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Design with nature
Landscape and Urban Planning, 23 ( 1993 ) 14% 150 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam
Book Reviews
NATURE ante ture, Ian L. cHarg, Wiley, ew York, 1992,197 pp., ISBN O-47l-55797-
Originally published in 1967 _ Pder a grant from The Conservation Foundation, Design ante ture is both a personal testament to the power and im Portance of naPare as web as a clear voice speaking out for the consideration of ecological values in the planning and development of the American landscape. Ian McHarg’s testament has proven to be an enduring contribution both to the technical literature of landscape planning and to that unfortunately small collection of writings which speak with emotional eloquence of the importance of ecological principles in regional planning. The foreword to the original edition by Lewis Mumford has proven insightful and predictive as Mumford assigned the book to such exclusive company as Thoreau, Marsh, Sauer, and Carson among others. The intrinsic merits of this work were accurately assessed in his foreword as demonstrated by this re-issuing of the work some twenty years after its original publication. This Wiley edition is in a larger format with the original illustrations and text printed at a more readable size than the edition I studied with a magnifying glass two decades ago. Several critical additions to planning theory and practice are presented by McHarg in this book. Among these is the concept of ‘physiographic determinism’ as illustrated in the Plan for the Valleys (in the chapter ‘A Response to Values’), a proactive view of our planetary resources as an ongoing experiment, and the multiple case studies demonstrating a replica-
ble methodology for the ecological assessment of cities. Several generations of designers and planners have learr A ihe so-called ‘McHarg method’ and the basic principles have become standard componen is in environmental assessments and impact studies. Of particular note is McHarg’s inc%tsion of the temporal and ecological context iq the layering of environmental inforlrnation as a systematic approach to regional planning. Physiographic determinism is a critical component in the Plan for the Green Spring and Worthington Valleys northwest of Baltimore, Maryland. This approach is a response to the natural processes shaping the physic31 environment and setting constraints to subsequent development. While the specific areas of concern may vary by region, physiographic determinism has become such an accepted part of most land planning studies that its absence would be questioned by most clients. The communication of potential hazards and long-term environmental costs has been facilitated using the McHarg environmental layering approach to determine opportunities and constraints to development. This method illustrates clearly at a regional scale how the natural processes interactive among soils, slopes, geology, and vegetation establish a development context emphasizing the human and ecological cost of considerations. environmental ignoring Poorly-conceived and inappropriately-placed land uses have proven to be expensive errors in judgment in many cities across the country and throughout the world. While economics is still the language of discourse, McHarg’s methodology has introduced new voices to the chorus of interests embodied in the planning 3nd design of our communities.
146
The development of a methodology which incorporates natural processes as both dynamic and point-in-time influences has been an important contribution to the land planning theory. Design with Nuture provides many of USwith the first examples of a rational methodology for including ecological principles and natural processes in our design efforts. The case studies in this book are consistent in demonstrating that a systematic approach incorporating ecology can significantly improve the understanding of landscape influences on city form in a spatial and geographic context. The environmental context and ecological sensitivity ofa region to development is established by a logical layering of soils, hydrology, geology, vegetation, and other natural systems. Utilizing a methodology pioneered early in this century by Warren Manning (see Steinitz, ‘A History of Map Overlays’, Landscape Architecture) reinforced by the improved accuracy of contemporary environmental mapping of resources, McHarg developed a planning tool which expresses, spatially, the dynamics of natural process. This dynamic of continuing ecological change has been thoroughly integrated into accepted land planning uractice. A predictive science of the implications of proposed development ecological :~tn~r;tXr La,, I.’ upon an understanding lllbb6& 1CJh”_ 11Q3 UCGLI built and acceptance of the inevitability of natural processes and their spatial expression. The continuing sophistication of remote sensing capabilities has reinforced the ~ignr of the method and emphasized the relevance of environmental temporality. Gmparative studies of city growth which quantitatively assess environmental consequences and proffer choices are an accepted part of the scholarly literature in the fields of land planning altd human ecology. The elegant prose with which McHarg writes has made this book a classic, recognized by scholars in a broad range of fields as well as interested lay persons. Readers will find themselves swept away in the expressive mixture of laudatory appreciation for nature and castiga-
tion of the mistakes which have been made in the planning and development of cities. That this book is not simply a well-written polemic is indicated by the number of citations and array of fields represented in the Science Citations Index over the past two decades. Since its first publication in 1969, Design with Nature has been cited by 162 authors writing in more than 60 different journals, for an average of 8 scholarly citations per year for 20 years. These publications range across the fields of engineering, environmental management, and land planning to geology, soil science, and ecology. Few works can claim such enduring influence and reinforces Lewis Mumford’s assessment of this book. The influence ofthe McHarg method on land planners and landscape architecture has elicited criticism of the method as removing design from landscape architecture and tilting education programs towards ecology and planning while de-emphasizing physical design in the profession. Certainly the rigor of the method provided an appealing alternative to the relic Beaux Arts aesthetics and the emist functionalism which characterized much landscape architecture for many years. However, the interdisciplinary inclusiveness of McHarg’s physiographic determinism made the inclusion of ecological values a competitive component in the complex and difIicult’ process by which land use decisions are made. The contemporary awareness of limited global and regional resources and our current obsessions with global wkrming, biodiversity, and environmental consequences of industrial development are eloquently predicted in Design with Nature. The studies around Washington, DC and that of Staten Island and Philadelphia still hold as methodological mileposts for students in the field. With the publication of Design with Nature, landscape architects and land planners received a boost in stature from the compelling arguments they courageously articulated to the world long before such beliefs had popular support. Certainly, students in the fields of regional and environmental planning
as well as human ecology should have a working familiarity with McHarg’s methodology and it is timely that this seminal work is once again available.
Steirritz, C., Parktlri P. and Jordan, L., 1976. Hand drawn overlays: their history and prospective uses. Land. Archit., pp. 444-455. THOMAS M. WOODFIN
Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning Texas A&M University CoNegeStation, TX 77843-3137 USA
lTTALIANWSANDGARDEN§ Italian Villas and Gardens, Paul van der Ree, Gerrit Smienk and Clemens Steenbergen, THOTH, Amsterdam, 1992,298 pp., ISBN 9-0686-80 13-7. This remarkable little book fills an obvious void in the current literature on the Italian villa and garden. As reviewed (in its paperback, English language edition), it is comprehensive in its balanced treatment of both the architecture and the landscape, and beautifully illustrated with an astonishing variety of analytical line drawings. These characteristics set Ztalian Villas and Gardens apart from other recent or widely used references such as Lazzaro’s The Italian Renaissance Garden, and Battilotti’s The Viilas of Palladio, each of which is limited in scope, and neither of which comprehensively treats both the villa and the garden, the site and the regional context, the static geometry of the place in addition to the dynamic quality of movement through time and space. In their introductory essays, the authors take care to define the rural lifestyle of the villepgiatura and the resultant development of the villa
rustica and villa urbana as buildingt)~pes.‘me latter was eventually completely integrated into the landscape in first a rigidly ordered, later a joyful, often chaotic combination of earth and water, building stone and vegetation. The impwhnce of the Renaissance invention of linear perspective in defining mankind’s place in nature, and in making possible the “integrazione scenica of the viIla into the landscape” is recognized and appropriately stressed. The 45 villas described in detail are arranged into roughly six geographic categories (Tuscany, Rome, the Veneto, etc.), which, while not always convenient to the reader attempting to trace a particular stylistic development, serve to sub-divide the work into comprehensible segments. The alphabetical order in which the villas are presented within these six chapters is arbitrary, and should have been avoided in favor of a more logical ordering, perhaps by chronology. These criticisms are minor, and do not lessen the importance of this work, which, primarily because of its splendid array of analytical line drawings, should be considered a successor to and logical extension of Shepherd and Jellitoe’s pioneering Italian Gardens of the Renaissance. Although they do not match the artistic virtuosity of Shepherd’s exquisite watercolor plans and sections, Van der Ree, Smienk and Steenbergen’s (and their colleagues’ and students’) drawings provide a clear graphic description of the villas and gardens for the student who has never been to Italy. They would be even more useful in enhancing the visitor’s understanding of the places and spaces described, and I predict that the book will be most often and most successfully used in that way, tucked into the back pocket or knapsack of students and other pilgrims. Among the over two hundred line drawings, I counted some 25 different drawing types, ranging from the expected site plans, elevations and sections to illustrative axonometrics, various ‘exploded section/axonometrics, views, and several ingenious geometric anal-
Book Reviews
NATURE ante ture, Ian L. cHarg, Wiley, ew York, 1992,197 pp., ISBN O-47l-55797-
Originally published in 1967 _ Pder a grant from The Conservation Foundation, Design ante ture is both a personal testament to the power and im Portance of naPare as web as a clear voice speaking out for the consideration of ecological values in the planning and development of the American landscape. Ian McHarg’s testament has proven to be an enduring contribution both to the technical literature of landscape planning and to that unfortunately small collection of writings which speak with emotional eloquence of the importance of ecological principles in regional planning. The foreword to the original edition by Lewis Mumford has proven insightful and predictive as Mumford assigned the book to such exclusive company as Thoreau, Marsh, Sauer, and Carson among others. The intrinsic merits of this work were accurately assessed in his foreword as demonstrated by this re-issuing of the work some twenty years after its original publication. This Wiley edition is in a larger format with the original illustrations and text printed at a more readable size than the edition I studied with a magnifying glass two decades ago. Several critical additions to planning theory and practice are presented by McHarg in this book. Among these is the concept of ‘physiographic determinism’ as illustrated in the Plan for the Valleys (in the chapter ‘A Response to Values’), a proactive view of our planetary resources as an ongoing experiment, and the multiple case studies demonstrating a replica-
ble methodology for the ecological assessment of cities. Several generations of designers and planners have learr A ihe so-called ‘McHarg method’ and the basic principles have become standard componen is in environmental assessments and impact studies. Of particular note is McHarg’s inc%tsion of the temporal and ecological context iq the layering of environmental inforlrnation as a systematic approach to regional planning. Physiographic determinism is a critical component in the Plan for the Green Spring and Worthington Valleys northwest of Baltimore, Maryland. This approach is a response to the natural processes shaping the physic31 environment and setting constraints to subsequent development. While the specific areas of concern may vary by region, physiographic determinism has become such an accepted part of most land planning studies that its absence would be questioned by most clients. The communication of potential hazards and long-term environmental costs has been facilitated using the McHarg environmental layering approach to determine opportunities and constraints to development. This method illustrates clearly at a regional scale how the natural processes interactive among soils, slopes, geology, and vegetation establish a development context emphasizing the human and ecological cost of considerations. environmental ignoring Poorly-conceived and inappropriately-placed land uses have proven to be expensive errors in judgment in many cities across the country and throughout the world. While economics is still the language of discourse, McHarg’s methodology has introduced new voices to the chorus of interests embodied in the planning 3nd design of our communities.
146
The development of a methodology which incorporates natural processes as both dynamic and point-in-time influences has been an important contribution to the land planning theory. Design with Nuture provides many of USwith the first examples of a rational methodology for including ecological principles and natural processes in our design efforts. The case studies in this book are consistent in demonstrating that a systematic approach incorporating ecology can significantly improve the understanding of landscape influences on city form in a spatial and geographic context. The environmental context and ecological sensitivity ofa region to development is established by a logical layering of soils, hydrology, geology, vegetation, and other natural systems. Utilizing a methodology pioneered early in this century by Warren Manning (see Steinitz, ‘A History of Map Overlays’, Landscape Architecture) reinforced by the improved accuracy of contemporary environmental mapping of resources, McHarg developed a planning tool which expresses, spatially, the dynamics of natural process. This dynamic of continuing ecological change has been thoroughly integrated into accepted land planning uractice. A predictive science of the implications of proposed development ecological :~tn~r;tXr La,, I.’ upon an understanding lllbb6& 1CJh”_ 11Q3 UCGLI built and acceptance of the inevitability of natural processes and their spatial expression. The continuing sophistication of remote sensing capabilities has reinforced the ~ignr of the method and emphasized the relevance of environmental temporality. Gmparative studies of city growth which quantitatively assess environmental consequences and proffer choices are an accepted part of the scholarly literature in the fields of land planning altd human ecology. The elegant prose with which McHarg writes has made this book a classic, recognized by scholars in a broad range of fields as well as interested lay persons. Readers will find themselves swept away in the expressive mixture of laudatory appreciation for nature and castiga-
tion of the mistakes which have been made in the planning and development of cities. That this book is not simply a well-written polemic is indicated by the number of citations and array of fields represented in the Science Citations Index over the past two decades. Since its first publication in 1969, Design with Nature has been cited by 162 authors writing in more than 60 different journals, for an average of 8 scholarly citations per year for 20 years. These publications range across the fields of engineering, environmental management, and land planning to geology, soil science, and ecology. Few works can claim such enduring influence and reinforces Lewis Mumford’s assessment of this book. The influence ofthe McHarg method on land planners and landscape architecture has elicited criticism of the method as removing design from landscape architecture and tilting education programs towards ecology and planning while de-emphasizing physical design in the profession. Certainly the rigor of the method provided an appealing alternative to the relic Beaux Arts aesthetics and the emist functionalism which characterized much landscape architecture for many years. However, the interdisciplinary inclusiveness of McHarg’s physiographic determinism made the inclusion of ecological values a competitive component in the complex and difIicult’ process by which land use decisions are made. The contemporary awareness of limited global and regional resources and our current obsessions with global wkrming, biodiversity, and environmental consequences of industrial development are eloquently predicted in Design with Nature. The studies around Washington, DC and that of Staten Island and Philadelphia still hold as methodological mileposts for students in the field. With the publication of Design with Nature, landscape architects and land planners received a boost in stature from the compelling arguments they courageously articulated to the world long before such beliefs had popular support. Certainly, students in the fields of regional and environmental planning
as well as human ecology should have a working familiarity with McHarg’s methodology and it is timely that this seminal work is once again available.
Steirritz, C., Parktlri P. and Jordan, L., 1976. Hand drawn overlays: their history and prospective uses. Land. Archit., pp. 444-455. THOMAS M. WOODFIN
Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning Texas A&M University CoNegeStation, TX 77843-3137 USA
lTTALIANWSANDGARDEN§ Italian Villas and Gardens, Paul van der Ree, Gerrit Smienk and Clemens Steenbergen, THOTH, Amsterdam, 1992,298 pp., ISBN 9-0686-80 13-7. This remarkable little book fills an obvious void in the current literature on the Italian villa and garden. As reviewed (in its paperback, English language edition), it is comprehensive in its balanced treatment of both the architecture and the landscape, and beautifully illustrated with an astonishing variety of analytical line drawings. These characteristics set Ztalian Villas and Gardens apart from other recent or widely used references such as Lazzaro’s The Italian Renaissance Garden, and Battilotti’s The Viilas of Palladio, each of which is limited in scope, and neither of which comprehensively treats both the villa and the garden, the site and the regional context, the static geometry of the place in addition to the dynamic quality of movement through time and space. In their introductory essays, the authors take care to define the rural lifestyle of the villepgiatura and the resultant development of the villa
rustica and villa urbana as buildingt)~pes.‘me latter was eventually completely integrated into the landscape in first a rigidly ordered, later a joyful, often chaotic combination of earth and water, building stone and vegetation. The impwhnce of the Renaissance invention of linear perspective in defining mankind’s place in nature, and in making possible the “integrazione scenica of the viIla into the landscape” is recognized and appropriately stressed. The 45 villas described in detail are arranged into roughly six geographic categories (Tuscany, Rome, the Veneto, etc.), which, while not always convenient to the reader attempting to trace a particular stylistic development, serve to sub-divide the work into comprehensible segments. The alphabetical order in which the villas are presented within these six chapters is arbitrary, and should have been avoided in favor of a more logical ordering, perhaps by chronology. These criticisms are minor, and do not lessen the importance of this work, which, primarily because of its splendid array of analytical line drawings, should be considered a successor to and logical extension of Shepherd and Jellitoe’s pioneering Italian Gardens of the Renaissance. Although they do not match the artistic virtuosity of Shepherd’s exquisite watercolor plans and sections, Van der Ree, Smienk and Steenbergen’s (and their colleagues’ and students’) drawings provide a clear graphic description of the villas and gardens for the student who has never been to Italy. They would be even more useful in enhancing the visitor’s understanding of the places and spaces described, and I predict that the book will be most often and most successfully used in that way, tucked into the back pocket or knapsack of students and other pilgrims. Among the over two hundred line drawings, I counted some 25 different drawing types, ranging from the expected site plans, elevations and sections to illustrative axonometrics, various ‘exploded section/axonometrics, views, and several ingenious geometric anal-