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.