibell CH2m Beca Limited. 2016. Paekakariki Seawall Coastal Permit. Wellington: CH2M Beca Limited. Date accessed August 16, 2019. Coastal Systems Limited. 2018. Update Statement 2018 Kapiti Coast Erosion Hazards. Taranaki: Coastal Management, Hazard Assessment, Research and Education Consultancy. Date accessed June  2018. Available online: http://coastalsystems.co.nz/down loads/kapiti-erosion/kapiti-erosion-assessmernt-update-jan-2018.pdf. Gregotti, Vittorio. 1985. “Territory and Architecture.” In Kate Nesbitt (ed.), Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965–1995, 338– 344. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. International Panel on Climate Change. 2014. Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report. Geneva: IPCC, 18. Available online: www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/05/SYR_ AR5_FINAL_full_wcover.pdf. Kapiti Coast District Council. 2018. Building a Stronger Kapiti Together – Long Term Plan 2018–38. Paraparaumu: Kapiti Coast District Council. Date accessed August 16, 2019. Lange, Willem de. 2006. Coastal Erosion – Shifting Sands, June 12. Date accessed August 16, 2019. Available online: https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/6325/storm-damage. Ministry for the Environment. 2017. Preparing for Coastal Change. Wellington: Ministry for the Environment. Date accessed April 19, 2018. Reed, Chris, and Nina-Marie Lister. 2014. “Parallel Genealogies.” In Chris Reed and NinaMarie Lister (eds.), Projective Ecologies, 22–39. New York: Actar Publishers. Date accessed June 15, 2019. Renwick, James. 2018. “Drought and Flood, Cyclones and Sea Level Rise in the Pacific.” In Climate Change and The Pacific. Wellington: Embassy of France and the European Union delegation to New Zealand. Date accessed September 26, 2018. Ritchie, Earl J. 2018. Is the IPCC Wrong about Sea Level Rise? June 15. Date accessed August  19, 2018. Available online: www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2018/06/15/ is-the-ipcc-wrong-about-sea-level-rise/#50b0773ba01f. Sweet, William V., Robert E. Kopp, Christopher P. Weaver, Jayantha Obeysekera, Radley M. Horton, E. Robert Thieler, and Chris Zervas. 2017. Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States. Silver Spring, MD: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Date accessed March 2018. Available online: https://tide sandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt83_Global_and_Regional_SLR_Scenarios_ for_the_US_final.pdf. The Royal Society of New Zealand. 2016. Climate Change Implications for New Zealand. Wellington: The Royal Society of New Zealand. Date accessed March 13, 2018. Available online: https://royalsociety.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Climate-change-implicationsfor-NZ-2016-report-web2.pdf. Wright, Jan. 2015. Preparing New Zealand for Rising Seas: Certainty and Uncertainty. Wellington: Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

28 There are no sustainable buildings without sustainable people Fabricio Chicca

Introduction The construction sector is the largest consumer of resources and a major contributor to greenhouse emissions and environmental impact (Krausmann et  al., 2009; Weisz and Steinberger, 2010; Allwood et al., 2010). In Europe, the building stock accounts for over 40 per cent of energy consumption (European Commision, 2015). Although it is not clear for the general public what kinds of impact the construction sector is responsible for, it is clear that in the public’s perception, construction is a major player in the current environmental crisis. Houses are an essential part of the construction market, and perhaps for this reason we are also witnessing an effort to produce efficient houses.

The historical relationship between efficiency and houses The construction industry is by nature environmentally damaging. The natural landscape is transformed to accommodate our expansion. Cities are now the places where most humans live. This is the first time in history that we have become an urban species (United Nations, 2018). Throughout history, our ancestors were more rural rather than urban. In the past, rural people were often highly dependent on the land around their houses, and their understanding of environmental dynamics was more prevalent (Chicca, 2013). Energy came from the bushes close to the house, food from crops and livestock from their land, water from the well, river or lake. It was not uncommon to have an understanding of how much land was necessary to produce the basic needs for the family. Rural self-sufficient families could measure their land not by its monetary value, but by its use value, its capacity to provide the subsistence for their family. This knowledge about the land’s capacity is not simply the determination of how many family members that land is capable to provide for. It determines how the family must behave in order to live with a certain amount of resources. For these families, the idea of limit was not an abstract concept, it was a pragmatic fact. Food should be carefully planned, crops must be defined/ calculated in order to store food for unproductive seasons, livestock was sensibly managed to provide milk and eggs, and houses should be efficient. Houses were

240  Fabricio Chicca built using local materials. House sizes were often compact to avoid energy waste for heating. The concepts of passive design were more than an academic architectural concept; they were a necessity for wellbeing. Even when people gathered around the cities it was common that the direct hinterland was the primary (or unique) provider of food and energy for the city. People were restricted by the environmental limits and were aware of these limits more so than they are now. It is an almost nostalgic view of the past, but not far from the truth and more common than we can imagine. Because cities congregated many people work became specialised over time. This meant that families were no longer responsible for producing their own food and finding fuel for their needs. People progressively put aside the concept of resource limitation. As long as they were good at something that was in demand, they would be able to gather more money, and be able to use more resources than their counterparts from rural areas. Their money gave them the privilege to buy more natural resources, which demanded more land than they would be able to work on to provide what they were consuming. Finally, the concept of environmental limitation, which had prevailed through history, could now be stretched if an individual had money. Currently, the societal mechanism is not bounded by environmental limitation, but by monetary constraints.

The current environmental approach to design It is in relation to this simplified scenario that we reflect upon today’s architectural production. Since the 1990s authors such as Chase (1991) have been pointing out the characteristics of the post-modern consumer who aims for customisation, differentiation, and distinction in architecture (Chase, 1991). The idea is of a unique house, or office headquarters, that has in some way reproduced the families or companies’ image. This approach of uniqueness is supported by Miles (2010) who describes our current time as a more individualistic and privatised society. Ritzer (1983) has suggested a different analysis. In a series of publications attempting to explain part of the homogenisation of humanity and its consumption behaviour, George Ritzer has introduced the concept of McDonaldisation of society. Ritzer believes that the principle of fast-food restaurants will further dominate more sectors of society around the world. The efficiency of the McDonaldised system has its roots in Weber’s bureaucracy, Ford’s assembly line, and Taylor’s scientific management. These concepts can be applied to criticise current architectural production as follows. Architecture housing production sits in a realm where on one side the houses must be unique in their form and on the other, they must obey a hidden social consumerist code, as suggested by Miles (2010). Houses conform in size, finishing, gadgetry, and even layouts. They are getting more homogenous and lacking attention to individual needs as indicated by Ritzer. Architecture manifests the dispute between individual value and expression and the imposition of a consumerist societal value. There is some personalisation, particularly when there is a direct relationship between an architect’s house design and the final users. The concept of

There are no sustainable buildings 241 McDonaldisation occurs when the relationship is between a company (developer) and a direct client or the real estate industry. Building occurs as fast as possible, selling of houses as products occurs as fast as possible and at as high final cost as possible without delaying the sales speed.

New consumer demand Lately, public opinion is demanding a reduction in environmental impact and houses have started to be produced to address this demand. Increasingly these houses are being called sustainable (Poloni-Staudinger, 2008). Although, commonly used by the market and at universities, the concept of sustainability or sustainable architecture has never achieved a consensus in wider society. Lack of consistency and regulation have resulted in the term ‘sustainable’ being widely used. It is common among architects and the construction industry to use the terms sustainable and energy efficiency interchangeably. However, while there has been an improvement in almost every step on the construction chain regarding environmental impact, being able to accurately describe houses as sustainable would require a more complex assessment. Authorities have also heard society’s increasing environmental claims. Internationally performance requirements are emerging. For instance, in New Zealand, the building code has an Energy Efficiency section (H1) (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, 2018). In Germany, Eco Taxes on fossil fuels and energy efficiency have been compulsory since 1995 (Schade et al., 2013). German members of the European Community are aiming at a fossil fuel use reduction of 20 per cent by 2020 (European Commision, 2015). The combination of public awareness and government reinforcement has led to some improvements. Kiss et al. indicated a reduction of average energy consumption of up to 75 per cent over the past 30 years (Kiss et al., 2010). The market has organised itself to cope with public demand and occasional governmental inefficiency in legislating. Several institutions were created to promote environmental certifications including Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the US Green Building Council, and Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), SBTool (Sustainable Building Tool, international). These certifications pose a conflict of interest; they are labels arising in response to the market, with demands for the developers to provide certification for building products. There is a direct correlation between certified buildings and increase in sales (and rental) prices (Eichholtz et al., 2010, 2013; Cajias and Piazolo, 2013; Paumgartten, 2003)

Sustainable homes or efficient homes? In response to environmental certifications, houses are being produced aiming to be more efficient in relation to the rest of the house stock. This is a positive step in the right direction responding to consumer demand. The consumer understands that environmental problems are being tackled by these self-entitled sustainable

242  Fabricio Chicca houses. This seems to be a major step towards minimising people´s environmental impact. In addition, these new certified houses generally have lower operational costs, meaning less energy and water bills to be paid. The combination of a ‘green’ house and lower energy bills is appealing for consumers. Mostly unaware of their real environmental impact most of these consumers believe that they are being sustainable. Several factors may make the achievements from these environmental efforts meaningless. For example, the size of the house, the appliances, the source of energy used to power the house, and consumption habits. In Australia, currently the house size average is approximately 50 per cent larger than a new house was in the 1980s. For apartments the numbers have also increased by 35 per cent (McKinlay et al., 2017). Bigger houses require more energy for heating and cooling, more material to be built, more furniture to fill them up and as a result, part of the efficiency achievement is offset by the increased overall consumption. At the same time houses are getting bigger, families are getting smaller. In Australia, the size of households reduced from 2.73 people per house in 1991 to 2.55 people per house in 2016 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1991, 2017). Appliances pose an additional problem, normally related with consumption of energy, but there is also energy used in their production, which is often hard to trace back. Changes in users’ behaviour can make a substantial difference in energy consumption but do little to reduce embodied energy. Bakshi (2017) has called this process ‘hidden emissions’. Certified houses cannot be claimed sustainable just because they have a label; 28–35 per cent of LEED buildings use more energy than conventional buildings (Newsham et al., 2009). In two different papers written on office buildings, Scofield has reached the same conclusions: LEED and non-LEED office buildings have the same energy consumption (Scofiled, 2009, 2013). The point here is to challenge the certainty that those eco labels bring to consumers. It is also important to stress that some of these labels are based on national (or local) comparison of new buildings with old buildings. If the old stock is inefficient, a small improvement would only make a building less unsustainable. Although information regarding energy is mixed, the size of a building and the embodied energy of its materials are all important. True sustainability is not simply a comparison with your regional peers. It is a global index that should consider the wider international context. Simple energy consumption measurement between buildings of a region or even a country demonstrate little of the real environmental impact of the building and its users. There are several positive aspects of a strong market for sustainable buildings, such as a higher capital value (Fuerst and McAllister, 2011; Eichholtz et al., 2010), and a positive environmental contribution by the seller and the buyer.

There are no sustainable buildings without sustainable people This chapter advocates for even more efficient houses. The problem is not solely in the need for more efficient design, it’s also in misleading labelling of houses as sustainable. Even houses that generate their own energy and that harvest and

There are no sustainable buildings 243 clean their own water need to rely on sustainable users. The dissemination of the environmental labels are strongly embedded in the construction market. Instead of loosely certifying buildings they should be part of an integrated effort to promote a more sustainable lifestyle. The problems with lack of understanding are easy to identify. Imagine a family that managed to reduce 50 per cent of their house’s energy bills. But if the house was already powered by a renewable energy source and leftover money was used without any environmental consideration it is possible that the reduction is little or non-existent. Of course, this lack of environmental perception does not happen only with our houses. For example, people are often more concerned about avoiding the supermarket plastic bag than what is inside it. Although avoiding plastic bags is good, the major problem remains inside the bags by a large margin, for instance the greenhouse emission from standard shopping may be up to a thousand times more than the plastic bag.1 On a different scale it is the same with houses. Tackling only the house design and construction and greenwashing it via sustainable certification does not address the real and more urgent issue; the lack of knowledge of the full extent of our environmental impact and the day to day human behavioural changes needed. For the largest part of our existence as a species we have lived aware of our environmental limitations. The current era of detachment from our environmental impacts and principles is clearly demonstrated by our ignorance of how much resources we habitually use. Our housing is part of this paradox. While we are designing homes more efficiently, we are feeding the mechanism that separates people from their environmental limitation and as a result, our environmental impact is increasing. Houses should also be designed to be environmental teaching tools. A simple way to use houses as teaching tools is to make the environmental impact of building the house combined with the environmental impact of operating it clear to the user. And equally, explaining the importance of responsibly using elements such as sun, wind, and rainwater to the user and encouraging them to interact with the design. This would make the house a living object dependent on its environment with the ability to interact with it symbiotically. As the human population keeps growing, our environmental impact per capita has to proportionally reduce. Houses must therefore not only be designed to be sustainable, but also to help people to become more sustainable. In the past, houses were part of a collective need to live inside some limits. There is an urgent need to bring back some of this knowledge as a means to accelerate consumer awareness and change.

Note 1 The greenhouse gas figures were calculated based on the report LCA of Degradable Plastic Bags from James and Grant (2002) and emission from the red meat comes from Chicca F. et al., 2018. The calculation was based on 0.02 kg of CO2 for the HDPE Singlet bags against 23kg of CO2 for a kilo of red meat (James and Grant, 2002; Chicca, Vale, & Vale, Everyday Lifestyles and Sustainability, 2018). If the red meat emission follows the numbers from the Food and Agriculture Organisation from UN the environmental impact from a kilo of red meat goes to 27 kg of CO2 making the emission from the meat 1350 times larger than the meat.

244  Fabricio Chicca

Bibliography Allwood, J., J. Cullen, and R. Milford. 2010. “Options for Achieving a 50% Cut in Industrial Carbon Emission by 2050.” Environmental Science & Technology, 1888–1894. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 1991. Census of Population and Housing. Melbourne. Available online: www.abs.gov.au/census. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2017. Census of Population and Housing. Melbourne: Australian Government. Available online: www.abs.gov.au/census. Bakshi, N. 2017. “A Life Cycle Analysis of Living: Measuring Behaviour and the Impact of Dwelling Rather than the Dwelling Alone.” PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. Barber, B. 2010. Jihad Vs McWorld Terrorism’s Challenge to Democracy. London: Corgi Books. Cajias, M., and D. Piazolo. 2013. “Green Performs Better: Energy Efficiency and Financial Return on Buildings.” Journal of Corporate Real Estate, 15 (1), 53–72. Chase, J. 1991. “The Role of Consumerism in American Architecture.” Journal of Architectural Education, 211–224. Chicca, F. 2013. “Developing a Label for Excellence in Design for Urban Sustainability.” PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. Chicca, F., B. Vale, and R. Vale. 2018. Everyday Lifestyles and Sustainability. London: Routledge. Eichholtz, P., N. Kok, and M. Q. John. 2010. “Doing Well by Doing Good? Green Office Buildings.” American Economic Review, 2492–2509. Eichholtz, P., N. Kok, and M. Q. John. 2013. “The Economics of Green Building.” Review of Economics and Statistics, 50–63. European Commision. 2015. European Commission. Energy Efficiency Plan 2011, August 27. Available online: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM: en0029. Fuerst, F., and P. McAllister. 2011. “Green Noise or Green Value? Measuring the Effects of Environmental Certification on Office Property Values.” Real Estate Economics, 45–69. James, K., and T. Grant. 2002. LCA of Degradable Plastic Bags. Melbourne: RMIT. Kiss, B., C. Manchón, and L. Neij. 2010. “The Importance of Learning in Supporting Energy Efficiency Technologies: A  Case Study on Policy Intervention for Improved Insulation in Germany, the UK and Sweden, Delft, Netherlands.” In Knowledge Collaboration & Learning for Sustainable Innovation: ERSCP-EMSU Conference. Delft: TU Delft. Krausmann, F., S. Gingrich, N. Eisenmenger, K.-H. Erb, H. Haber, and M. Fischer-Kowalski. 2009. “Growth in Global Materials Use, GDP and Population During the 20th Century.” Ecological Economics, 2696–2705. McKinlay, A., C. Baldwin, and N. Stevens. 2017. “Size Matters: Dwelling Size as a Critical Factor for Sustainable Urban Development.” Urban Policy and Research, 135–150. Miles, S. 2010. Spaces for Consumption. London: SAGE Publications. Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. 2018. Building Performance. November 1. Date accessed July 2019. Available online: www.building.govt.nz/. Newsham, G. R., S. Mancini, and B. Birt. 2009. “Do LEED-Certified Buildings Save Energy? Yes, but . . .” Energy and Buildings, 897–905. Paumgartten, P. v. 2003. “The Business Case for High Performance Green Buildings: Sustainability and its Financial Impact.” Journal of Facilities Management, 2, 26–34. Poloni-Staudinger, L. 2008. “Are Consensus Democracies More Environmentally Efficient?” Environmental Politics, 410–430.

There are no sustainable buildings 245 Ritzer, George. 1983. “The ‘McDonaldization’ of Society.” The Journal of American Culture, 100–107. Ritzer, G., and C.-C. Chen. 2015. “McDonaldization.” International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 828–830. Schade, J., P. Wallström, T. Olofsson, and O. Lagerqvist. 2013. “A  Comparative Study of the Design and Construction Process of Energy Efficient Buildings in Germany and Sweden.” Energy Policy, 28–37. Scofield, J. H. 2009. “Do LEED-Certified Buildings Save Energy? Not Really . . .” Energy and Buildings, 1386–1390. Scofield, J. H. 2013. “Efficacy of LEED-Certification in Reducing Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emission for Large New York City Office Buildings.” Energy and Buildings, 517–524. United Nations. 2018. 2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects. Geneva: United Nations. Weisz, H., and J. Steinberger. 2010. “Reducing Energy and Material Flows in Cities.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 185–192.

29 Labour, ecology, and architecture Peggy Deamer

The Architecture Lobby aims, amongst other things, to link the issue of ecological sustainability with labour sustainability. For us, an international organization of architectural activists concerned with the value and relevance of architectural work, the link has always been obvious. If the labour required to enact a sustainable agenda is exploitive, precarious, ignored, unsupported, and/or doomed, the agenda will fail. But our work on and with the Green New Deal (New Economics Foundation, 2008) – we were contacted by the Sunrise Movement, the populist group organized in support of the GND, to participate in their campaigns – has directed our attention to the complexity of our simple if “obvious” observation of the link between the sustainability of work to the sustainability of the planet. The GND is the platform getting major attention in the United States of America (USA) since the newly elected Representative Social Democrat Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey proposed it in the Congressional resolution H. Res. 109. H. Res. 109 proposes, succinctly, these various policies: that the USA take a leading global role in reducing emissions through economic transformation (by “creating millions of good, high-wage jobs” and increasing job security); that the USA must recognize that environmental destruction has exacerbated racial, gendered, generational, regional, and economic injustice and that constituents made more vulnerable because of this must be part of the policy-making process; that it invest in infrastructure to secure clean air and water and healthy food for all; that it must upgrade all of its existing buildings for better energy performance; that it meet 100 per cent of the power demand in the US through renewable power sources by 2028; that it build more sustainable food systems; and that it must ensure that the public receives appropriate return on the GND mobilization investment. In foregrounding the need for a social reform that transcends singular ecological issues, the GND contextualizes the interface between labour and ecology while also exposing the larger matrix in which both labour and ecology operate. Research on the GND also led those of us in the Architecture Lobby to a network of thinkers in related design and non-design fields that offered insights into the depth of the labour part of our ecological sustainability = labor sustainability observation and has forced us to redirect our general labour/ecology synthesis to the following three questions.

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What kind of labour/work is important to support? Beyond the general observation that both salaried and ‘entrepreneurial’ work has grown increasingly precarious under neoliberalism – both are highly exploited by the 1 per cent who control the economy and increasingly public policy – a more specific look at the workers affected by a transition to a GND is important. There are, first and foremost, the workers in third-world countries who will increasingly be relied upon to provide the materials required of ‘renewable energy’. Cobalt for example, essential for solar panels, is mined in the Congo under loosely monitored conditions. International companies that do have laws against child labour, for example, work closely with ‘boutique’ miners with no such labour laws or site supervision (Elbagir et  al., 2019). Miners working in crude, makeshift shafts 65 feet underground and dependent on children for the delivery system know that the “regulating” enterprises turn a blind eye on these ad hoc conditions and workers. Likewise, Bolivian workers, along with others in Argentina and Chile, collect the bulk of the lithium used for storage batteries and electric cars. The mining process there is dependent on small local communities that are organized by Chinese investors who do not understand the process of harvesting and refining lithium, don’t regulate the labour conditions, and do not reinvest profits in the local community. These conditions are exacerbated by calls for a “carbon-free” society and its reliance on “magic” sinecures like photovoltaics and electric cars (Moe, 2019). Thinking about these workers implies more difficult international political work than is now understood by both architects and policy-makers in general. There are, as well, the union workers in the US who are deeply affected by new modes of work and have a tangled relationship with environmental calls that challenge traditional industries. As the sociologist Damian White (2018) points out, climate sceptics are omnipresent in a labour movement that identifies with ‘fossil capitalism’. Richard Trumpka, the president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest federation of unions in the United States, has said that decarbonization is just ‘a fancy name for a funeral’ and Terry O’Sullivan, the general president of the main construction union, Labourers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), denounced the Green New Deal the day it was introduced as ‘exactly how not to enact a progressive agenda to address our nation’s dangerous income inequality’ and ‘exactly how not to win support for critical measures to curb climate change’ (Cohen, 2019). But there are also progressive union leaders focused on a ‘differentiated responsibility model’ concerned with vulnerable and stranded workers undercut by decarbonization and wanting to facilitate a managed transition to other parts of the economy; unions insisting on ‘shared solutions’ guaranteeing that unions have a seat at the table in ‘green growth’ discussions; and unions making demands for systemic ‘re-organisation of the relations between state, capital, and labour’ (White, 2018). The International Trade Union Confederation  – seeking international cooperation between trade unions, global campaigning, and advocacy within the major global institutions – leads these efforts.

248  Peggy Deamer And finally, there are the ‘white collar workers’ with which architects identify and which, in contradistinction to the labour unions, are generally sympathetic to climate reform but have little organizational clout to enact change. The political resistance to dealing with climate change is part and parcel with the larger neoliberal policies under which we all suffer. Policies that encourage race-to-the bottom competition, winner-takes-all paradigms, individualism preventing organized resistance to dehumanizing work expectations, a love affair with tech that is unfazed by the job displacement of automation, and the denial of a social safety net – these general conditions affect all white-collar workers. But architects are particularly prototypical (for seemingly being the quintessential innovative knowledge worker) and unique (for being both creative and professional), and as such, suffer from the disparity between their assumed role in the new economy and the reality of their total ineffectuality. The ineffectuality is the result of a number of historical conditions that have shrunk architecture’s appetite for risk and reward, but central to them in the USA is an architectural association, the American Institute of Architects (AIA), with a myopic definition of architecture, ignoring long-term social and ecological goals for just getting access to any and all work, and a refusal to take politically controversial but ethically clear positions (Deamer et al., 2017). The AIA has refused to address the larger issues of a sustainable profession and, with respect to the specifics of ecology, failed to move beyond its acceptance of LEED designation for one-off buildings as the general panacea to sustainability. Billy Fleming, the activist landscape professor at the University of Pennsylvania (2019), points out a similar limitation to landscape architecture’s efficacy and the fact that it, too, has been left out of most GND discussions for similar institutional shortcomings. Criticizing the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) for buying into grandiose, but highly misdirected “resilient” projects, he suggests that landscape architecture has itself to blame for being ignored in GND discussions (Fleming, 2019. In both cases, the professional associations of landscape architecture and architecture have cared too much about their narrow disciplinary boundaries, and we must recognize the bond that both architects and landscape architects share with other workers (such as miners, unionists, contractors, etc.) if they want to be embraced by and work with the GND.

What role can architects/planners/designers play in the transition to and maintenance of an ecological/labour just society? Besides the question of what work will be like in the carbon-free future, there also is the question of what work architects can do to usher it in. The thoughtful activities of Just Transitions, a unionist thought group focused on implementing the GND democratically, provides excellent guidance in its concentration on “principles, processes, and practices” that build economic and political power to

Labour, ecology, and architecture  249 shift away from an extractive economy (White, 2018). As they point out, if the process of transition is not just, the outcome won’t be either. New Zealand is also taking a lead in this effort, with its Council of Trade Unions working closely with New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, to invest millions of dollars into new jobs with the active involvement of iwi and hapū (groups, based on ancestry, of Indigenous Māori people). The question for architects then is how to contribute to this discussion with their particular lens of experience and expertise. The Architecture Lobby offers these suggestions:   1 Develop an industry that is proactive about its social and environmental ethics.   2 Restructure how projects are handed out and rewarded.   3 Insist that architects are at the table of built environment decisions by calling for a government body that employs architects, planners, and landscape architects.   4 Expand the definition of architecture beyond the creation of objects to be more strategy driven, more platform driven, and more prototype driven.   5 Understand our work as scenario-building and as such, be open to all the technologies (spatial, social, data-driven) that stage democratic exchange and access to a spatial and informational commons.   6 Harness technology for social good, making sure the efficiencies of different technologies benefit the community, not the developers.   7 Make links that architects are in a particular position to identify, including: • • • •

The link between natural disasters and the housing crisis. The link between bad economic policies and the housing crisis. The link between private development, the housing crisis, and the poverty of public space. The failure of LEED and Passive House (USA based building rating schemes) to address climate change in any meaningful way.

  8 Scale up thinking beyond the building to infrastructure and the neighbourhood and link architects to planners and urban designers for expertise in large-scale work.   9 Scale down our attention away from new buildings to retrofitting existing buildings. As noted, the GND calls for upgrading all existing buildings in the USA and architects need to reorient their education and expertise to address this new type of work. 10 Work with all the stakeholders in the architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) industry, engaging construction workers, fabricators, material experts, landscape architects, ecologists, software producers, owners, affected communities, etc. 11 Promote new modes of construction that mitigate waste, empower workers, and intervene in exploitive supply-chains.

250  Peggy Deamer

What really needs to happen to make the GND work? The need to transform how capitalism works in our society runs throughout the issues raised by the previous two questions, and listing the ways that it needs to transform in order to allow a just society is probably unnecessary. Yet it is important to make sure that these points aren’t missed. People need to be aware of the connection between consumption and ecological damage, not just between production and ecological damage. Resistance to the lure of more and more material choices and for products not actually needed and that do not produce happiness requires not just policy changes but life-style changes (Aronoff, 2019). We need to end private development. As long as profitdriven developers determine the form and function of the built environment, there is no hope for a GND, a socially fair built environment, or effective architectural work. Alone among developed countries, the majority of construction in the USA is privately funded; indeed, only 23 per cent of an industry worth $US1,300 billion was publicly financed in 2018. In Europe, the average is over 65 per cent (Jones, 2019). Workers must own the means of production. As long as businesses, and stockholders, own the fruits of humanity’s labour, exchange value, not use value, will dominate the economy. The GND relies on a society that prioritizes use value.

Conclusion In addition to these general principles, architects must also remember that they are citizens first and architectural professionals second. So much of what the GND calls for, architects personally and intrinsically agree with, and yet we have been too passive in attending to our professional role in undermining both work and ecological sustainability. For example, the professional kudos for a project like Tadao Ando’s Casa Wabi near Oaxaca that showcases a kilometer-long concrete building is high when it is well known that concrete production is uniquely ecologically damaging and a contributor to climate change (its manufacturing alone is responsible for about 5 per cent of global CO2 emissions). We ignore issues of environmental concern when we prioritize aesthetic innovation, cater uncritically to our client’s bottom line, and turn a blind eye to the unjust and unsustainable practices within their own industry. The Architecture Lobby wants to believe that these are not intentional positions but, rather, the result of institutional indoctrination that convinces us of the inevitability of these frameworks. To move past this brainwashing, we need to fight for a different, more activist architectural association and for an education that points students to the interconnectedness of their formal choices within a system of labour, procurement, and politics. Both are necessary to change our approach to architectural design. As architectural citizens, our ethics are surely solid; we just need to cut through a haze of institutional and ideological obfuscation to remember them. We need to wake up to new, radically different disciplinary horizons.

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References Aronoff, K. 2019. “Could a Green New Deal Make Us Happier People?” The Intercept, April 8. Available online: https://theintercept.com/2019/04/07/green-new-deal-happiness/. Cohen, R. 2019. “Labor Unions are Skeptical of the Green New Deal, and They Want Activists to Hear Them Out.” The Intercept, February 28. Date accessed May 10, 2019. Available online: https://theintercept.com/2019/02/28/green-new-deal-labour-unions/. Deamer, P., K. Dunn, and M. Shvartzberg. 2017. “Response to AIA Values.” In Caitlin Blanchfield, Jordan Carver, and James Graham (eds.), The Avery Review – And Now: Architecture Against a Developer Presidency. April. Available online: https://averyre view.com/issues/23/a-response-to-aia-values. Elbagir, N., D. Van Heerden, and E. Mackintosh. 2019. “Dirty Energy.” CNN 1/29. Date accessed May  7, 2019. Available online: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2018/05/ africa/congo-cobalt-dirty-energy-intl/. Fleming, B. 2019. “Design and the Green New Deal.” Places Journal. Date accessed April 29, 2019. Available online: https://placesjournal.org/article/design-and-the-greennew-deal/, Fleming Takes Particular Aim at “Rebuild by Design,” a Post-Hurricane Sandy Initiative that Sponsors Unrealistic but Eye-Catching Infrastructural Seawalls and Sea-Level-Rise-Friendly Green Spaces. Jones, K. 2019. “US Construction Spending Increased 4.1% in 2018.” ConstructionConnect, March 4. Date accessed March 29, 2019. Available online: www.constructconnect. com/blog/u-s-construction-spending-increased-4-1-2018. Moe, K. 2019. “The Architecture of Work and the Work of Architecture Today.” JAE 73:2 Work. New Economics Foundation (NEF) initiated the notion of a Green New Deal (GND) in the UK. 2008. The Resolution is Identified thus: H RES. 109: Recognizing the Duty of the Federal Government to Create a Green New Deal. Available online: www.congress.gov/ bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109. White, D. 2018. “Just Transitions/Design for Transition: Preliminary Notes on a Design Politics for a Green new Deal.” Capitalism Nature Socialism Journal, 5. Date accessed May 7, 2019. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2019.1583762.

30 Integrating design teaching and practices Rainer Hirth, Mark Southcombe, and Rosangela Tenorio

Architects in Germany typically design for a building life span of one hundred years according to the standard calculation basis of real estate managers. Depending on the location, many buildings will not have a lifespan of a hundred or more years. In Frankfurt, for example, many buildings in the business district that were built in the 1970s, 1980s or even 1990s are being demolished in a systematic way. For example, the historic 19-floor Zürich Versicherung Opernplatz was demolished although it was only 41 years old. It was replaced by a new 42-floor office building called the Opera Tower. The same applies to numerous other buildings in the central business district that are being replaced by taller more modern buildings that fit contemporary architectural expectations. The structure and building services of these buildings that are being demolished are intact and generally well maintained. Largely because of marketing and investment value it makes sense from a financial point of view to demolish them. The embodied energy and resources are considerable in such buildings, and the building thermal performance which is normally considered most relevant in terms of sustainability, becomes irrelevant in this context. This raises the question: how can designers more effectively prioritise energy consumption of a building, or its embodied energy value and the related carbon emission in the context of such strong market forces? This applies to many central business districts in the western world but may be irrelevant for the majority of the world population, which faces other pressing problems resulting from climate change including wars, poverty, water shortage, and rapid urbanisation. These issues are made worse by incremental deforestation. The University of Maryland, Department of Geographical Science published the forest loss map 2018. A gigantic area of the size of Bavaria has been lost in the last year. The list of known converging drivers of change in human society may lead one to question if people are capable of the rapid and far reaching change needed. In this context what role can architects and sustainability architecture play? This situation humans have created for ourselves and other species on the planet is overwhelming for individuals. Defeatism is an understandable initial reaction, especially among designers and professionals of the built environment, where we may be limited in what we can achieve, as agents for a client and on one-off isolated projects. So can architects play a role in slowing down the processes

Integrating design teaching and practices 253 that are driving negative ecological and social impacts? There are technologies and methods we can employ to improve the current situation (Pedersen Zari and Hecht, 2019).

More participation: more citizenship, more responsibility Currently, people see and hear more about informal movements for change (for example: Fridays for Future and Occupy, or Strike for Climate Change). These and other groups are reacting against a sense of powerlessness, or being governed in a way that is not to the long-term benefit of the majority. Many people are also becoming disengaged with fewer people choosing to vote in European elections over the last 20  years. Politics is becoming more polarised and parties on the right are becoming more popular again along with nationalist parties with an explicitly critical attitude to the existing governments and institutions. In Europe this is especially so against the European Union. In this context a general desire to influence important political decisions regarding environmental laws and measurements against climate change is emerging especially amongst the youth. The feeling that older generations and their systems have failed creates an open atmosphere for potential changes in our environmental practices. Architectural and urban design needs to react to this too. How can architects and designers contribute to this change? Few really believe any more in the reach and power of technical solutions, smarter HVAC and more insulation in buildings in moderate climate zones for instance. There has to be also fundamental change of lifestyle. This can only occur when people take responsibility for their ecological impact themselves on a voluntary basis. One contribution is to create more strategies and methods for enabling and encouraging participation in the design process so that integrated actions can respond with common purpose. Examples of contemporary user participation methods transforming processes are emerging in restoration and retrofit projects. ‘A society of increasingly emancipated people claims to participate to a greater extent in designing processes of their built environment’ explains Prof. Dr. Susanne Hofmann from the office Baupiloten in Berlin (Sigmund and Weyand, 2015). Hofmann has worked for many years in the area of renovation and transformation of run-down buildings including participatory processes involving future users. It’s not heritage protection, it’s about adaption of the huge majority of standard postwar buildings – without any specific architectural quality but with a lot of embedded energy and building materials with a high carbon footprint. Baupiloten have a lot of experience with transforming kindergardens, schools, and housing projects. They recently remodelled and completely transformed a run-down high-rise building close to demolition as the ‘Teamplayer’ student dormitory. The users were included in the design and building process to optimise the results, enhance the acceptance and to reduce maintenance over time. Participation can lead to sometimes surprising results. The French architects Lacaton Vasalle decided after discussions with the neighbours to propose nothing for the Place Leon Aucoc in Bordeaux – a place that was proposed for ‘embellishing’ from the city council.

254  Rainer Hirth et al. A paradigm for participation at a planning scale is ‘Die Soziale Stadt’, a governmental programme to improve living conditions for ‘socially endangered’ areas in selected German cities. Finding the right measurements for these neighbourhoods under ‘social pressure’ is a challenge, due to the inhomogeneity, as diverse ethnicities, religions, languages, and lifestyles coexist. The aim is to find out what can be improved in the public spaces, social facilities, playgrounds, public transport, etc. It is an open discussion. The project ‘Langen Nordend’, a satellite city with high-rises of the 1970s and 1980s is an example. The tools are planning workshops with the inhabitants – sometimes the first time neighbours meet and talk. These different people come together on a regular base to talk, build models out of styrofoam and cardboard, sketch and discuss their ideas for positive change under the guidance of architects. The people are proud of the outcomes they are involved in, especially when they see palpable results later. Experience shows that interventions in the public space like benches, playgrounds, bus stops, and buildings like youth centres and kindergartens are far less a target of vandalism if they are generated in conjunction with participation processes. User participation is known in social housing schemes and successful in private apartment building enterprises as well. Better known from bigger cities like Munich or Berlin, a group of individuals who want to own an individual apartment form a so-called ‘Bauherren Gemeinschaften’ (Building Community). They hire an architect who is willing and able to work together with a group of five to 50 individuals and a bunch of different ideas. The group decides on the design of the apartment building, garden design, and rooms for common use of the community. It works particularly well if the city council supports with a moderator and an affordable plot land. Participation in planning processes from large-scale town planning processes to building details leads to better results, fewer mistakes, and design more integrated with its physical and social contexts. This was introduced in the 1980s by Belgian architect Lucien Kroll and others. Only a few architects have embraced the idea of user participation; a new movement is needed (De Graaf, 2016). The promise is that given that user participation raises people’s responsibility for their apartment block, their neighbourhood and the surrounding built environment, this could also help people take responsibility for their share of larger-scale environmental problems as well. The building market and associated carbon and waste production is only a (small) part of the reasons for climate change. The fight against climate change needs collective actions and architectural actions are part of this. The combined climate effects of any urban, landscape, and building design have to be taken into increasing consideration. Architects can be more effective by learning more moderation abilities. To do this architectural education has to become more politically and community design focused. It is urgent that the western world reduce energy consumption, waste production, and profligate transport. In architecture this requires less land use, less material consumption, smaller ecological footprints, and less comfort. In short more humbleness from everybody. ‘Less is more’ takes on new meaning and is more urgent than it ever was.

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The need for a new kind of architecture school: re-creating local identity Traditional, locally based architecture used to be distinct in different places around the world. Where traditional vernacular architecture remains it still is. This kind of architecture is usually carbon neutral, and constructed and sustainable through local materials. People, as design/builders, are very effective users of resources and techniques, usually perfectly adapted to local climate, resource availability, and culture. Many truly indigenous vernacular buildings of this type remain good examples of sustainable architecture. Such architecture is an important heritage to be preserved rather than slavishly copied, but learning from it can be a source of identity for people and can contribute to the creation of feasible and sustainable buildings. They demonstrate that there are architectural possibilities beyond a global building material market or contemporary environmental separation with air conditioning in ubiquitous glass and steel towers. What can the Western World learn from this? What kind of mistakes can be avoided? Learning from the vernacular means valuing what we have already. Strengthening, conserving, and adapting built heritage, working on a culture of appreciation of the value of existing structures, and acknowledging the achievements of former architects that know and understand their contexts is an alternative to a culture of endless materialist modernisation and replacement. Levi-Strauss, as early as 1955, discussed the loss of culture arising from the transformation of modern western societies. There is a tendency to replace traditional houses made of natural sustainable materials by box-houses made by concrete blocks and concrete slabs and roofs. In East Timor for example, a small country with just 1.35 million inhabitants, approximately 60 different languages were spoken before colonisation. Traditional buildings, positioned in different valleys, displayed a huge variety in design which was determined by people’s own ability and desire to build houses (Cinatti et  al., 1987). Many were very well crafted with great carvings and paintings and incredibly smart and sustainable joints. These buildings have now almost completely disappeared due to the universal solution of concrete block box-houses. The challenge is to keep such a traditional richness of construction, to understand local resources and climate, and to record how architecture and construction has changed in the last hundreds of years. Within this, the desires for modernity of people must be acknowledged and traditional design knowledge must be updated to reflect this. Three ways architects and architectural academics may begin to address this are: 1

The creation of smaller, local-based architecture schools with solid international networks and contacts including student and lecturer exchange

Smaller schools may be better able to include local architecture heritage and vocational traditions into architectural education. Why should East Timor not have an architecture programme to include and advance the unbelievably rich and disappearing local building heritage? To create locally appropriate buildings, a sense of

256  Rainer Hirth et al. common cultural practice must be gained. This may be discovered and discussed in participatory processes with local people. 2

Collaborative workshop-based education between different schools and different parts of the world

Case study 1: Teaching through international collaborative work in a real world context. Three groups of 10–12 students from India, China, and Germany met for a workshop in Bangalore, India at the Tata Institute. The task was to research and work on rural architecture in a village in transition from a traditional village to a ‘modern’ one. The village named Sugenahalli is located two hours south of Bangalore. In this place traditional buildings were mixed with new buildings made of cement blocks with concrete floor slabs and coloured walls and windows. The village had changed substantially during the last two decades. Many young men had left the village for a ‘better’ life with more comfort and work security, had become educated and earnt money in the city. Some of the money is returned to the village and modern houses are built. Mani et al. (2013) investigated the new houses over a period of more than 15 years. His findings note that the new buildings with the flat concrete roofs do not offer the same internal climate as the traditional ones. The average internal temperature is 2–7 degrees higher when compared to the older houses. Homeowners therefore have to buy fans and air conditioners to cope with these higher interior temperatures and have to spend more money on electricity. The relatives therefore have to send more money to maintain the new buildings, resulting in a kind of ‘circulus vitiosus’ (vicious cycle). A workshop was conducted where groups of students made measurements and drawings of the houses and interviewed house owners asking what they would change if they suddenly had more money. At the end of the workshop back in Bangalore the students had to design and present improvement proposals without removing existing houses. Some students, especially the Indian ones, were surprised that some of the traditional house owners weren’t unhappy at all with their buildings. Some minor changes were proposed but an overall appreciation of the qualities of the historic buildings was a result, with a realisation that the hotter new modern buildings were not necessarily a superior solution. Student participants of the workshop left with an interest in vernacular architecture they had not had before. The next step is to include the users in the process (Tenorio et al., 2018). 3

Practical design/build projects as a constant and basic part of architecture education

Case study 2: The aim was to activate students to take up their responsibility, and to act to help solve a problem by themselves. A lack of individual working space at the Architecture School of Coburg University was identified due to a growing number of students. An additional room for the second year was missing from the campus. An application to the Bavarian State (where Coburg

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Figure 30.1 Rainer Hirth, workshop with students from India, China and Germany in Bangalore, India at the Tata Institute.

is located) for an extension was possible but was likely to take 10–15  years. The alternative approach to solving the issue was for the students to instigate a design build project. The first step was the identification of spatial potentials within the existing building. A room with double height ceilings was pinpointed on the ground floor. It was a left over space originally designed to host a second staircase for a vertical extension that had not occurred due to legal problems with local authorities. An internal student design competition to find a solution to the lack of space followed. An elective course took over detailing, and drawing of plans for the building approval and construction. Learning took place on a real building process including negotiation with the fire department and other authorities like the university’s chancellor and the owner of the building. Special furniture was designed and selected in a democratic process within the elective course. The students took responsibility and worked independently. The money for the project was mainly funded by external sponsors, ‘Bayrisches Baugewebe’, with a little support from the university. Construction of the ‘Gallery’ the students designed was supported by professional builders but was mainly executed by the students under the guidance of a professor with building experience. The construction resulted in approximately 100 m2 new floor area in the school. The students solved an urgent problem and left the course with the experience that by working together and sharing knowledge they can proactively change something.

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Figure 30.2 Rainer Hirth, practical design build project with students in Coburg, Germany.

Towards integrating design teaching and practices Architects need the ability to change their individual site and client-based design practices to become more integrated with and responsive to surrounding cultures and contexts beyond reducing energy and embodied carbon. To be able to address wider social and cultural issues in this way begins with a different type of architect. Architects need to be taught to become more aware of their responsibilities to their wider communities for the effects of their design outputs, and to listen and balance wider community and individual client needs. They need to become an interconnected discipline of cooperating designers who together and individually are active and integral agents of their wider communities. New participatory design practices that reconnect students to local and international contexts directly and indirectly affected by their work equip students with cooperation skills and a wider social responsibility. Students learning about their potential positive agency to initiate and be the change they seek through local design and build projects in the wider community is an effective way to create the positive changes through increased integrated student responsibility. Architects need to learn to also become educators and connectors of clients and communities.

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References Cinatti, R., L. De Almeida, and S. Mende. 1987. Architectura Timorense. Lisboa: Instituto des Investigacao Cientifica Tropical – Museo de Etnologia. De Graaf, R. 2016. “Interview with Lucien Kroll.” The Architectural Review, July 26. Mani, Monto–Reddy, B. V. Venkatarama, and H. I. Somashekar. 2013. “Assessing Resource and Energy Demand Attributed to Modern Urbanizing Transitions in Rural Dwellings.” Unpublished. Pedersen Zari, M., and K. Hecht. 2019. “Biomimicry for Regenerative Built Environments: Mapping Design Strategies for Producing Ecosystem Services.” In A. Zanelli, C. Monticelli, and B. Stimpfle (eds.), Proceedings of the TensiNet Symposium – Softening the habitat, 3–5 June. Milan, Italy: Politecnico di Milano. pg 241–259. https://pdfs.semantic scholar.org/0761/e0b3321ec90a454742b786dd12192177f260.pdf Sigmund and Weyand, 2015 “Partizipative Architektur: neue Planungsmethoden mit Bürgerbeteiligung” Report on Susanne Hofmanns Lecture, DETAIL Research Forum/ BAU 2015 Thementag, Netzwerk Bauen, Open Source Architecture. Tenorio, R., M. Mani, and R. Hirth. 2018. “Project: India Workshop: Partnering for a Socially Active Design Approach.” aare Charrette -the Journal of the Association of Architectural Educators, 5 (1) (Spring).

31 Stranded assets Daniel A. Barber

The idea of comfort While it is widely acknowledged, amongst the scientific, academic, and policy communities, that humans have entered the Anthropocene, we have yet to conceive of architecture appropriate to it. The notion that humans act as a geological force affecting whole planetary systems comes as a collective shock. We are caught unprepared, and seemingly unwilling to adjust the terms and parameters of academic discourse and professional practice to better engage the challenges of climate mitigation: carbon emissions, rising seas, and the unpredictability of the future. What terms and conditions of architectural knowledge production can reflect these unexpected conditions? This chapter pursues this question by exploring the notion of comfort. Tomás Maldonado was leader of the Hochschule für Gestaltung at Ulm from 1957 to 1965, one of a number of schools aiming to continue in some form the legacy of the Werkbund and the Bauhaus. Ulm proposed “development teams” in place of the Bauhaus’ “workshops”, indicating a refined engagement with changing forms of capital, media, and design. Ulm was also an important channel for the introduction of systems theory into architecture. Maldonado’s curricular approach offered a range of interlocking network systems such as visiting lectures and instructors, changing topics, and courses in systems theory, film, and critical theory, in relation to considerations of the role of propaganda. Design was seen to have the capacity to change people’s minds, and change people’s way of life (Betts, 1998; Spitz, 2015). After Maldonado left Ulm he spent a few years at Princeton, where he wrote Design, Nature and Revolution: Towards a Critical Ecology, an extended manifesto published in 1972, clarifying the extent to which design is both a primary driver of ecological destruction, and essential to reparative strategies. Reference to Maldonado helps to frame the epochal consequences of architectural culture debates as they are re-engaged with in the present; consequences that could not have been imagined in their moment. A later Maldonado text suggests even more relevance to contemporary struggles. His 1987 book, Il futuro della modernità, contains a chapter later translated as “The Idea of Comfort.” Drawing on the complex relationship between design and environment, in a moment, of course, before the role of carbon emissions was

Stranded assets  261 well understood, the essay describes how the provision of comfort operates as both an engine for and a consequence of the processes of modernisation, industrialisation, and financialisation. “Comfort is a modern idea,” Maldonado argues, using a term (modern) that had not yet been completely washed of its utopianism, and yet was still shot through with the inequities of capitalist development. “Before the Industrial Revolution,” he continues, “the expectation of comfort . . . was the privilege of the few. But the progressive diffusion of comfort to the masses was not accidental. There is no doubt that it has played, from the beginning, a fundamental role in the task of controlling the social fabric of the nascent capitalist society” (Maldonado, 1991, 35). A compelling, if somewhat overstated, premise; the socio-economic system of capital accumulation emerged in tandem with changing experiential expectations of the built interior. Comfort, from air conditioners to silverware, defines class distinctions. It is a realm for the expression of inequity. “With standards more or less formalised, more or less explicit, comfort serves to structure daily life, to ritualise conduct,” Maldonado writes (1991, 37). It is difficult to imagine the contemporary conditions of globalisation, its commerce and climate, without considering the role of comfort in the built conditions of the planetary interior. This is especially the case for air-conditioning, by which one can now expect to be comfortable in any regional climate by virtue of the capacity for a fossil-fueled mechanical system to produce a normative, consistent interior. Richard Neutra, it is worth noting, reflected a similar disposition, in his Architecture of Social Concern for Regions of Mild Climate in 1948: “there has, of course, always been comfort in the world, reckless comfort, we could say – comfort based on someone else’s continuous labors” (Neutra, 1948, 12). Maldonado speaks of comfort very broadly, yet he makes clear that in its many manifestations, comfort was essential to the project, the ambition of architectural modernism. Comfort occurs, generally, within spaces, within rooms, within architecture. It is the object of and the consequence of design. A straightforward plea would call for an expanded notion of comfort, so that its corollary, design, can take into account the destabilising of the climate system. Design and comfort are driven by consumption, distribution, and the prospect of a global increase in quality of life. How can design manage the limits of carbon emissions? One could imagine an expanded sense of planetary comfort as the subject and object of design to include species longevity; of design to create certainty that your grandchildren won’t be overheated in an uninhabitable earth (Wallace-Wells, 2019). Modernity more generally, Maldonado is insisting, far beyond modern architecture, has been expressed through comfort, through metrics of life span, education, prosperity, and health; and also through security, consistency, and predictability. “The mansion of modern freedom,” Dipesh Chakrabarty (2009) writes, “rests on an ever-growing foundation of fossil fuel use.” Note the architectural metaphor. Mansions of modern freedom, from airports to office towers to suburban mega homes, express this dual frame; expanded access to comfort and the good life, reliant on a dramatic increase in carbon emissions. Spaces of the twentieth century have been spaces of capital, spaces of the expanded reach of commerce, spaces of

262  Daniel A. Barber accumulation. Comfort has become a measure of social and economic health. We are reliant on our conditioned interiors for our way of life. Much of the criticism of the term Anthropocene has revolved around the “anthros” being invoked. Is our environmentalised age created by humans as a species, or by specific elements of that species? These might include the West, the global north, the capitalist class, with impacts distributed globally (Crist, 2013). Neologisms abound: the capitolocene, the chthulucene, the plantationocene (Haraway, 2015; Moore, 2016; Parikka, 2014). Maldonado helps us frame the comfort-ocene: an indication that the industrial provision of thermal comfort, through buildings, and the cultural, mechanical, and resource conditions that support it, has augured an epochal shift in the project and prospects of the species. Thermal comfort plays a specific role in this wider landscape of comfort. It is the built expression of economic distinctions, reliant on the premise of stability, security, and prospects for the future. It is conservative in the most basic sense. The politics of the twenty-first century will play out through battles over air-conditioning, creative interventions that seek to disrupt this conservative force (Sloterdijk, 2009; Horn, 2018).

Fossil capital Numerous discussions have aimed to shift the tenor of historical discourse around energy and its social effects. Andreas Malm’s Fossil Capital (2016) is an interesting example, describing in a central metaphor how the nexus of energy and buildings is central to the accumulation of wealth and power: Agents must have created [the fossil economy] through events amounting to a moment of construction, much as, once erected, a building’s structure is now an enduring feature in the world; entrenched in the environment, the building conditions the movements of the people inside. Eventually it appears indistinguishable from life itself. But the fossil economy was once constructed and has since been reproduced and enlarged, and anything built over time can potentially be torn down (or escaped). (Malm, 2016, 13) The intertwined histories of fossil fuels, capital, buildings, and comfort is the operational narrative of the present. The destabilisation of the climate is the result, in no small part, of wealth accumulation in and through buildings. Buildings are both the spaces of accumulation (the offices, banks, call centers, warehouses, homes, etc.), and objects to accumulate themselves, as assets. Buildings, and architects, are not to blame for climate disruption but are nonetheless largely responsible for it. Buildings have been the medium, the cultural expression, of carbon accumulation. This role of buildings as energy intensifiers has a history, then. At mid-century, intensification was intentional: architects and developers participated in a broader aspiration to use as much energy as possible, to grow the economy, especially in

Stranded assets  263 the U.S. and the West, through energy profligacy. The well-known centrality of energy to foreign policy adds a further dimension to this premise. Efforts to secure reliable sources of oil right after World War II followed on what Timothy Mitchell (2011) refers to as “the production of scarcity.” He cites suburban lifestyle patterns and intensive growth in military equipment and reserves as social and political investments aimed at constructing a need for more energy, with consequences for geopolitics and of course the global environment (Barber, 2016). This was a process of constructing persistent energy demand. Mitchell’s formulation helps to clarify that energy may have been, and may still be, cheap in kilowatt-per-hour terms; yet it contains extensive social externalities (costs that inhere to the energy system), from pollution, to wars for oil, to threats of nuclear weapons buildup, to more recently, the effects of climatic instability. The Seagrams tower in New York (1957) designed, as is well known, by Mies van der Rohe with assistance from Philip Johnson and Phyllis Lambert, is an icon of order and consistency. In a recent “energy audit” of midtown Manhattan, office towers were rated for their energy efficiency on a scale of 0–100 to identify those towers most readily available for effective retrofit to reduce midtown’s overall energy demand. The Seagram Park Avenue came in at a 3 – the lowest grade given, by a wide margin (PLANYC, 2013). In related press coverage it was noted that “the biggest drain could be the International-style [sic] landmark’s most lauded features. The Seagram’s single-pane glass curtain walls are far less efficient than treated or double-pane windows, and its luminous fluorescent ceilings work against energy conservation” (Navarro, 2012). Some of the attributes that have made the building central to the history of modern architecture are also those that make it difficult to maintain in the face of the rising social costs of energy throughput. The climatic misapprehensions of the Seagrams tower suggest the extent to which fossil fuels were at the core of innovations essential to the emergence of architectural modernism. The Bauhaus Dessau (completed 1925), is another prominent example, with its own singlepane curtain wall, built in the wake of massive investment in coal extraction and processing infrastructure in post-World War I  Germany, and which embodies modern architecture’s relationship to energy transitions. What to do with these stranded assets, aside from making them monuments to the changing conditions of geophysical knowledge, and architecture’s dynamic relationship to planetary systems?

Shading devices That architecture has long operated in tight connection with a fossil fuel economy is perhaps self-evident. Since World War II the office building in particular emerged in concert with readily available fossil fuel energy. Fossil fuels facilitated the formal elaborations of modern architecture, as well as the thermal experience of their conditioned interiors. While the skyscraper might seem inevitable, it developed by virtue of a debate about the relative mechanical or architectural means to manage the thermal conditions of the interior.

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Figure 31.1 Aladar Olgyay, “Thermal Economics of Curtain Walls”, from Architectural Forum, October 1957.

Olgyay (1957) helps to clarify this discussion. Olgyay was one of a small group of researchers investigating the relationship between architecture and climate in the period. The article continued discussions begun early in the trajectory of architectural modernism, involving Le Corbusier’s initial exhilaration around the pan de verre, or glass wall, derived from the open façade evident in the iconic Domino diagram, and was already tempered by the mid-1930s in part due to the reception of his ideas in tropical climates. By the third volume of the Oeuvre Compléte, published in 1939, Le Corbusier lamented the “problem” of the transparent envelope, indicating that because of the basic condition of overheating, the “hour of doom” was fast approaching for the pan de verre, especially in the global south (Le Corbusier, 1939; Samuel, 2007). A designed approach to shading was needed to manage these effects. The solution proposed a combination of the glass wall and a regional- and site-appropriate shading system, helped to establish, alongside the development of air conditioning, the design and material potentials of modern architecture as a flexible approach of building. Olgyay began by noting an apparent conflict between the all-glass curtain then still the subject of much discussion (recall that SOM’s Lever House in New York, with heat resistant glass, was completed in 1952 and the Seagrams Headquarters had just opened). He defined this conflict as one between the glass wall and what he called “hole in the wall facades,” which were largely opaque, such as the 1953 ALCOA headquarters in Pittsburgh, designed by Harrison and Abramowitz. This

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Figure 31.2 Victor and Aladar Olgyay, the façade as ‘environmental filter’ from Solar Control and Shading Devices (New York: Reinhold, 1957), reproduced with permission.

building had an aluminum façade with what Olgyay called “small TV windows.” Olgyay placed this building in contrast to SOM’s 1957 headquarters for Connecticut General Life Insurance in Hartford, a low, sprawling suburban complex with, as Aladar put it, “the charm, spaciousness, and open vistas of all glass areas” (Olgyay, 1957, 156): The battle [between the opaque and the open façade] cannot be resolved or understood until the curtain wall, relieved now of all load-bearing functions, is first considered for what it is: a skin or an environmental filter between outdoor and indoor conditions, closely interlocked in function with the more and more completely controlled interior environment. By “function” Olgyay means “economy.” Thermal factors, he was arguing, needed to be taken into consideration when assessing the façade solution for a given site; not in isolation but in relationship to cooling costs. In most cases, glass panels, certainly not a single-paned curtain wall, as they were then being manufactured, did not hold up well in such an analysis. Olgyay’s article intended to show that “the amount of air-conditioning tonnage required is so closely interlocked with the type of curtain wall chosen that it must be considered an integral part of the wall and its costs” (Olgyay, 1957, 154, 157). We cannot see the façade

266  Daniel A. Barber without imagining, he hoped, the mechanical system, and the thermal conditions, within, along with the economic investments it implies. There followed, in the article, a demonstration of the diagrammatic tools that Olgyay had been developing, in collaboration with his twin brother Victor, over the previous decade at MIT and Princeton, in order to perform a precise climatic analysis. Though still too convoluted for general use, this diagram suggests the careful articulation of a sort of third way  – a glass wall protected by precisely tuned shading elements, considered according to site, orientation, and relevant climate patterns. Olgyays’ work culminated in the 1957 book Solar Control and Shading Devices and Design with Climate of 1963, and the method and examples these texts disseminated. (Barber, 2017). “The objective,” one of the Oglyay’s colleagues notes in this context, “in the development of right-shaped buildings for particular exterior environments, will be to combine esthetic appeal with a marked reduction in heating [and] cooling loads [leading to] a corresponding saving of natural resources” (McLaughlin, 1955). Resources were not seen to be scarce in the mid-1950s, as noted, quite to the contrary. However, the price of heating oil was subject to dramatic oscillations, in the U.S. and elsewhere. Shading systems, as air conditioning was on the rise, were seen as a hedge against possible economic instability. The Olgyays and a number of other researchers were, at the end of the decade, focused on how to take advantage of both the new mechanical cooling technologies and façade shading systems in order to develop an optimized thermal interior in relationship to the climatic exterior at a given site. There was, despite the seeming inevitable proliferation of sealed glass towers since, a tempered and nuanced approach to the façade as “environmental filter” across this seminal period, focused on the relationship of that façade to the emergent economic logics of globalisation, expressed through the normalised interior. The proliferation of the modern office tower played out relative to this persistent “battle,” as Olgyay framed it, between open and shaded facades, between the mechanical efficiency of a tightly sealed interior and the propensity to mediate and mitigate climatic effects through shading systems. In focusing on these debates, new kinds of evidence come to be seen as significant; lesser known buildings come to the fore, and familiar objects can be read on different terms. These projects are of interest less for their formal clarity than as indication of architecture negotiating its position as an environmental filter, on infrastructural and cultural terms, with little awareness, as yet, of its planetary effects. Olgyay’s “battle” has returned, however sublimated and mediated by a new set of social and political forces. Comfort, and the fossil fueled systems that produce thermal consistency, are now seen to be major drivers of an epochal geophysical instability. There are massive consequences for these methods of designing and building, and for ways of life in the near future. The importance of thermal conditioning to the emergence of a certain kind of capitalist space of excess, signification, and expenditure is clear. The comfortocene emerges as a term useful as a means to encourage architectural discourse to face up to its excesses more effectively, and to begin to help reframe the project of design as one of post-carbon energy imaginaries, producing a different kind of built environment.

Stranded assets  267

References Barber, Daniel A. 2016. A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press. Barber, Daniel A. 2017. “The Nature of the Image: Olgyay and Olgyay’s Climatic-Architectural Diagrams of the 1960s.” Public Culture, 29 (1) (January): 129–165. Betts, Paul. 1998. “Science, Semiotics and Society: The Ulm Hochschule fur Gestaltung in Retrospect.” Design Issues, 14 (2): 67–82. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2009. “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry, 35 (2): 197–222. Crist, Eileen. 2013. “On the Poverty of Our Nomenclature.” Environmental Humanities, 3: 129–147. Haraway, Donna. 2015. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin.” Environmental Humanities, 6: 159–165. Horn, Eva. 2018. “Air as Medium.” Grey Room, 73: 6–25. Le Corbusier. 1939. Oeuvre Complét Vol. 3 1934–1938. Zurich: Éditions Dr. H. Girsberger. Maldonado, Tomás. 1987. Il future della modernità. Milan: Feltrinelli. Maldonado, Tomás. 1991. “The Idea of Comfort.” Design Issues, 8 (1): 35–43. Maldonado, Tomás. 2019 [1972]. Design, Nature and Revolution: Towards a Critical Ecology. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Malm, Andreas. 2016. Fossil Capital. New York: Verso. McLaughlin, Robert. 1955. Press Release: Thermoheliodon. Seeley Mudd Archive. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mitchell, Timothy. 2011. Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. New York: Verso. Moore, Jason (ed.) 2016. Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Navarro, Mireya. 2012. “City’s Law Tracking Energy Use Yield Some Surprises.” The New York Times, December 24. Neutra, R. 1948. Architecture of Social Concern in Regions of Mild Climate. Sao Paulo: Gerth Todtmann. Olgyay, Aladar. 1957. “Thermal Economics of Curtain Walls.” Architectural Forum, 106 (10): 154–164. Olgyay, Aladar, and Victor Olgyay. 1957. Solar Control and Shading Devices. New York: Reinhold. Olgyay, Victor. 2017 [1963]. Design with Climate: Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Parikka, Jussi. 2014. The Anthrobscene. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. PLANYC. 2013. New York City Local Law Benchmarking Report. New York: Office of the Mayor. September. Samuel, Flora. 2007. Le Corbusier in Detail. New York: Routledge. Sloterdijk, Peter. 2009. Terror from the Air. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Spitz, René. 2015. “ ‘Design is not a Science’: Otl Aicher’s Constitutional Putsch at the HfG Ulm and His Credo for the Social Responsibility of Designers.” Design Issues, 31 (1): 7–17. Wallace-Wells, David. 2019. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. New York: Tim Duggan Books.

32 (Hybrid) architecture in and over time Sofie Pelsmakers, Jenni Poutanen, and Sini Saarimaa

Introduction As part of the sustainability debate in architecture, the longevity of buildings has come under scrutiny again (e.g. Gething, 2013; Schmidt and Austin, 2016; Krokfors, 2017; Pinder et al., 2017; Heidrich et al., 2017; De Paris and Lopes, 2018; Braide, 2019). While generally the construction industry has been slow to respond to climate change, and scarce resource availability, there is an increasing focus on the circular economy, and future-proofing buildings to a changing climate (Densley Tingley, 2012; Gething, 2013). This has meant that an increasing number of buildings are incorporating increased ecological adaptability, viewed over an extended period of time (30 to 100  years or beyond). While this is an improvement from the prevailing view that buildings are permanent, and that change is detrimental, and to be resisted (Brand, 1994), there is a danger that long-term ecological adaptability comes at the expense of the needs of the users that change daily, weekly, yearly, and between decades. This might lead to a longevity paradox: the building fails if it is not able to answer to user need changes, occurring both in long-term periods, and in a cyclical short-term manner, despite being designed to meet climatic or resource needs. Thus, even the most ecologically sustainable building would need to be replaced sooner than intended when neglecting the different rhythms and reasons for changes. In this chapter we explore considerations of time, short-, medium-, and longterm in architecture. It seems that they are rarely considered all together, yet, they are essential ingredients for achieving holistic sustainable architecture. As such, we discuss urban housing environments, and their means to answer to longer-, medium-, and short-term cyclical changes, with a special focus on the latter. This leads to a discussion about extending the mixed-use neighbourhood into a mixeduse building approach, that is,. hybrid buildings that should be designed by taking time into account in a multi-dimensional way.

Ecological adaptability Some 40  years after the phrase was first coined, the ‘long life, loose fit, low energy’ concept has received renewed attention in the building industry (Murray,

(Hybrid) architecture in and over time  269 2011), related to the need for a building to endure over time with circular use of resources. This attempts to address the environmental impact of the embodied energy, and associated CO2 emissions of the increasingly scarce resources used to construct buildings, as well as a vast amount of construction waste from building refurbishment, and demolition at a building’s different life cycle stages. Such an approach is necessary given that this is directly associated with the climate crisis (e.g. Coelho, 2012; Heeren et al., 2015). Societies face significant impacts from shifts in the climate as we know it, and the need to adapt to a changing climate is already a reality in many parts of the world. For example, hotter summers, and milder winters, and more extreme events are expected (IPCC, 2018). This is already evident in Europe where previous summer-temperature records have been exceeded (Vautard et al., 2019); while in the Nordic region, where buildings are designed for cold winters, the majority of people were unable to keep their homes comfortably cool during summer (EC, 2018). Hence, the need to design for a changing climate is a reality, which means being proactive in designing our new buildings, and also designing in a way that challenges traditional waste management processes (for example, deconstruction, recyclability, and design for disassembly, Figure 32.1). Additionally, ecological adaptability is also about designing new buildings, and retroactively adapting existing buildings, to withstand new climatic conditions now, and in the future, that is, transformability for ecological adaptability (Figure 32.1.). For example, this includes flood-proofing homes, and considering their robustness in a warning climate to prevent building overheating now, and in the future (Gething, 2013). When the (expected) life of the building is 60  years and beyond, ecological adaptability generally happens only a few times at unpredictable periods over the building’s lifespan. As such, ecological adaptability could be predominantly regarded as linear in nature, that is, things happen over a long period, and move in one direction. Nevertheless, ecological adaptability is also linked to some cyclic adaptation, for example, technical processes of self-adaptive building envelopes in order to make buildings respond better to dynamic environments. Ecological adaptability (Figure 32.1) manifests itself mainly in designing for physical adaptation, that is, concerning the active change of physical elements such as introducing light, reflective materials, adding solar shading, and more openable windows to adapt to warmer summer temperatures, as well as more permeable surfaces, and green infrastructures to reduce local flooding (Pelsmakers, 2015). However, to a lesser extent, some changes might also be part of various uses, and functions that the spaces enable without physical change, such as designing for safe zones in the case of flooding, warm/cold spaces in extreme weather, or even using the building to take the most advantage of natural lighting. Ecological adaptability is only one dimension which has to be taken into consideration in sustainable design. Long-term resilience ensures a building’s life-span, but other shorter-term adaptability solutions are of equally great importance in support of social, experiential, and everyday usability qualities of environments. Medium- to short-term adaptability aspects, referred to here as spatial adaptability, might be neglected with a longer-term ecological adaptability focus.

270  Sofie Pelsmakers et al.

Figure 32.1 Summary overview of ecological, spatial, and mixed-use adaptability approaches, with time dimension.

Spatial adaptability Social and societal issues lead to the need to accommodate a diversity of users over a building’s lifespan, and this creates the need for spatial adaptability (see Figure 32.1). Even though much has been written about spatial adaptability in architecture, it has not yet filtered through into mainstream housing design (Pinder et al., 2017), though it is more common in schools and offices. Generally, spatial adaptability holds the idea of architecture accommodating change in and over time, but more accurately it is a versatile, and vast concept that functions as an umbrella for various topics. Two main approaches to the topic can be recognised. Spatial adaptability can be categorised as a building’s potential to be physically transformable often titled also as ‘convertibility’, ‘modifiability’, or ‘flexibility’. Spatial adaptability can also refer to a building’s potential for versatile usage, or to be multi-usable, often labelled as ‘multi-functionality’ or ‘polyvalence’ (Rabeneck et al., 1973, 1974; Schneider and Till, 2007). The terminology of the discipline is far from unambiguous. Considering time, spatial adaptability can occur linearly or cyclically, that is, happening at wider intervals or evolving around cycles. Space can, for example, physically transform in a medium- or short-term cyclical way through active changes of technical parts, and elements such as movable, foldable or sliding fixtures. In this way, space can be hourly or daily changed, for example, from space for a get-together to several intimate sleeping areas. On the other hand, through spatial adaptability potentials, space can be physically transformed to suit new situations over a longer period of time (Habraken, 1972, 1998). This allows, for example, change to the configuration of a dwelling as a dwelling’s users, along with their culture-bound aspirations, change over decades. Another example is expanding, and contracting the sizes of apartment units, to meet the needs of slowly but inevitably changing diversification of the population, and housing cultures. On the other hand, in offices and educational facilities,

(Hybrid) architecture in and over time 271 the load-bearing structural system allows for more novel layouts (and expansion or reduction of settings), through accommodating longer-term changes in a light-weight structure, thereby facilitating, for example, changing pedagogical approaches. Adaptability potentials thus support long-term social sustainability, as clearly, unchangeable structures may not endlessly satisfy changing user needs and generations over time. Multi-usable spaces, and spatial configurations may also accommodate mediumor short-term cyclical changes of the functions performed in spaces, without the need for physical interventions. As one of the basic properties of a multi-usable space is sufficient size (Leupen, 2006), applying adaptability through a multiusable ‘loose fit‘ approach is generally more straightforward in a public context, but less so in the residential sphere, especially when the cost of space provision is taken into account. On the other hand, in workspace, and learning environment design, multi-usability of space may be achieved through flexible, and multifunctional furniture, which can allow for short-term spatial changes to accommodate various social activities throughout the day.

Mixed-use adaptability: focusing on hybrid use Much underexplored in architecture is the use of short-term cycles that determine a building’s activities, and ‘life’ at regular intervals, such as day-night, weekday-weekend, and seasonal use of a building. We refer to this here as mixed-use adaptability, and it captures spatial performance between different functions in time. This can indicate the capacity of a space to be used in various ways (i.e. multi-usability mentioned earlier), but also the capacity of a building (or a neighbourhood) to integrate the boundaries of various functions, and the borderlines of private and public (Figure 32.1). The latter we frame here as hybrid use, and discuss this at the building scale. An ultimate example of hybrid use is a building that includes a variety of housing options for dwellers, and mixed-use facilities, all in one physical structure. In this kind of hybrid structure, for example, the dwellers may be able to use spaces at nights or weekends, that are used as offices or for education during weekdays. The notion of hybrid buildings is to mix living, working, recreation and cultural facilities, celebrating the play between the intimacy of the private life, and the sociability of the public life, and their usually different time cycles (Fernandez Per et al., 2014). The distinction with spatial adaptability potential is important: to achieve this short-term cyclical change between different functions requires different design solutions from the outset of a project because different users, points of entry, public, private, and legal boundaries all need to be considered early on. Moreover, avoiding conflict, and disturbance between functions and users, while respecting the need for private life, are all important design considerations too. Hybrid buildings lean on the same justifications as mixed land-use development, first advocated by Jane Jacobs, leading to the efficient use of infrastructure throughout all hours (Grant, 2002). Moreover, commercial, and civic activities near housing are believed to reduce dependency on cars, and thereby decrease

272  Sofie Pelsmakers et al. resource consumption (Moos et  al., 2018; Grant, 2002). Other ecological benefits might be a reduced building energy (carbon) footprint due to its efficient use, and space-zoning (Lindberg et al., 2018). Thus, hybrid buildings take mixeduse developments further, and can be seen as a strategy for sustainable development that also entails economic vitality, social equity, and environmental quality (Grant, 2002). Given that hybrids are full-time buildings (Fernandez Per et  al., 2014), they allow overlapping or contamination of functions derived from sharing of different spaces and facilities at different times. Their simultaneous, and serial use (Brinkø et  al., 2015) highlights how the activities could be shared throughout daily, weekly, and seasonal changes. This is increasingly considered a necessity, given the rise of the knowledge-based economy, and mobile technology which has shifted the tempo of a working day that is no longer connected to a certain place, and time (Vartiainen et al., 2007). For the mobile knowledge worker, the city is the office (Laing, 2013), and this highlights new needs for using our home, and work environments, and other spaces.

Playing with time and hybrids Clearly, when, and how buildings are used, and adapted over time, affects architecture. For example, the novelty of a hybrid can be in the way the usual programmes are solved with unexpected mixing of functions in, with, and over time. Using short-term cyclical time in design may also lead to renewed architectural imagination. For example, in the Nordic region, where there are long, cold, and dark winters, some architects visualise their architecture in different seasons (e.g. White Arkitekter, Kiruna). Moreover, some architects have purposively used the play of natural light as a source of powerful architectural solutions, think for example of Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp chapel walls. A rare example of night-time architecture is the Viikki Academic Library in Helsinki by ARK-house architects which was designed as a night-time beacon, intentionally different from the day-time, and achieved by three different built-in green houses. Alvar Aalto’s Rovaniemi library is an example designed to shine and reflect light in the dark, snowy winter season, while Kengo Kuma with the Oslo School of Architecture designed the Inverted House, Taiki-cho, Hokkaido to collect snow, deliberately changing its physical appearance, and performance in the winter season.

Sustainable architecture in, and over time Temporal aspects in architecture have become increasingly important due to recent additional contextual changes which significantly impact on architectural design and its sustainability. For example, a changing climate, and scarce resources have brought ecological adaptability to the foreground, while societal, and cultural changes highlight the mid-term linear, and short-term cyclical changes more. Schmidt and Austin (2016, 47) argue that ‘designing for adaptability involves the acceptability of time as a fundamental design variable, in both its predictable

(Hybrid) architecture in and over time 273 and unpredictable form’. It might also lead to new ideas, programmatic imagination, and a generator of dynamic architectural propositions. However, despite the above arguments for inclusion of time as a rich, and necessary architectural design aspect, generally the majority of buildings are still typically designed without considering linear, or cyclical time. On the contrary, adaptability in architectural practice is often framed as to be realised at some undefined point in the future, without investigation of these manifold temporal aspects in any depth (if at all). However, with current focus on long-term, linear ecological sustainability, there is a danger that this could lead to a longevity paradox, whereby a building is at risk of failure before its end of life due to users’ inability to adapt to meet their needs, unless the building is also designed to accommodate this. For example, a building might be designed to withstand a warming climate in several decades, but in the short-term fails to accommodate the user’s changing needs through lack of spatial, and mixed-use adaptability. Hence, ecological, spatial, and mixed-use adaptability potential all need to be considered, and be present in our buildings to achieve truly sustainable architecture in reality (Figure 32.1). This requires new ways of thinking about architecture by various actors, and stakeholders. It requires actively embracing, and encouraging inhabitants to take over, and to change their architecture at different levels, and over different time periods. Clearly, these changes also mean that instead of architects avoiding contact with end-users, they should actively work with them, and gain feedback, because it is also about the long-term consequences of the design decisions that are being made, bringing important ideas of patterns of use and user expectations into the discussion (Duffy, 2012). Instead of ‘over-designing’ the architect should ‘under-design’ (Schmidt et  al., 2010), and embrace change through different future scenario planning, but not seek to control it. This does not mean a reduction in the need for designers to be creative, but exactly the opposite.

References Braide, A. 2019. “Dwelling in Time: Studies on Life Course Spatial Adaptability.” PhD diss., Chalmers. Brand, S. 1994. How Buildings Learn: What Happens after they’re Built. New York: Penguin. Brinkø, R., S. Balslev Nielsen, and J. van Meel. 2015. “Access Over Ownership – A Typology of Shared Space.” Facilities, 33 (11/12): 736–751. Available online: https://doi. org/10.1108/ F-11-2014-0094. Coelho, A., and J. de Brito. 2012. “Influence of Construction and Demolition Waste Management on the Environmental Impact of Buildings.” Waste Management, 32: 532–541. Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/jj.wasman.2011.11. 011. De Paris, S. R., and C. N. Lopes. 2018. “Housing Flexibility Problem: Review of Recent Limitations and Solutions.” Frontiers of Architectural Research, 7 (1): 80–91. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2017.11.004. Densley Tingley, D. 2012. “Design for Deconstruction: An Appraisal.” PhD diss., Sheffield University.

274  Sofie Pelsmakers et al. Duffy, F. 2012. The FM World- Interview: Frank Duffy (CBE) And Peter McLennan. Date accessed September 12, 2019. Available online: www.facilitatemagazine.com/features/ interviews/fm-world-interview-frank-duffy-cbe-and-peter-mclennan/. EC (European Commission). 2018. EU Energy Poverty Observatory (CN ENER/B3/ SER/2015–507/SI2.742529). Date accessed September  25, 2019. Available online: www.energypoverty.eu/. Fernandez Per, A., J. Mozas, and J. Arpa. 2014. This is Hybrid: An Analysis of Mixed-Use Buildings. Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain: a+t architecture Publishers. Gething, B. 2013. Design for Climate Change. London: RIBA Publishing. Grant, J. 2002. “Mixed Use in Theory and Practice: Canadian Experience with Implementing a Planning Principle.” Journal of the American Planning Association, 68 (1): 71–84. Habraken, N. J. 1972. Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing. London: Architectural Press. Habraken, N. J. 1998. The Structure of the Ordinary: Form and Control in the Built Environment. Edited by J. Teicher. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Heeren, N., C. L. Mutel, B. Steubing, Y. Ostermeyer, H. Wallbaum, and S. Hellweg. 2015. “Environmental Impact of Buildings – What Matters?” Environmental Science Technology, 49: 9832–9841. doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b01735. Heidrich, O., J. M. Kamara, S. Maltese, F. Re Cecconi, and M. C. Dejaco. 2017. “A Critical Review of Developments in Building Adaptability.” International Journal of Building Pathology and Adaptation, 35 (4): 284–303. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1108/ IJBPA-03-2017-0018. IPCC. 2018. “Summary for Policymakers.” In Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. New York: United Nations. Krokfors, K. 2017. “Time for Space: Typologically Flexible and Resilient Buildings and the Emergence of the Creative Dweller.” PhD diss., Aalto University. Laing, A. 2013. Work and Workplaces in the Digital City. New York: CURE. The Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University. Leupen, B. 2006. “Polyvalence, A Concept for the Sustainable Dwelling.” Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 19 (3): 23–31. Available online: http://arkitekturforskning. net/na/article/download/156/120. Lindberg, T., T. Kaasalainen, m. Moisio, A. Mäkinen, H. Hedman, and J. Vinha. 2018. “Potential of Space Zoning for Energy Efficiency Through Utilization Efficiency.” Advances in Building Energy Research. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/1751 2549.2018.1488619. Moos, M., T. Vinodrai, N. Revington, and M. Seasons. 2018. “Planning for Mixed Use: Affordable for Whom?” Journal of the American Planning Association, 84 (1): 7–20. doi:10.1080/01944363.2017.1406315. Murray, G. 2011. “Stirling Prize Criticism: The Persistence of the Absurd.” e-architect. Date accessed September  15, 2019. Available online: www.e-architect.co.uk/articles/ persistence-of-the-absurd. Pelsmakers, S. 2015. The Environmental Design Pocketbook. London: Riba Publishing. Pinder, J. A., R. Schmidt, S. A. Austin, A. Gibb, and J. Saker. 2017. “What is Meant by Adaptability in Buildings?” Facilities, 35 (1/2): 2–20. doi:10.1108/F-07-2015-0053. Rabeneck, A., D. Sheppard, and P. Town. 1973. “Housing Flexibility?” Architectural Design, 43: 698–727. Rabeneck, A., D. Sheppard, and P. Town. 1974. “Housing: Flexibility/Adaptability?” Architectural Design, 44: 76–90.

(Hybrid) architecture in and over time 275 Schmidt III, R., and S. Austin. 2016. Adaptable Architecture, Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge. Schmidt III, R., T. Eguchi, S. Austin, and S. Gibb. 2010. “What is the Meaning of Adaptability in The Building Industry?” In Elguezabal Chica and Meno Amundarain (eds.), Open and Sustainable Building, 240. Tecnalia. Date accessed September  25, 2019. Available online: www.irbnet.de/daten/iconda/CIB17993.pdf. Schneider, T., and J. Till. 2007. Flexible Housing. Oxford: Elsevier. Vartiainen, M., M. Hakonen, S. Koivisto, P. Mannonen, M. P. Nieminen, V. Ruohomäki, and A. Vartola. 2007. Distributed and Mobile Work – Places, People and Technology. Helsinki University of Technology BIT Research Centre. Helsinki: Otatieto. Vautard, R., O. Boucher, G. J. van Oldenborgh, F. Otto, K. Haustein, M. M. Vogel, S. I. Seneviratne, J.-M. Soubeyroux, M. Schneider, A. Drouin, A. Ribes, F. Kreienkamp, P. Stot, and M. van Aalst. 2019. Human Contribution to the Record-Breaking July 2019 Heat Wave in Western Europe. Date accessed September  16, 2019. Available online: www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/July2019heatwave.pdf.

33 Conclusion A call to ecologies design action Peter Connolly, Maibritt Pedersen Zari, and Mark Southcombe

Introduction This book explores ecologies design, from a holistic, multiple perspective notion of how Life works. Here, Life means: biodiversity, living ecosystems, climate and physical earth systems; the ways that peoples, cultures, and societies evolve and function over time; and the processes themselves that enable the constant complex interactions between everyone and everything on the planet, preferably in a symbiotic, generous, and health creating way. To attempt to engage with ecologies, is to attempt to engage with the essence of what it is to be alive on this finite complex planet. Designers, practitioners, academics, and all professionals of the built environment must harness and become fluent with this kind of thinking, as the planet and all of its life forms attempt to adjust to rapid changes. The biggest risk of this current era is that the inertia of existing practices and social contexts results in continuation, or only minor adaptation, of a business as usual way of approaching built environment design, construction, and dwelling. Instead, we must understand that we have a rare opportunity to reimagine a different way of designing and constructing our buildings, neighbourhoods, cities, landscapes, regions, world. There isn’t the time, resources, or ability to re-conceive every city to meet this ideal vision. The reality will be messier, and more cobbled together, imperfect, and raw. Yet without a grand vision, a set of hugely ambitious goals, how can we begin to make the changes needed? Designers are uniquely equipped with creative, analytical, and big picture thinking skills to reimagine and then create this new vision. This book, Ecologies Design: Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism, is a call to all built environment professional communities to be ambitious, to be radically creative and tenacious, and to push to the limits what is possible in terms of how well our buildings, cities, and landscapes can function and perform. In this sense we mean all of the ways built environments perform ecologically: the production of ecosystem services and the provision of habitat for non-human life; adaptability to changes and ability to be resilient; affirmation and generation of cultural, societal, and individual health, empowerment, inclusivity and justice; healing of past and current environmental damage; and intensification of happiness. What would such a city or place look and feel like? The

Conclusion 277 experimentation with such a vision will be vastly different in each biome, climate, and human culture, but some commonalities will exist, such as: more connected circular economies; buildings and spaces that create ecological and social health rather than diminish it; deeply site specific, connected, and celebratory built or designed forms; and cities that work for all of the life within them in a just way. There must be a change in thinking and practices that accompanies any built environment transformation or evolution. This is a good and crucial place to start for built environment professional communities; with the kind of paradigms we want to bring into existence, the kind of relationships we want to value and nurture, and the ways we might do things.

Biological ecologies design and regeneration Several key findings emerge from the ‘Biological Ecologies Design and Regeneration’ Part. First, it is clear that professionals of the built environment must go beyond sustainability, or simply trying to reduce the negative impacts of the built environment. We must instead aim to give back generously to ecologies as integral parts of them, and aim for a regeneration, revitalisation, moving towards a state of thriving; as well as creating new ecologies. Several contributors in this Part point out the need for ambitious, bold thinking at high levels and across spatial and temporal scales when it comes to the design of our buildings and cities including Hes and Bush, Beatley, Yeang, and Baumeister, Pedersen Zari, and Hayes. Reed and Haggard highlight the urgency of not just revolutionising what we do, but also how we do things, along with the necessity of examining why we do them. Such change will inevitably take time. Despite this, several contributors, such as Baumeister, Pedersen Zari, and Hayes, Ellin, and Yu discuss or demonstrate that we have the skill, knowledge, and technologies to repair ecologies to a point already. The change then is very much rooted in an underlying shift in thinking regarding built environment design. A more symbiotic participation in living systems is seen as key by Rastandeh, Hes and Bush, Yeang, and Beatley; one where each design and/or spatial social intervention adds some kind of value to local communities (including non-human ones) and feeds into larger-scale benefits across time. This may become more easily facilitated when professionals of the built environment begin to think and design in terms of processes and relationships over time, and across space, rather than in terms of discrete objects, such as single buildings. This may involve a relearning of humility, reciprocity, and generosity. Reed and Haggard, and Baumeister, Pedersen Zari, and Hayes point out that beginning design processes by looking for unique site-specific potentials rather than problems to solve is key. This can only happen when deep understandings of site are valued and sought. This ties into the second major finding from this section, which is that ecologies design must be site specific or ‘locally attuned’. We must learn from the site with more integrity, and learn to appreciate nature beyond just resource value or value to human wellbeing as discussed by Ellin, Yu, and Beatley. A theme that was made clear from contributors is the need to reconnect people to nature in careful

278  Peter Connolly et al. and strategic ways through the medium of built environment design. Beatley links this agenda to biophilic design explicitly while others such as Hes and Bush, and Yu call for more focus on the long-term wellbeing of people, as related to built environment design. Also emerging from this Part, is a clear call for a deeper and more thorough learning about, learning from, emulation where appropriate, and integration with ecosystems and other life forms in terms of what has already been proven to work well. To embrace the threshold, the shifting, the ecotone, permeability, and other aspects of how ecosystems work and function were all thought to be key in engaging with ecologies design. This can be extended to the call for design to consider the needs of all life, not just human life, and to go ‘beyond anthropocentric design’ as exemplified by the work of Rastandeh, Beatley, and Hes and Bush. Urban biodiversity (and urban green and blue space) is crucial and must be valued and nurtured for ecosystem services generation, habitat provision, and human health and wellbeing. Opportunities for architecture and grey or hybrid infrastructure to contribute to this abound, and must be explored further as discussed by Yeang. Habitat provision and urban biodiversity issues should not be seen as or expected to be exclusively the realm of landscape architects or conservation ecologists. The need for interdisciplinarity and genuine exploration of multiple perspectives, needs, and drivers for design was a further finding as highlighted by Graves, and Reed and Haggard. Rather than separated linear design phases, bringing together transdisciplinary teams, along with the views and participation of various kinds of people, while also trying to capture and respond to the ‘voice’ of Nature with its biotic and abiotic elements is seen as vital in creating thriving and interconnected ‘habitats’ for people within Nature. Interdependencies and integrations are also seen as key to ecological design, and understanding and leveraging these is a core challenge to further the positive role of humans in socio-ecological systems. Although this new kind of design must be holistic and embrace multiple complex ways of defining success and value, several contributors such as Graves, and Baumeister, Pedersen Zari, and Hayes, reiterated that it is important to try to quantify the ecological functions of projects to provide valuable feedback loops for future projects and to define baselines for acceptable or aspirational performance. A final key finding relates to the clear understanding that biological ecology is not separate from humanity. Because of this, ecologies design must embrace aspects of social justice, and equity. Further exploration of the ethics of an expanded notion of ecologies design is needed. This brings us full circle with the first key finding of Part 1; that of the need for wider cultural and system change to enact and co-create ecologies design rather than simply experimentation with a new design methodology or set of technologies.

Documenting social ecologies Part 2 focuses on social ecologies. Each essay in this Part contributes something to the challenge of documenting urban and landscape social ecologies. Müller and

Conclusion  279 Quednau’s work is focused around a diagram which encapsulates the particular behaviour they are documenting. An examination of this diagram finds that it carefully summarises various dimensions of the relevant boid-self-organisation and that each lightly points to the variability, and expressive liveliness, of the relations involved in each of these dimensions and to the logic of the urban boid. Bertram and Neustupny significantly extend Atelier Bow Wow’s (Tsukamoto and Kaijima, 2010) method into urban space, emphasising the presentation of the work as drawings. The drawings give a level of expression to the bodily and social-spatial relations, and come to life more when cross-referenced to the text description in the essay and photos. Their attention to ensembles and expressively and involuntarily produced feelings via drawings, text and photos, and to education, echo the Deleuzian emphasis on assemblages, learning, and apprenticeship. It may be that bodily learning is the most important function of such documentation for designers. By documenting a continually unfolding settlement transformation and showing how this transformation disempowers and empowers lives on the ground, Marshall’s work opens up the possibility of engaging in transformation in a way where a designer is sensitive to the potentials for social life of any future intervention. There is a strong ethical dimension in the object-led method employed here, which reflexively aims to, as much as possible, understand the situation from the perspective of the locals. The process documented by Ramírez-Lovering, Spasojević, and Prescott involves documentation of the social use of space ‘on the fly’, as part of design and implementation. It efficiently joins the relevant social relations and values with the generation of a technical outcome for social benefits through drawing in, mobilising, and involving the relevant community, in a way that plots agreed future collective actions for the community. Kuschnir’s list of benefits highlights aspects of the use of drawing by ethnographers that can both be meshed with, and productively compared to designerly documentation. Doherty has a greater aim of helping ‘landscape architects more sensitively work outside of their own societies, with respect and deference for others’ values and ways of life’. His text-based spatially oriented ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) draws out various complexities, rich significances and ‘paradoxes’ that would not be apparent to a designer working in a place as unfamiliar to them as this one was to Doherty. Doherty, Bertram and Neustupny, and Kuschnir pay significant attention to time spent in a place and/or community. The difference of time spent in the field by the designers, even the more immersive ones, and the ethnographers is significant. What is compelling about Combette, Batzenschlager, and Pybaro’s documentation is that despite the lack of obvious attention to people, the rigour of documentation and the ability to consider and compare many of these spaces in the wider urban-geography says a great deal about the urban-social logic and expression of such spaces and the city. It also highlights the power of spatially referential documentation to aid understanding, and to foster the design of socialspace. Lucas-Drogan and Braun-Thürmann use their performative events to not just understand but to also transform the sense of social-spatial relations in ways not available to more academic or instrumental forms of documentation.

280  Peter Connolly et al. Yaneva produces a philosophy of technique. Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) continually champions the agency of objects. A  review of the ANT literature tends to find writers making this point rather than demonstrating it (Connolly, 2018). Yaneva’s writing, for contrast (Yaneva, 2009), stands out in this regard. Key to Yaneva (and Latour) is the production of ‘good accounts’. As Latour said, he read Deleuze and Guattari ‘very closely’ (quoted in Schmidgen, 2015). Both of their evaluations involve the expressive evaluation of affect, or (involuntary) ‘action’, in Latour’s language. Yaneva discusses how such an account offers ‘an undifferentiated eye to the city’. The notion of good account and the ‘impersonal’ (D&G) and ‘undifferentiated’ (ANT) transcends the subjective/objective division. Good accounts of networks (or assemblages) are expressive non-metaphorical accounts as they focus on the involuntary actions facilitated by actors (human and non-human) which are made involuntary through their connections to other such actors. A good account also shares much with most of the essays here, including an emphasis on the care and technique, slowness, detail, and openness to whatever might be relevant. This Part focuses on ‘social ecologies’, so it should be noted that when Latour, Deleuze, and Guattari refer to ‘collectives’, as one way of looking at an actornetworks or assemblages, these are theoretically equivalent to post-human and more-than-human geographies and ecologies. What is also worth noting, is that in reviewing the documentation approaches of these variously Deleuze–Guattari influenced styles of practice, is that they often rely upon DeLanda’s (2002, 2006) version of Deleuze’s thinking, which really focuses on change and not affect: this includes the recent urban geography and urban studies traditions which explicitly examine assemblages and ANT (Farias and Thomas, 2011; Dovey, 2012; Dovey and Ristic, 2017; McFarlane, 2011). Strikingly, DeLanda’s version of Deleuze and Guattari is the most common one assumed in designer discourse. This attention to good accounts also responds to issues of ethics, reflexivity, and partiality that social scientists, in contrast to designers, pay attention to. The relationship between assemblage and expression, central to good accounts, is discussed in Connolly’s essay. Designers have their own way of producing good accounts and the essays included here each have something to add to that ongoing and underexplored challenge.

Ecologies design practices Key findings that emerge from the ‘Ecologies Design Practices’ Part turn the understanding of context for design on its head. The idea of context as a separate milieu into which new design is lodged, placed, inserted, or sited is no longer tenable. Any new project revises parts of a living environment with different degrees of sensitivity and force, and ongoing affects like a ripple on and in a waterway. And as Kiddle notes, we are inextricably linked to these contexts we are altering. The land does not belong to us, rather we belong to the land. With this belonging comes an ethical, intergenerational responsibility to care for and improve each site and place with regards to its wider contexts and its ripple effects on them.

Conclusion 281 Ivan Mercep and JASMAX, and Te Uru Taumatua Tūhoe’s Te Kura Whare Living Building in Tāneatua, Aotearoa New Zealand leads the way. This regenerative building is actively restoring the land and its people. It is giving more than it takes. Its significance is in its integrity and integration of process and outcome. There has been a reciprocal interaction between building, people, and place as the building was conceived and made, and this continues. As significant as the place are the people; Tūhoe, have an embedded interconnection with Te Uruwera ecologies. They perceive life over long timeframes, and are making the big changes needed through the integrity of many small everyday actions. As Partington and Pedersen Zari discuss, the architecture of Te Kura Whare, the integrity of the ways it was conceived and made, the ways it operates for its people and guests, its value as a Living Building exemplar, and its wider long-term social and ecological effects over time challenge us all. It demonstrates how much is possible in just one project. Ecologies are interrelated over time and space. They are not static or fully known in the manner that we typically abstract them and design for them. They are contingent, connected, and changing over time in response to stimuli and forces. Hirth, Southcombe, and Tenorio note that a long-term project timeframe is not readily accommodated by changing financial contexts that occur faster than building obsolescence, and Barber’s essay demonstrates how changes in knowledge regarding the energy performance of building envelopes, and the value placed on energy use, change the context for a building’s long-term viability. Pelsmakers, Poutanen, and Saarimaa argue that this ever-changing context for the built environment means the way buildings are designed needs to be altered, so as to anticipate possible change while designing to ease and facilitate adaptation. Buxton’s design processes for interacting with a living ecological entity as an indivisible whole (in this case the Whanganui River), and Ibell’s design responses aiming to mitigate specific climate change effects through strategic ecological design moves, give concrete examples of how practitioners can design reciprocally in association with living, changing environments. The advocacy for place based ecological communities of elements within design, and the openness to accommodating connections and living fluctuations are key design tactics, with the designers acting as ‘aligned others’, and giving voice to ecological contexts. The connection of practices to projects and the incongruence of sustainable built environment projects that are inhabited unsustainably is highlighted by two contributors. Chicca notes the extent of behavioural change needed to live sustainably and how this undermines sustainable built environments. Education regarding sustainable living practices can potentially have a huge overall positive ecological effect, and can complement sustainable built environment design. Hirth, Southcombe, and Tenorio also argue for hands on environmental practice based architectural education as a means to ground theory in the urgent effects evident in practice. Perhaps the most critical reflection is Deamer’s advocacy for leadership through lobbying and national professional organisations. Designers changing the ways they design begins with changing the outdated paradigm of the individual

282  Peter Connolly et al. designer working alone, to a new notion of an interconnected professional acting with others to take responsibility, to care for, and to regenerate the immediate and wider environment, in the manner so powerfully demonstrated by Indigenous societies and the case studies of this section (see the work of Kiddle, Partington, and Pedersen Zari, Buxton, and Hirth, Southcombe, and Tenorio). A series of individual projects can influence how others conceive and create future projects. We also need more individual projects to have much longer-term design agendas; a hundred years plus, to be able to address the urgent need for longer-term, collective visions. Design projects need to have a wider contextual responsibility than an immediate site, extending to a project’s material, energy, and water origins and uses, both as part of a built environment assemblage, and over time as the wider environment changes. These wider imperatives can be achieved through community leadership and advocacy to affect wider societal change through policy and legislative change.

The concluding provocation: an ecologies design manifesto Everybody, including built environment professionals have roles to play in changing the ways things are done, while being mindful of effects that decisions, actions, and built interventions have on all Life. In an era of increasing awareness of the need to respond to the climate and biodiversity crisis, there certainly is an increasing willingness to do so. Despite the good will, built environment professionals alone cannot address all of the interconnected and complex causes of these converging crises. However, the decisions of designers result in cities and associated unsustainable consumption and waste. We are therefore, likely directly responsible for more than half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, half of all energy use, half of the world’s material use, and 40 per cent of the world’s waste (Petrović et al., 2017, ix–xx). This gives us a great deal of potential to effect change rapidly. With this in mind, we end this book with a manifesto for change that outlines what can practically change, what practitioners should do to effect that change, and potential pathways towards ecologies design. A design ecologies manifesto for built environment professionals 1

2

We understand that there is an urgent need to mitigate ecological and climatic degradation in the short term, and change linear extractive practices, to longterm ecological and cyclic practices. Therefore, we must collectively act to positively regenerate ecologies. To begin this process we must, through every project, ensure positive ecologies outcomes are assessed over long whole lifecycle periods. Changes that will need to occur over time cannot always be anticipated, but future scenarios planning and design responses to them, can help to facilitate adaptation. We must create open, strategic design, with a long-term view and vision that can accommodate the as yet unknown. We understand that the reality of physical existence embodies a shifting and complex series of interrelationships across time and scales. Therefore, we

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must engage in designing and affecting processes, systems, and relationships rather than seeing built or designed form and space as discrete, bounded, isolated objects. To begin this process, we must start each project understanding that we are working with living ecosystems, not abstracted single parts of an ecosystem. Design as a process and outcome needs to be based in this wider understanding of site context, and have a responsibility also to this context. This is a radical reconfiguring of design itself as (re)design; recognising interrelationships of contexts, ecosystems, and cultures. We understand that perceiving and working with multiple different interconnected and overlapping ecological parts is complex, but is necessary to good ecologies design. Business as usual is not an option. Therefore, built environment practitioners must reimagine and expand their roles in the creation of form and space. To begin this process, we must start by being open to discovering the complexity and extent of the living ecological tectonics of each place. Designers must see themselves as collectors and weavers of all of the ecological and cultural threads, needs, and implications related to a specific place, time, and biological, climatic, and cultural context. We must use all appropriate tools, techniques, and methodologies available to us so we can understand the wider geographic, regional, local, and micro ecological contexts as the foundational basis for predesign stages of any project. We must perceive and map ecological elements at play, but also understand the network and nature of relationships between them, and how they influence each other over time. We must promulgate open source databases of biome, site, and ecologies information to facilitate networking and sharing of information across multiple sites. We must develop processes to map, model, prototype, and crucially to evaluate the implications of site-specific ecologies changing over time, in order to generate ever more accurate feedback loops which may both anticipate, and assess, the effects of any new design on its ecologies. We understand that the physical and virtual digital world is also changing rapidly and requires multiple daily responses in all spheres of human life. We recognise that we must be the change needed now ahead of ideal project frameworks or conditions. Therefore, we must harness our ingenuity and ability to see patterns across scales and times and share these with built environment communities in order to enable built environment evolution and adaptation to both local and global changes. To begin this process we must actively collaborate, sharing project knowledge and inviting participation and co-design opportunities wherever possible; with adjacent property owners, other designers, holders of traditional knowledge, authorities, biological and social ecologies experts, inhabitants, the wider public, and where possible other species and living entities (such as rivers and forests). This facilitation of multiple participants and diverse perspectives and expertise on a project evolves the designer’s role and is a departure from the historical role of a single designer and a singular project vision. We understand that capitalism, consumerism, societal property subdivision, individualism, and single ownership structures can dominate and frustrate

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ecologies design practices in various ways. Therefore, we must change our design practices to forge ecological connections across such artificially separated realms. To begin this process, we must attempt to blur the edges of all design projects; sites must be integrated with their contexts, and space for potential future connections created. What is required is an understanding of flows in networks of connections to and from any site as an integral part of living ecologies. The vectors and forces at play between ecologies as both parts and wholes should be redesigned and remade as part of the design project. We understand that existing design practices and processes have an inertia that is difficult to change. Therefore, we must persist in evolving our design practices over time. To begin this process, we must educate and advocate for changed design practices, and changed patterns of living and consumption within a context of working towards wider social/financial/political system change. We must lead by example through every project and every design move. We must engage with and utilise resources such as materials Red Lists, and make use of ecological and social certification labels (such as FSC, Declare, Just, and Fairtrade, etc.) in specification decisions. We must lead thought, publish, educate, and lend our voices, expertise, time, and skills to groups working towards local and global change (or form our own). We must involve ourselves, and seek to influence where appropriate, local and national governments and managers, the wider public, students, and clients. We understand that cities and settlements are where most humans and many other species live, and will not be going away. Therefore, we must take seriously not only that urbanisation contributes greatly to many major drivers of negative change, but that they should be embraced for their Life affirming potential. To begin this process, we must develop a way to have ambition for the future. In Life, we are ecologically and concretely connected to all that is around us in time and space, and this connection empowers us. It is only in the here and now of these connections that we are empowered. Our tendency in the modern world is to create visions based on our shared values. These visions tend to be something not of this world, something for the future. Ecologies only function in the here and now, however, and one of the characteristics of them is that potentials are always emerging. We need to work from the reality of the here and now, without knowing an exact and fixed endpoint, and move towards the ambitions we seek as we keep discovering. In this, we need to feel our way. The here and now has two important characteristics for designers: first, it is as just described, where Life and potential happen, and, second, it is where techniques and practices actually function. Our task is to make these the same things. An ambitious ecologies design is very much about a care for how we do things.

To conclude, the conscious design of ecologies is analogous to the adjustment of a DNA sequence, interconnected to a complex sequence of interdependencies, and playing out over time. Ecologies design creates systemic potentials through

Conclusion 285 tactical moves aware of, connected to, and responsible for the wider effects of a design. Through its integration with wider contexts, ecologies design accommodates potential future evolutionary changes. It is strategic and accommodating of the shifts and twists within a living process of change. Ecologies Design: Transforming Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism has bought together seminal thinkers and practitioners related to the emerging and shifting concepts of ecologies design and shows that while rapid widespread transition to holistic ecologies design is possibly optimistic, it is at the same time pragmatic, already occurring, and necessary. In the face of the all-encompassing change that is upon us, we need radical responses, and these must begin with how we see the living world, and our integration with all Life. Our challenge to built environment professional communities therefore, is for each of us to work seriously and with integrity to take ecological design beyond metaphor, and to engage deeply and fully with all aspects of ecology in the design of buildings, cities, and landscapes. We must engage with and regenerate ecologies through design.

References Connolly, P. 2018. “Techniques for Documenting Urban Assemblages.” Unpublished. DeLanda, M. 2002. Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. London: Continuum. DeLanda, M. 2006. The New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London: Continuum. Dovey, K. 2012. “Informal Urbanism and Complex Adaptive Assemblage.” International Development Planning Review, 34 (4): 349–367. Dovey, K., and M. Ristic. 2017. “Mapping Urban Assemblages: The Production of Spatial Knowledge.” Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 10 (1): 15–28. Farias, I., and T. Bender. (eds.) 2011. Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies. Abingdon: Routledge. Geertz, C. 1973. Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. New York: Basic Books. McFarlane, C. 2011. “The City as Assemblage: Dwelling and Urban Space.” Environment and Planning D, 29: 649–671. Petrović, E. K., B. Vale, and M. Pedersen Zari. 2017. Materials for a Healthy, Ecological and Sustainable Built Environment: Principles for Evaluation. Duxford, UK: Woodhead Publishing. Schmidgen, H. 2015. Bruno Latour in Pieces: An Intellectual Biography. New York: Fordham University Press. Tsukamoto, Y., and M. Kaijima. 2010. Behaviorology. New York: Rizzoli. Yaneva, A. 2009. “Making the Social Hold: Towards an Actor-Network Theory of Design.” Design and Culture, 1 (3): 273–288.

Index

activism 22, 23, 24, 139, 246, 248, 250 Actor-Network Theory/ANT 6, 110, 181, 183, 280; describing a city from within 187; disposition/s, dispositional knowledge 184 – 185; follow the actors themselves 128; happiness/pleasure 181, 184 – 185; infra-reflexive versus metareflexive descriptions 182; knowledge how/knowledge that 184; modalities of attachment 184; narrative techniques 186; oligopticon 177, 185; potential born of disposition 184; reader emerges through the description 182; subjectivist vs objectivist 182; symmetrical ecological approach 184; trace/trace relations/connections 182 – 186 adaptive/adaptation 24, 38, 119, 231 – 237, 269, 276, 281 – 283 advocacy 281 aesthetics, in accounts of social ecologies/ assemblages 6, 110, 184, 188, 192; see also expression, and assemblage affect/s (as power/agency): affect versus change 188; affordance/s 188; agency, as affect/power xxv, 6, 131, 139, 146, 162, 188 – 190, 192 – 194, 196, 203, 227, 232, 258, 280; involuntary empowerments/actions 188 – 189, 280; propensity 188; synergies 193 Alexander, Christopher 81 analysis, of landscape/site/building/urban 62, 204, 227, 232 – 233, 265 – 266 Antarctica 13 anthropocene, the xxv, 3, 130, 260, 262 anthropocentric design/view 3, 45, 47, 101, 183, 278 appropriate technology 2 archigram 81 architecture lobby 246, 249, 250

assemblage/s: aesthetics of 192; affect/ power 188; ANT 280; as an art, practice 109 – 110, 189; challenge of understanding 189, 196; countermapping 175, 177; creative involution 190; DeLanda’s problematic version 280; ensembles, composites 126 – 128; as ethnographic interlocutor 160; experimentation 188, 190, 192, 194, 196; expression 196; definition of 188 – 189; heterogeneity 190; human body as part of ecological systems xxvi; human-environment relations 4, 110; human migration process 174 – 177, 180; landscape 109 – 110, 188, 194, 196; life xxv – xxvi, 5, 8, 181 – 183, 185 – 187, 276 – 278; as machines, machinic 75, 189 – 190; the middle 195; open and complex systems notion 4, 6, 189; as performative intervention 174; perspective 189; potential 6, 20 – 21, 127 – 128, 183 – 184, 192, 194, 196, 279; power of nature and the power of sensing nature 190; as problematically understood 188; as problem-oriented, motivated, invested 190; as process not thing or mechanism 189, 196; as resonance/friction 190 – 192, 194; sensing/sensation/feeling 123, 152, 169, 189 – 190, 192, 194, 196, 279; singularity 194, 196; as social ecological notion 6, 110; as social life descriptive tool 188; territory/territoriality/worlding 190; urban 194, 196; as a way of understanding a design project 24 Atlanta, United States of America 96 – 104 Bacon, Francis 3, 35 Bangalore, India 256, 257

Index  287 Benyus, Janine 75, 85 Berlin, Germany 109, 174, 177 – 179, 253 – 254 biodiversity loss 13, 49, 85, 222 bioinspired design see biomimicry; ecomimesis biome xxvi, 74, 91, 277, 283 biomimicry/biomimetic design 75, 85 – 94 biomimicry 3.8 85 – 93 biophilia/biophilic design 6, 14, 96 – 104, 215, 218, 278 Biophilic Cities Network 96 bio-swales 53, 77, 225 Boeri Studio 78, 79 BREEAM 34, 241 capitalism 62, 174, 247, 250, 261 – 262, 266, 283 carbon 30, 41, 89, 92, 96, 104, 207, 215, 217, 244, 247, 248, 252 – 258, 260 – 266, 272 Castlemaine, Australia 26, 28 – 30 Causey, Andrew 156 Chomsky, Noam 209, 210 citizen science 30 climate regulation 39, 60, 77 Coburg, Germany 256, 258 collaboration/collaborative xvii, xx, 35, 82, 91, 131, 140, 143, 153, 208, 223, 266 collective/collectivity (in social ecologies documentation): collective agency 146; collective imaginary 166; collectives 186, 280 colonisation 205, 210, 212, 213, 255 comfort 124, 150, 189, 203, 254, 256, 260 – 266, 269 comfortocene 266 corridors, green, wildlife, river 53 – 55, 78, 99 Crosby, Geoff 30 Curitiba, Brazil 21 curtain wall 263, 265 Darwin, Charles 35, 80 Deleuze, Gilles 110 Descartes, René 3, 190 design build 256, 257 designer as aligned other 281 design process, linear 278 documentation (of social ecologies): abstraction in visual documentation 116, 143, 161, 172, 179, 182, 194; accounts by designers 109, 110, 129,

130, 182 – 183, 185 – 186, 188, 196, 280; action/s, acts 111, 113, 115 – 116, 119, 127 – 128, 145 – 146, 152, 165, 174, 177 – 178, 180, 183 – 184, 187, 192, 194; analysis 62, 113, 119, 121, 143, 149 – 150; appropriation/ occupation of space 111, 114, 119, 124, 206, 232 – 233; art of describing cities 186; atlas/database/graphic inventory, of urban spaces 165; audiorecording 176; autoethnography in walking methodologies 136; care with technique 119, 128, 136, 149, 182, 189, 279 – 280, 284; city boids, city boid diagram 109, 111, 115 – 120, 125, 279; context, limitation of the notion 2, 280; Dérive, theory of the 172; descriptive urbanism 139; documentation practice and tools 119, 140, 150, 279 – 280; emergent/emergence 115, 133, 136, 161; everyday life/objects in 128, 160, 169, 172, 174 – 176, 194; field observation/fieldwork 110, 121, 127 – 128, 130, 143, 149, 151, 154, 156, 162, 165, 169, 173, 175, 191; habit/the habitual 124, 127, 169, 172, 182, 192, 194; heterotopias/other spaces 166; interpretive mapping 139; interpretive technique 110; interviews, mode of interviewing 130 – 134, 136, 151, 159, 175, 178; and landscape urbanism 4, 161; method/methodology 109, 111, 115, 119, 127 – 128, 130, 131, 136, 149, 156, 158, 160, 163, 169, 172, 174 – 175, 278 – 279; mobile phone/ smart phone 127, 131, 150; mode of inquiry 130; molecular urbanism/ urban molecule 111, 115 – 116, 119; morphology/morphological 113, 169; multilocality and multivocality 180; observational design research 121, 128; participant, collaborator 130 – 131, 133, 136, 140, 155, 177 – 178; participant observation/process 174; participatory documentation 149; as part of implementation/‘on the fly’ 279; phenomenology/phenomenological 180; photograph/photography/photographic 113, 127 – 128, 131, 150 – 151, 154 – 154, 159 – 160, 172, 177, 193, 279; physical model as a political tool 143; physical model as a space

288 Index for socio-technical discussion 144, 145; relational/relationality of things 6, 119, 131, 136, 184 – 185; relays 193; representational technique 6, 15, 110, 127, 142, 149, 280, 284; scalar focus, of each design discipline 162; selection/selectivity 130, 152 – 153; self-organisation 115, 188, 196, 279; socio-spatial/spatial-social 109, 279 drawing (and social ecologies documentation): act of 127, 150, 152, 155, 172; to analyse spatial information 152, 279; to capture social relations 121, 127, 165, 172; corporeality 156; cross-referencing of 279; ethnographic/ethnography 109, 149 – 150, 162; exhibition 128, 279; expérience as experimentation/following 192; experimentation 192, 194, 279; expression 194; fieldwork drawings 109, 117, 121, 127 – 128, 139, 149 – 150, 169, 172, 191, 193; from a photograph 151; imagination 154; layout of drawings 152, 279; learning, apprenticeship 279, 149; as a memory record 151 – 152; multimedia drawings 128, 151; to open paths to reflexivity 153; and perception of time in fieldwork 152; plausible dimensions 127; as a practice/discipline 128, 136; promotes conversations 154; promotes stillness, listening, hearing, concentration 127, 150, 153; promotes autonomy of researcher 155; as proof of what was observed 156; protecting informants’ anonymity 154; to record abstract concepts 154; as a record of the discovery of an event 156; sketch/ sketching 127, 150 – 156, 177; as a support to the researcher 150; and temporality 149, 156; tracing 127; visual research 149; as a way of knowing, learning, seeing, apprehending 149, 152 – 153 ecological: buffers 55; entity 203, 222 – 229, 281; Performance Standards (EPS) 86, 87, 89, 92; thresholds 76, 80 ecomimesis 44 ecosystem services 26, 38, 39, 41, 60, 62, 86, 89, 90 – 91, 97, 276 ecotone 49, 50, 51, 75, 278 edge conditions, edge effect 50, 70, 71

Einstein, Albert 80, 81 ESII Tool 91, 92 ethnographic method: accessibility 175; architecture and anthropology 139, 150, 174; community map 142, 145 – 146; community relationship building 147; connective questions 136; conversation/ dialogue 131, 153 – 154, 160, 176; design anthropology 168; division between observer and observed 158; embeddedness 121, 159; ethics/ethical questions 130, 278 – 280; ethnographer as visual thinker 150; ethnographic fieldwork 150; ethnography of design 162; generative mode of inquiry 130; go-alongs 175 – 177; immersion/ immersive experience 158, 279; informer/informant/interlocutor 128, 149, 154 – 155, 159 – 160, 175 – 177; landscape anthropology 158; landscape scenery approach in geography 136; make the strange familiar/the familiar strange 153, 160; multilayered 159; reflexive/reflexivity/reflexive practice/ self-analysis 151; researcher’s stance, the 154; semi-structured interviews 131; serendipity and method, engineering chance encounters 158 – 159; show-us directives 131; slow mode of inquiry/ slow ethnography 149, 183 – 184; urban anthropology 155, 186; webs of significance 16 expression (in social ecologies documentation) 190, 192, 194, 196; ‘as if’ body loop (neurophysiological idea of expression) 192; and assemblages 196, 279; brings drawings to life 194, 279; dramatisation/dramatising, urban life 181 – 182; evaluation 192, 280; and resonance/traction/connection/friction; sense of the situation 279; see also aesthetics feedback loops: in design processes 4, 14, 35, 37, 92, 278, 283; ecological 38 Fleming, Billy 248 floods/flooding/flood control 13, 49, 50 focus of social ecologies documentation: barrio 112 – 114, 116 – 117; emergent cultural practice/s 136; informal/ self-built/spontaneous/city/dwellers/ processes/settlement/agglomerations/ unplanned settlements 109, 111 – 116,

Index  289 119, 124, 138 – 140, 142, 145 – 147, 165, 195; inhabitation 112; neighbourhood 115, 139, 141, 143, 145 – 146, 153, 159, 169, 175, 177, 179; occupation 111, 119, 124; planning of the many 111 – 112, 115; practical social space 109, 127; settlement 109, 112, 114, 123, 125, 127, 130 – 131, 135, 13 – 143, 145 – 146, 177 – 179, 284; settlement change 135; settlement practices 130; settling-in and unsettling as a process 130, 134, 136; social and infrastructural space 126; urban behaviours 111, 124; urban ensemble/composite 127 – 128; village 114, 119, 121 – 124, 127, 159 food growing 14, 29, 31, 38, 39, 41, 78, 101, 102, 124, 215, 239 – 240, 246 forest 19, 20, 77, 91, 97, 100, 109, 123, 134, 210, 220, 252 forest bathing 100 Frankfurt, Germany 252 Fuller, Buckminister 81, 82 Fully Integrated Thinking (FIT) 87 fragmentation, of landscape/habitat 62, 78, 123, 169 Gaia hypothesis 81 Galilei, Galileo 3 Ganjnameh Valley, Iran 63 – 71 Geertz, Clifford 157, 160 – 161, 279, 285 Gehl, Jan 100 Genius of Place 20, 86, 87, 91 Ghannam, Farha 159 green infrastructure 44, 54, 56, 58, 269 Green New Deal 246, 247 green space 50, 58, 62 – 71, 99, 101 – 102, 161 greenways see corridors, green Guattari, Felix 110 habitat: provision 14, 18, 19, 29, 31, 39, 49 – 50, 58, 60, 62, 71, 78, 101, 102, 104, 227, 276, 278; restoration 49 – 61, 104, 227 Haikou, China 56 – 60 Half-Earth Cities 102 heat island effect 77 Hofmann, Susanne 253 HOK architects 87, 91, 93 hydrology/hydrological systems 45, 46, 47, 58, 123, 141 indigenous knowledge and practice 14, 24, 30, 49, 60, 76, 139, 159,

203 – 210, 216, 219, 222, 249, 255, 282, 283 integral urbanism 74 – 78, 80, 82 interdependence 1, 3, 5, 17, 46, 81, 229 interface company 90, 93, 96 – 99, 101, 104 Jacobs, Jane 75, 131, 271 Japanese Metabolists 81 JASMaD 201 Kaijima, Momoyo 127, 172, 279 Koolhaas, Rem 4, 207, 208 labour 181, 215, 246 – 250 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste 35 Latour, Bruno xxvi, 128 – 129, 175, 177, 182 – 183, 185 – 186, 280 Lavasa, India 93 Le Corbusier 5, 264 LEED 34, 241, 242, 248, 249 Lerner, Jamie 21 Life’s Principles 87 – 88 lifestyle 104, 124, 213, 232, 243, 253, 254 Living Building Challenge 28 – 30, 212 – 220, 281 living machines 77 lobbying and national professional organisations 281 longer term design agendas/vision 282 Los Angeles, United States of America 38 Lyle, John Tillman 17, 37, 38 Malinowski, Bronislaw 158 – 159 mangroves 49 – 53, 57 – 59, 109, 133 – 134 mapping 111, 138 – 140, 142 – 147, 175, 177, 179; 1:1 model as map 142, 144 – 145; aerial image/reconnaissance/ view from above/overview 113, 160 – 162, 177 – 178; cartography 115, 139, 172; to collaborate/facilitate collaboration 140; counter-mapping 139, 174, 177; to generate a systemic solution, mapping to systematise 140, 144; immutability of maps 175; informed descriptions 139; to mobilise/ stakeholders 140, 145; is political 139, 145; as propositional 161; as an operational tool 139 – 140; radical cartography 139 McHarg, Ian 81, 83, 161, 163 mechanistic thinking 5, 27, 34, 35, 75 metrics in design 4, 14, 34 – 41, 86, 92, 93, 261

290 Index Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 39 mitigation 140, 146, 231 – 237 modernism xxvi, 5, 74, 75 – 76, 80, 113, 261, 264

postmodernism 74, 75, 80 Pujiang, China 53 – 56

Natural Capital Project, The 39 nature-based infrastructure 44 – 45 nature-based solutions 49, 50, 60, 140 nested systems 19, 23, 35, 219 Newton, Isaac 35 New York, United States of America 77, 99, 104, 112, 263, 264 nonhumans (and social ecologies documentation) xxvi, 181, 60, 183 – 185, 276; actor 7, 111 – 112, 114 – 116, 119, 128, 146, 182, 184, 280; agency xvii; aliveness xvii; being-with the Awa 225; being-with trees/animals 131; botanical encounter 131; co-becoming xxvii; engaged witnessing 131, 136; entangled conversation 131; entanglement i, xxvi – xxvii, 140 – 142, 145 – 147, 182; everyday objects 160; lived ecology 136; lived practices 131; more than human/more than human geography 6, 280; multi-species ethnography 131; object-interviews 131; object-led interview 130 – 134, 136; ontological xxvi, 143, 186 – 187; plant agency 131; plant-human geographies 131; relational spaces of self and landscape 131; trees 131, 134, 160, 195; vegetative object 131

reciprocity 20, 22, 277, 281 regeneration/remediation, ecological 49, 55, 60, 282 regenerative design/development 5, 14, 17 – 25, 26 – 31, 34 – 41, 85, 90, 101, 218, 220 Rem Koolhas 4, 207, 208 Richard + Bauer Architecture 78 Rivers 49 – 60, 121, 123, 125, 209, 222 – 229, 232 – 237, 281

objectivism/object 3, 181 – 6, 280, 283 Odum, Eugene 35 Otaki, New Zealand 231 – 236 Pākaitore, New Zealand 226 Paris, France 96, 185, 186 passive design 124, 182, 215, 240, 249, 250 permaculture 18, 90 performance or event (and social ecologies documentation) 174, 175, 177, 180 Perkins and Will Architects 96 pest species 62, 67, 70, 71 politics/political xxvi, 143, 250, 253, 262 pollution 38, 50, 56, 58, 60, 102, 206, 263; remediation 26, 49, 50, 56, 58 Positive Development 5

Quatrobrid 44 – 47

Sanford, Carol 45 Sanya, China 49 – 53 scenario planning 282 sea level rise 15, 231 – 238, 251 sewage 45, 56 – 60, 131 – 133, 134 sharing economy, the 30 Singapore 96, 100, 104 species presence patterns 65, 71 sponge city/green sponge 55, 58, 123 storm-water management 26, 49, 50, 53, 59, 77, 236, 237 Sullivan, Louis 75 symbiotic relationships 5, 8, 20, 49, 88, 243, 276, 277 systems design 4, 31, 34, 81, 146, 227 systems thinking 27, 34 terracing, of landscape 53, 57, 58, 59, 113 Taneatua, New Zealand 214, 216, 237 Te Urewera 281 thermal 80, 252, 262 – 266 tracking tunnels 63 Tūhoe 212 – 221, 281 Turenscape 49 – 60, 121 – 123 urban acupuncture 21, 76 urban agriculture see food growing urban biodiversity/wildlife 14, 27 – 31, 62 – 71, 76, 78, 101, 102, 103, 124, 278 urban ecology 26, 49 – 60, 81 urbanisation/urbanising 2, 13, 53, 113, 121, 136, 147, 161, 252, 284 vernacular architecture/design 172, 208, 255

Index  291 Viña del Mar, Chile 22, 25 Virginia, United States of America 90 – 91, 92 water purification 60, 87 wellbeing, human 3, 5, 13, 14, 26, 30, 39, 62, 93, 98, 101, 207, 219, 229 wetland/wetland design 29, 57 – 59, 91, 140 – 142, 144, 217, 224, 233, 235 – 237

Wetland Cities 59 Whanganui, New Zealand 202, 223, 225, 226, 227 Whanganui River 209, 222 – 230, 281, 291 Wildlands Project, The 102 – 103 Wilson, Edward Osborne 102 worldview 27, 139, 153, 204, 206, 208 – 210, 212