What
is Ecotecture?
Ecotecture
is the art and science of designing human systems that are integrated,
functionally and aesthetically, with natural ecosystems. While
this chapter focuses on human habitation systems- dwellings, communities,
and cities- the design principles learned by studying ecosystems
can also be applied to transportation, industrial, communication,
and even economic and social systems.
The word "ecotecture" is a combination
of the words "ecology," meaning the
totality or pattern of relations between living organisms and their
environment, and "architecture," which
Webster's currently defines as the art and science of building.
An older definition of architecture as the "arch," or "over" technology,
also applies, because ecotecture, which in this book is used interchangeably
with "ecological design" and "sustainable design," must become the
next paradigm, or fundamental, coordinating world view for the design
professions if our global civilization is to survive the twenty-first
century.
The
reason we must learn to design our systems the way nature "designs"
its systems is that natural ecosystems are our best models of sustainability.
Using only the sun's energy and a handful of simple chemicals as
building blocks, life has found the means to sustain itself, by
organizing into ecosystems, on all but the most inhospitable portions
of the planet. Large scale ecosystem can remain stable, that is,
sustain themselves in a state of dynamic equilibrium, for tens of
thousands of years.
Neither fire, disease, nor invading species, with the possible exception
of homo sapiens, poses a permanent threat to major ecosystems which,
when they are damaged, tend to reorganize themselves to resemble
their original form and complexity. Only extreme climatic changes
or other extraordinary conditions cause a large, stabilized ecosystem
to break down to the extent that most or all of its plants, animals,
and microorganisms disappear and the system cannot repair or regenerate
itself.
If
a major ecosystem is destroyed by events on a regional or planetary
scale its territory is normally occupied by new organisms, either
transplanted or newly evolved, which establish a new ecosystem.
However, the new ecosystem functions- and in this we have one of
the keys to sustainability- in essentially the same manner as the
system it has replaced, even though its array of species differs.
The basic functional relationships between the three groups of organisms
which comprise any ecosystem- producers, consumers and decomposers-
have existed everywhere on the planet and throughout the history
of life. The net result of the turnover of ecosystems on the planetary
scale has been that life as a whole has managed not only to survive
a variety of vicissitudes- some of which were in their own ways
as devastating as nuclear winter- but to triumphantly attain ever
higher states of complexity since its inception three-and-a-half
billion years ago.
While
the structure of ecosystems has provided stability, the capacity
to evolve has enabled life to meet the ongoing challenges of changing
conditions. No matter how well established an ecosystem is, its
organisms can tolerate only a certain amount of change. Both cyclical
changes such as the advance and retreat of glaciers and unidirectional
changes such as continental drift are inevitable. Many changes,
in fact, are instigated by life itself, which can turn rock into
soil, inorganic chemicals into biomass, and alter the content of
the atmosphere. Without the ability to evolve the first organisms
would have become extinct billions of years ago, leaving hardly
a trace. It is the dual capacity of life to stabilize the structures
of organisms and ecosystems and to produce new forms which has insured
its survival.
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