Design with Nature by Ian McHarg

Ian McHarg published Design With Nature as his landmark book in 1969 which
addressed the need for urban planners to consider an environmentally conscious
way to land use as well as provide a new method for evaluating and implementing
it.
Context of the Book
The city beautiful movement followed by the war had evoked a rapid urbanization in
the USA. It was then that the Suburban Sprawl was happening in large scale.
During the span of 1950s to 1960s the American interstate highway system spread
around lands. Highway planners and the subdividers focused on efficient and narrow
cost ways to implement their ideas which was seen to have a negative impact on
the nature as it followed a straight line method and not in a analytical way.
Narrative Units
McHarg based the book on his experiences and ideologies rather than to present the
book in a text book way of writing.

City and countryside

Sea and survival
The Plight
A step forward
The cast and the capsule
Nature in the metropolis
On values
A response of values
The world is a capsule
Processes as values
The naturalists
The river basin
The metropolitan region
Process and form
The city-health and pathology
Prospects

City and countryside

McHarg represented these two as two roads. One connecting to the city and the
other to the countryside. These two, both have values. To him, seeing the city and
the countryside as a separate entity does not stand.
Our eyes do not divide us from the world, but unite us with it.
Sea and Survival
The treatment of natural resources in the half of the globe is not the same as the
treatment on the other half. An important resource in one country may not be
valuable in the others.
Beaches are being mined for may uses. This will cause erosion along the shorelines
thus damaging the beachs system, ruins the beauty and will cause large
environmental damage in the long run.
The variations in the sea shore environment as seen as a problem which badly
affects the plant growth in the area. This causes major ecological threats to the bay
shore.

Image 1.1 Ocean Layers

Let us accept the proposition that nature is a process, that is interacting, that it
responds to laws, representing values and opportunities for human use with certain
limitations and even prohibitions to certain of these.
Plight
In this part of the book, McHarg deeply expresses his anxiety because man has
forgotten the countryside.
The city comes with the attraction of success; however, it also has stress and
stimuli. The countryside surround the cities not because the land is used wisely
rather, such places are more resistant to change.
Success is based in gross domestic product which measures money. Railroads were
used for profit making thus McHarg saw this as the cause of death of innovation.
Clearly the problem of man and nature is not one of providing a decorative
background for the human play or even ameliorating the grim city; it is the
necessity of sustaining nature as source of life, milieu, teacher, sanctum, challenge
and most of all, of rediscovering natures corollary of the unknown in the self, the
source of meaning.
A Step Forward
A highway is a major public investment that affects the economy, the way of living,
the visual experience and the health. Thus, it should be designed well and properly
located.
Improved method is in need to integrate the resource, social and aesthetic values
rather than the conventional way of cost benefit analysis.
A short distance between two places that meets at a pre-determined geometric
standards is not considered a the best route for highways. Most likely, the best
route considered is the one that will provide maximum social benefit with a least
social cost.
The highway is likely to create new values whether or not this is an act of
conscious policy. Without planning, new values may displace existing ones, but even
if a net gain results there may well be considerable losses.
The Cast and the Capsule
The world works in an integrated relationship between the nature and the men.
It starts from the chloroplasts of the leaves then transfers sunlight into substances
which then supports the whole life of the globe. This makes all men and animals
parasites.
Plants colonized the land permitting the evolution of the life forms ranging from
amphibians, reptiles, mammals and the man.
Four elements, abundant in the world- carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen-
constitute all but one per cent of living creatures. Their characteristics as well their
abundance constitute the best evidence of the fitness of the environment.

Image 1.2 Leaf Section

 Image 1.3 Process to produce chloroplasts
Nature in the Metropolis
Nature is considered as an interactive process. It responds to laws, constitutes to
the value system, offers intrinsic opportunities as well as limitations to human uses.
There is a need to regulate the construction on flood plains and areas which are
prone for liquefaction. They are considered as large free spaces and is potential to
be public place.
In a developers perspective, they open the space for the people but, nature is
should not be changed essentially. Moreover, in a planners perspective, the green
space surrounds the city.
Nature is a complex which is closely related network. Each unit becomes a part of a
whole.
The city grows through densifying within the area and expanding this results to the
reduction of open spaces although there is still plenty of open spaces.
There is disturbance on the natural systems hence, there is need for a holistic
approach.
there is a need for simple regulations, which ensure that society protects the
values of natural processes and itself protected. Conceivably such lands wherein
exist these intrinsic values and constraints would provide the source of open space
for metropolitan areasthey would satisfy double purpose: ensuring the operation
of vital natural processes and employing lands unsuited to development in ways
that would leave them unharmed by these often-violent processes. Presumably too,
development would occur in areas that were intrinsically suitable, where dangers
were absent and natural processes unharmed.
 Image 1.4 Water features

Image 1.5 Land features

On Values
The first explorations in the 16th century focused on the humanist expression of the
man towards nature. Wherein the assumption of power by man equates to the
superiority in nature.
The second occurred after a century wherein at this period, the earliest colonial
settlement started wherein the man and his supremacy is over a base and the
nature.
Next came the English gardens during the 18 th century. Decorative elements as well
as tractable plants were arranged in a geometry. This period focuses on the
aesthetic properties of plants; however, it is designed without ecological concepts.
During the change of power in England, started a new view. Man believed that the
unity between the nature and mas was possible.
A Response to Values
Natural phenomenon is a subject to a changing interacting process which is
responsive to laws, offering opportunities as well as limitation to human use.
If so, these have to be evaluated. Each area has suitability towards specific
functions. Land capacity must be evaluated firsthand by testing it with an existing
site.
The World is a Capsule
The knowledge he had acquired he came to see as the essential evidence in the
search for meaning and for purpose. It permitted him to see himself and his
companions as he product of a great process, comprehensible through the past,
with the future some unpredictable but amenable extension of past and present.
The world was fit for life; adapted to the world. The environment could be made
more fitting: this appeared to be that role which man could uniquely fulfill.
An astronaut prepares for his exploration for years. His inspiration for the
exploration is survival, he learns the living process, which is living within the
capsule. Same as the astronaut, we should understand the nature not only for
survival but to enjoy living.
Consumers and producers that form the primary structure of the ecosystem should
be studied well to create a self-sustained capsule. This includes an intensive
understanding of then natural ecosystem, its factors and its influences. Such
experiment came to a realization that man as a mere element in the whole process,
rather than the destructive role which we play in the present environment.
The earth is a creative process, in which man has a unique creative role. All the
physical and living processes are arresting the energies on the path to entropy and
during the process, it is creating a self-sustaining and evolving ecosystem. Man and
the earth become partners of survival and creation.
Processes as Values
Ideal is never a choice of either or but combination of both.
A caged animal, no matter how trained he is, would like to adapt to its natural
habitat. It is the same with man.
The way that the land use we are adopting to does not confine to the right way it is
assigned because man has built in areas we should not.
Conservation, recreation and urbanization are the three factors in which man should
look into broadly.
The Naturalist
This discusses that designs are not trying to create a perfect environment for man.
A perfect environment varies to each person and is unique in each situation.
In a naturalists point of view, everything can be created to make most people
happy. The earth and its occupants are involved in a creative process and man has
a unique role in it.
The world is an ordered place and the creatures in it respond to biological laws
which are intrinsic and self-responding.
The River Basin
In order to understand the interaction process and to interpret the value system to
designate the appropriate land uses, the following factors should be studied:

Geology
Historic geology
Physiography
Hydrology
Groundwater
Soils
Plant associations
Wildlife
Water problems
Interpretations
Uniqueness of sources
Mineral resources
Slope and its accessibility
Water resources

The Metropolitan Region

A city occupies a land and it operates through a form of government. On the other
hand, the metropolitan also occupies land but it is composed of many levels and
forms of government. It is united neither by the government and planning nor
without them. The transformation of a city to a metropolitan area has contained the
hopes of those who went to the old city to look for a clean government, better
schools, a more healthy and safe environment, those who wished to escape the
slums, congestion violence and disease.
Certain lands are not for urbanization and others are intrinsically suitable. A more
precise information to base the decision is needed, however, it is not enough to
describe land as unforested. One should examine the agricultural value, factors or
foundation, suitability of soils and the susceptibility to erosion.
Process and Form
Man is considered destructive. They destroy forests in order to build what they want
and tend to forget that they are not the only living creature in the planet. Overall,
man is also considered a negative force. In contrary to this, man has also created
unique design that do have a positive effect on the environment.
City- Process and Form
True success of the overlay method needs to be tried and tested in a living city
including all its intricacies.
City has to be understood through its urban form, evolution and its historical
development in order to develop a value system and respond to it. We can respond
through it by understanding the geological and physiographical evolution of the
place.
Historically, the physical setting had huge effect on the social setup of a kingdom
for axis and elevation were from the physiographic setting of a place. Together, the
natural setting of a place with the urban form creates drama.
Rivers, mountains and other natural features makes up the city.
Therefore, history not only specifically means buildings but also includes, land and
its feature. Design may not be only based on the form but also with the various
layers of evolution.
City- Health and Prospects
This discusses the relationship of ecology to the city.
The overlay of pathology together with pathology and environment and the city
leads to the understanding the issues of health.
The study showed that the areas that are highly susceptible to diseases are in the
core and as it move back or in the countryside, it becomes lesser.
This shows that as the density increases, it also equates to the increase of the social
stress that leads to diseases.
Prospects
McHarg stated that the naturalists perfect environment will never be achieved.
Man still remains unchanged.
The disintegrating cities will lead to creation of necropolis.
Here, McHarg points out models for future which are as follows:

Neg-entropy- the increase in levels of order

Apperception- the transmutation of energy to information
 Sysmbiosis- combination of the neg-entropy and apperception
Fitness and fitting- selection of the fittest in order to accomplish better fitting
Health and pathology- the result of all the factors.

In conclusion, the country is transforming fast into a developed city in contrast to

other examples from other cities which are falling into deterioration. What the earth
needs is a radical shift in which we have to respond to the nature and come up with
solutions.

References:
[1] McHarg, I. L. (1992). Design with nature. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Online Image
[2] A tree converts disorder to order with a little help from the Sun. Retrieved
from http://libguides.gwumc.edu/c.php?g=27779&p=170351