Carr James 2002
From UANotebook
"What from Ecology is Relevant to Design and Planning?"
by James R. Carr
citation
James R. Carr, "What from Ecology is Relevant to Design and Planning?" in Bart R. Johnson and Kristina Hill, Ecology and Design, Frameworks for Learning (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2002) 133-164.
AUP stacks: SB472.45 .E39 2002 OCLC 48398994
notes
"The failure to understand or to work with the economy of nature spawned the environmental challenges we face today." pp. 133
Designers, as disciplinary generalists, must add ecological constraints to their historical constraints of function and economics. They must embraced the three E's: esthetics, economy, and ecology. pp. 134
Close connections between environmental and social issues... design can bridge and encourage these connections.
"The root cause of ecological decline is a society behaving as if no risks followed from degrading its living systems." pp. 135
"We cannot replace food and fiber, water and air with the virtual worlds generated by computers." pp. 142.
"Because the road to ecology is littered with the carcasses of discarded theories, premature advocacy of theory is at best foolish and at worse dangerous." pp. 145
"In my experience, the most successful interdisciplinary team members have in-depth knowledge of their own field and are open to learning from others. They are willing to establish a basis for communication across disciplines. They are willing to ask for explanations when they do not understand. They are willing to challenge with respect and an open mind the dogma of their discipline as well as the dogma of others on the team. They most important attribute of all members of a truly interdisciplinary team is recognition that no individual is knowledgeable enough and no discipline is broad enough to grasp the many dimensions of the complex ecological issues faced by modern society". pp. 146
This is very meta as ecology concerns itself with connections between things, it is highly interdisciplinary by nature.
Table 6-4 (pps. 148-9) lists categorized keywords and key concepts for ecological thinking.
pps. 151-2:
"Designers, planners, and other professionals are more likely to understand and use key concepts if they are learned in a context htat includes the following four components:
- Basic familiarity with the language of ecology
- Exposure to and familiarity with organisms, their natural histories, and their environments
- Supplement learning of abstract concepts on global scale with walks in real (local) world to examine the biology of real places. (from natural to built systems)
- Practicums, problem sets, or studios to require individuals to work in interdisciplinary teams on specific problems such as they are likely to face upon leaving the academic environment."
pps. 152-9: Designing and planning with living systems in mind.
Talks about steps and tools and provides an example case study.
IBI: Index of Biological Integrity UW link USACE link
definitions from USACE above:
IBI Primary purpose To assess the biological integrity of a habitat using samples of living organisms and to evaluate the consequences of human actions on biological systems. Developed for use in managing aquatic resources (e.g., to establish use designations for water bodies, biological water quality standards, or goals for restoration).
Biological integrity: the ability to support and maintain a balanced, integrated, adaptive biological system having the full range of elements (genes, species, and assemblages) and processes (mutation, demography, biotic interactions, nutrient and energy dynamics, and metapopulation processes) expected in a region’s natural habitat.
