Integral Sustainable Design : Transformative Perspectives 9781849775366, 9781849713122

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Integral Sustainable Design

Integral Sustainable Design Transformative Perspectives

Mark DeKay with Susanne Bennett, editor

First published in 2011 by Earthscan 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN 711 Third Ave, New York, NY 10017 Earthscan is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis group, an informa business Copyright © Robert Mark DeKay, 2011 The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as expressly permitted by law, without the prior, written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-84971-312-2 hardback ISBN: 978-1-84971-202-6 paperback Typeset by Safehouse Creative Cover design by Rob Watts

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data DeKay, Mark. Integral sustainable design / Mark DeKay. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84971-312-2 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-84971-202-6 (pbk.) 1. Sustainable design—Philosophy. I. Title. NK1520.D45 2011 720’.47—dc22 2010031428

To my amazingly integral stepchildren Amanda, Colleen and Dylan, for the future is their creation.

Contents

Figures and Tables Acknowledgements

ix xvii

Acronyms and Abbreviations

xx

Preface

xxi

Part I The Four Perspectives Of Integral Sustainable Design: Touching All the Bases of the Sustainable Design World

1

Introduction

3

1

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

11

2

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective

41

3

Exploring Deeper into the Systems Perspective

57

4

Exploring Deeper into the Cultures Perspective

76

5

Exploring Deeper into the Experiences Perspective

Part I Conclusion 

101 128

Part II Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design: The Four Contemporary Structures

131

Introduction

133

6

Levels and Lines: The Development of Sustainable Design

138

7

A Developmental View of Design History

152

8

Design Awareness: The Six Essential Lines

165

9

The 16 Prospects of Sustainable Design

172

10 Unfolding Prospects of the Interior Perspectives

177

11 Unfolding Prospects of the Exterior Perspectives

203

12 Expanding the Design Self: Transforming the Sustainable Designer

239

Part II Conclusion 

249

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Integral Sustainable Design

Part III Ecological Design Thinking: The Six Perceptual Shifts

253

Introduction

255

13 The Shift from Objects to Relationships to Subject–Object Relations

263

14 The Shift from Analysis to Context to Analysis–Context–Ground

270

15 The Shift from Structure to Process to Unfolding

282

16 The Shift from Materiality to Configuration to Pattern Languages

292

17 The Shift from Parts to Wholes to Holons

302

18 The Shift from Hierarchies to Networks to Holarchies

308

Part III Conclusion

316

Part IV Designing Relationships to Nature: Metaphors and Injunctions for Deep Connections

319

Introduction

321

19 The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

325

20 Designing in Relationship to Traditional Nature

354

21 Designing in Relationship to Modern Nature

367

22 Designing in Relationship to Postmodern Nature

379

23 Designing in Relationship to Integral Nature

390

24 Designing in Relationship to Transpersonal Nature

408

Part IV Conclusion 

425

Conclusion

431

Appendix 

443

Bibliography

451

Image Credits

463

Index of Subjects, Projects and Designers

468

Index of Principles, Injunctions, and Strategies 

488

List of Figures and Tables

Figures Figure i.1

Sustainable Design driven by a technological definition of



performance: Solar Decathlon Project

xxii

Figure i.2

The four quadrants of Integral Theory 

xxv

Figure i.3

The four quadrants of Integral Theory, with their concerns



and value criteria

Figure i.4

Integral Theory’s four quadrants simplified to the



‘Big Three’

xxvii

Figure i.5

Psychograph

xxix

Figure i.6

Three levels of complexity unfolding in the four quadrants xxix

Figure i.7

Four quadrant correlates for humans along lines of



increasing complexity

Figure i.8

Gross and subtle reductionism

xxxii

Figure i.9

Sun, Wind & Light, book cover

xxxiii

Figure i.10

‘Fallingwater’, Bear Run, Pennsylvania

xxxiii

Figure i.11

Zerohouse (unbuilt) 2005, Clive Hicks, Specht Harpman,



architects

Figure I.1

The Green Man

3

Figure I.2

LEED Gold Nueva School, Hillsborogh, California, 2007

4

Figure I.3

The first LEED platinum building, Philip Merrill



Environmental Center, Maryland

4

Figure I.4

The model for Sustainable Design?

5

Figure I.5

Whole and complete

6

Figure I.6

National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India 1961

8

Figure I.7

Solar Demonstration, Row houses, Expo 2000, Stuttgart,



Germany

Figure 1.1

Cost of energy production

12

Figure 1.2

US electricity use by sector (2008)

13

Figure 1.3

Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, Austin,



Texas

xxvi

xxx

xxxv

9

14

x

Integral Sustainable Design

Figure 1.4

Great Northwest Library, San Antonio, Texas 

16

Figure 1.5

The four perspectives of Integral Theory

17

Figure 1.6

The four Sustainable Design perspectives

18

Figure 1.7

Experiential site analysis 

21

Figure 1.8

Exterior (objective) site analysis, Poquoson Elementary 



School, Poquoson, Virginia

22

Figure 1.9

Four perspectives on place

23

Figure 1.10 Landscape design from multiple perspectives: Landscape at

the Lewis Environmental Center, Oberlin College, Ohio 

24

Figure 1.11 Crosby Arboretum, Picayune, Mississippi

25

Figure 1.12 Whole Building Design Guide logo

27

Figure 1.13 WBDG case study building: US EPA Region 8 Headquarters,

Denver, Colorado

Figure 1.14 LEED-NC 2009

28 29

Figure 1.15 Ecological Design, cover

33

Figure 1.16 Green Architecture, cover

34

Figure 1.17 Tucson Mountain House, Tucson, Arizona

35

Figure 1.18 Wilber’s Integral four quadrant model

36

Figure 1.19 The concerns and questions of ecological design 

37

Figure 2.1

Behaviours perspective issues

41

Figure 2.2

US building impacts on the environment

42

Figure 2.3

LEED logo

43

Figure 2.4

Green Globes logo

43

Figure 2.5

Areas of assessment in the Green Globes rating system

44

Figure 2.6

Sustainable Sites guidelines

45

Figure 2.7

Sustainability spectrum for resource and materials



management strategies

49

Figure 2.8

Results of energy optimization process

50

Figure 2.9

Elementary school annual energy baseline, end-uses across



climate zones

51

Figure 2.10 Measured versus proposed energy savings percentages in

LEED buildings

52

Figure 2.11 Sizing atria for daylight in adjacent rooms

53

Figure 3.1

Systems perspective issues

57

Figure 3.2

An alliance of building and plants, Stanford campus

58

Figure 3.3

Jean Gebser

59

Figure 3.4

Cultural epochs: Time, population, consumption

59

Figure 3.5

Ecological consciousness finds interconnected patterns of



living processes at work in any form

Figure 3.6

Center for Regenerative Studies, Cal Poly, Pamona, California 68

Figure 3.7

Bo01, Malmo, Sweden

61 70

List of Figures and Tables

xi

Figure 3.8

Lyle’s diagram of flows in the Center for Regenerative Studies71

Figure 3.9

Beaver Creek Green Infrastructure Plan, Knox County,



Tennessee

73

Figure 4.1

Cultures perspective issues

76

Figure 4.2

Discovery Center, Seattle, Washington

77

Figure 4.3

ING bank headquarters, Amsterdam 

78

Figure 4.4

Carl T. Curtis Midwest Regional Headquarters of the



National Park Service, Omaha, Nebraska

79

Figure 4.5

Cambridge Cohousing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998

81

Figure 4.6

Hawaii Gateway Energy Center

83

Figure 4.7

Sidwell Friends Middle School, Washington, DC, 1971



renovation

84

Figure 4.8

Aldo Leopold in field research

85

Figure 4.9

Viet Village Urban Farm, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2006

87

Figure 4.10 Suburban cul-de-sac housing

88

Figure 4.11 Levels of evolution

90

Figure 4.12 Co-emergence of individual (microevolution) and social

holons (macroevolution)

92

Figure 4.13 Green Urban Patterns, Chattanooga Downtown Plan

93

Figure 4.14 Solar Energy Research Facility, Golden, Colorado

95

Figure 4.15 House of Spiritual Retreat, 25 miles north of Seville, Spain

96

Figure 4.16 Solar Umbrella House, Venice, California

97

Figure 4.17 Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas

98

Figure 5.1

Experience perspective issues

101

Figure 5.2

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Molecular Foundry,



Berkeley, California

Figure 5.3

Backyard toilets at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville 103

Figure 5.4

Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, India

105

Figure 5.5

Library alcove at UVA Rotunda, Charlottesville, Virginia

106

Figure 5.6

Siddi Sayed Mosque, Ahmedabad, India

107

Figure 5.7

Management Development Centre, Ahmedabad, India

108

Figure 5.8

First Church of Christ Scientists, Berkeley, California

110

Figure 5.9

Magney House, New South Wales, Australia

110

102

Figure 5.10 Courtyard at the British Consul, New Delhi, India

112

Figure 5.11 Entry, Johnson House, Inverness, California

113

Figure 5.12 Visual aesthetics: Scotch elm at Washington University

116

Figure 5.13 Phenomenological aesthetics: Riding the bicycle

116

Figure 5.14 Process aesthetics: AIA North Carolina HQ competition

117

Figure 5.15 Ecological aesthetics: Lagoon Park, living at the edge of

wilderness, Santa Barbara, California

118

Figure 5.16 Traditional aesthetics of Sustainable Design: Solar 

Farmhouse Meadowcreek Project, Fox, Arkansas

122

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Integral Sustainable Design

Figure 5.17 Mental aesthetics of Sustainable Design: Loblolly House,

Taylors Island, Maryland

123

Figure 5.18 Pluralist aesthetics of Sustainable Design: Blue Ridge

Parkway Destination Center, Asheville, North Carolina

124

Figure 5.19 Integral aesthetics of Sustainable Design: Rudolph Steiner

Seminariet, Järna, Sweden

125

Figure II.1

Traditional/Modern/Postmodern/Integral

134

Figure II.2

Sustainable Design as the interplay of levels in each



quadrant

135

Figure II.3

The four Sustainable Design perspectives

136

Figure II.4

US electricity consumption by sector

137

Figure II.5

Contributing almost half of the world’s CO2 emissions

137

Figure 6.1

Psychograph

140

Figure 6.2

Robert Kegan

141

Figure 6.3

Horizons expand with each new level

143

Figure 6.4

Spiral Dynamics model

143

Figure 6.5

Four nested levels of line ‘A’ of design awareness

145

Figure 7.1

Halawa House, Agamy, Egypt

154

Figure 7.2

Fredensborg Housing, Fredensborg, Denmark

156

Figure 7.3

Quartier Schutzenstrasse, Berlin, Germany

159

Figure 8.1

Complexity built by unfolding in multiple lines of design



awareness

166

Figure 9.1

A common framework for levels across quadrants

173

Figure 10.1 Unfolding prospects in the experiences perspective

177

Figure 10.2 Halawa House, Agamy, Egypt

178

Figure 10.3 Bartholomeusz House, Colombo, Sri Lanka

180

Figure 10.4 Low Country Residence, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina

181

Figure 10.5 Marie Short House, Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia

182

Figure 10.6 Pierce County Environmental Services Building, Chambers

Creek, Washington

183

Figure 10.7 Treescaper, project for Fortune Magazine’s ‘Tower of

Tomorrow’ 

184

Figure 10.8 Point House, Mangawhai Heads, Northland, New Zealand

185

Figure 10.9 Unfolding prospects in the cultures perspective

186

Figure 10.10 Rosie Joe House, Bluff, Utah

188

Figure 10.11 Findhorn Ecovillage, Scotland; Village Homes,

Davis, California

189

Figure 10.12 Tropical House, Sao Paolo, Brazil

190

Figure 10.13 Jubilee Campus, University of Nottingham, UK

193

Figure 10.14 North Eagle House, Los Angeles, California

194

Figure 10.15 Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center, Orange,

Texas

195

List of Figures and Tables

xiii

Figure 10.16 Entangled Bank, Re:Vision Dallas Competition,

Dallas, Texas (unbuilt); Forwarding Dallas,



Re:Vision Dallas Competition, Dallas, Texas (unbuilt)

198

Figure 10.17 Walled City of Masdar, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

(unbuilt)

Figure 11.1 Unfolding prospects in the behaviours perspective

199 203

Figure 11.2 Cantilevered Barn, Cade’s Cove, Great Smoky Mountains

National Park, Tennessee

Figure 11.3 Zachary House, Zachary, Louisiana

205 206

Figure 11.4 Correlates of the behaviours prospects in all quadrants

207

Figure 11.5 The Traditional Level in all quadrants

207

Figure 11.6 Santa Clarita transit maintenance facility, Santa Clarita,

California

208

Figure 11.7 World Headquarters for the International Fund for Animal

Welfare (IFAW), Yarmouth, Massachusetts

209

Figure 11.8 Leura House, Sydney, Australia

212

Figure 11.9 5.4.7 Arts Center, Greensburg, Kansas

213

Figure 11.10 Sliding House, Suffolk, England

216

Figure 11.11 Cradle to Cradle Home, Roanoke, Virginia (unbuilt)

218

Figure 11.12 Unfolding prospects in the systems perspective

219

Figure 11.13 Hill Country Jacal (weekend retreat), Pipe Creek, Texas

220

Figure 11.14 Cellophane House

222

Figure 11.15 Oak Lodge, Our Lady of the Oaks Retreat Center,

Applegate, California

227

Figure 11.16 Chesapeake Bay Foundation Philip Merrill Environmental

Center, Annapolis, Maryland

228

Figure 11.17 The Zuidkas Project, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (unbuilt) 231 Figure 11.18 Hammarby Sjostad, Stockholm, Sweden

232

Figure 11.19 Reed’s trajectory of environmentally responsible design 

234

Figure 12.1 Spiral of consciousness/culture

240

Figure III.1

259

Glacial river in Alaska

Figure 13.1 Shift from objects to relationships

263

Figure 13.2 National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India

264

Figure 13.3 Underwood Family Sonoran Landscape Laboratory, Arizona 268 Figure 14.1 Shift from analysis to context

270

Figure 14.2 Student model, study of form generated by context

272

Figure 14.3 The Columbia River Gorge (Washington side) and the Rio

Grande near Albuquerque

273

Figure 14.4 Building in a Scandinavian climate, Gentofte Central

Library, Denmark

Figure 14.5 The Green School, Bali, Indonesia

274 278

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Integral Sustainable Design

Figure 14.6 Kandalama Hotel, Dambilla, Sri Lanka 

280

Figure 15.1 The shift from structure to process

282

Figure 15.2 MICA School, Gujarat, India

285

Figure 15.3 Rowhouses Expo 2000, Stuttgart, Germany

286

Figure 15.4 Landscape as a living system, Shanghai Houtan Park,

Shanghai, China

289

Figure 16.1 Shift from materiality to configuration

292

Figure 16.2 Student projects

293

Figure 16.3 The Surkej Resevoir Complex, west of Ahmedabad, Gujarat,

India

297

Figure 16.4 Eishin College, Iruma-shi, Saitama Prefecture, Japan

298

Figure 17.1

302

The shift from parts to wholes

Figure 17.2 Bio-works, Kolding, Denmark

304

Figure 17.3 Taos Lodge, New Mexico

305

Figure 18.1 The shift from hierarchies to networks

308

Figure 18.2 Green Infrastructure Network, Downtown Plan,

Chattanooga, Tennessee

311

Figure 18.3 Belapur Housing, India

312

Figure IV.1

Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

322

Figure IV.2

The Four Sustainable Design Perspectives

323

Figure 19.1 Tennessee river sky

325

Figure 19.2 A common framework for levels across quadrants

328

Figure 19.3 The five contemporary levels of complexity in design

328

Figure 19.4 Traditional Classical Nature

333

Figure 19.5 Nature as the great wilderness

334

Figure 19.6 Traditional Romantic Nature

334

Figure 19.7 Nature as the lost paradise

336

Figure 19.8 Traditional ‘Garden’ Nature

336

Figure 19.9 Nature as primeval garden

337

Figure 19.10 Scientific Empirical Nature

338

Figure 19.11 Nature as the great biosphere

338

Figure 19.12 We-of-life Nature

339

Figure 19.13 Culturally constructed Nature

340

Figure 19.14 Nature as the great web of life

340

Figure 19.15 The Integral Ecology Framework: Who x how x what 

342

Figure 19.16 Nature as Integral living community

342

Figure 19.17 Nature as the great matrix of perspectives

343

Figure 19.18 Nature as the great Self manifesting

344

Figure 20.1 Migration: Parekh House, Ahmedabad, India

356

Figure 20.2 Experience begets meaning: Shoren-in Temple, Kyoto,

Japan

Figure 20.3 The Three Realms: Turtle Creek House, Dallas, Texas

360 361

List of Figures and Tables

xv

Figure 20.4 Symphonies of the senses: King’s Road House, Los Angeles,

California

365

Figure 21.1 Materials with natural origins: House Truog Gugalun, Peter

Zumthor, Versam, Switzerland

368

Figure 21.2 Visible resource thrift: Barragan House, Mexico City

371

Figure 21.3 Living Homes model house

372

Figure 21.4 Douglas House, Harbor Springs, Michigan

376

Figure 21.5 Pine Forest Cabin, Methow Valley, Washington

377

Figure 22.1 Roof as habitat: Brunsell-Sharples House, The Sea Ranch,

California

381

Figure 22.2 Contextual structure of habitat and prime conservation

land

Figure 22.3 Metaphoric power, Vitlycke Museum, Tanum, Sweden

382 386

Figure 22.4 ‘Hortus Conclusus’, Central Hospital St Juergen, Bremen,

Germany

389

Figure 23.1 Draft pattern map of design strategies related to

cross-ventilation

401

Figure 23.2 Design expressing natural process, Magney House, NSW,

Australia

403

Figure 23.3 Constructed treatment wetlands, Living Waters Garden,

Chengdu, China

Figure 23.4 Aerial view, Living Waters Garden, Chengdu, China

404 404

Figure 23.5 Architecture improving and providing wildlife habitat:

Birding Center, Mission Texas

406

Figure 24.1 Nature, beauty, unity: Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs,

Arkansas

412

Figure 24.2 An extension of the land, yet distinctly human: The Sea

Ranch, Condominium One Sonoma County, California

414

Figure 24.3 Unity of the world: ‘A House is a Garden is a House …’

Sequences, Isernhagen, Germany

Figure 24.4 Silence and emptiness, Salk Institute, La Jolla, California

416 420

Figure 24.5 Supreme House, State Parliament, Principality of

Lichtenstein

422

Figure 24.6 ‘Hortus Conclusus’, LBS (Savings Bank for Lower Saxony)

Head Offices, Hannover, Germany

Figure C.1

The eight methodological zones of Integral Theory’s



methodological pluralism

423 437

Tables Table 1.1

Framework of methods and design phases for place (or



other issues)

22

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Table 1.2

LEED-NC criteria

30

Table 2.1

Sustainable Sites Initiative: Index of prerequisites and



credits with associated possible points

45

Table 2.2

Design strategies from Sun, Wind and Light 

55

Table 3.1

Principles of ecology

63

Table 3.2

Principles of ecosystems 

Table 6.1

Hypothetical levels on the ‘Line of bouncing ball games’

138

Table 6.2

Example sequences of developmental complexity

140

Table 6.3

Kegan’s five orders of the development of consciousness 

142

Table 6.4

Values and their drives

144

Table 6.5

Levels of complexity in the four contemporary structures 

145

Table 6.6

The four contemporary structures in design

146

Table 6.7

Major levels of designer’s worldviews, exemplars and



common issues

Table 8.1

Level 1 Traditional content in the six essential lines of



design awareness

169

Table 8.2

Levels of the place and context line

170

Table 9.1

The 16 prospects of Integral Sustainable Design

174

Table 9.2

The 16 prospects with their examples and concerns

175

Table 12.1

Conditions for self-transformation to new levels along the



values line

244

Table III.1

Key criteria of living systems 

257

Table 15.1

Types of process-form relationships in design 

284

Table 19.1

NATURE, Nature, nature

327

Table 19.2

Characteristics of a structural hierarchy 

329

Table 19.3

The five contemporary levels of complexity in design 

330

Table 19.4

Historic metaphors for Nature at five levels of development  331

Table 19.5

Designing relationships to Nature: Level, metaphor and



intention 

350

Table 23.1

Alexander’s 15 fundamental properties of living structure 

393

Table 23.2

Some relationships among patterns in a pattern language 

396

Table IV.1

Designing relationships to Nature: Level, metaphor and



intention

65

149

426

Acknowledgements

This book has been years in the making. Many people have made contributions to my thinking and to the production. From an Integral view, one can see that this work is a framing and an integration of works by many others over decades. I am grateful to all those thinkers and designers upon whose work this book is built. The Herculean work of Ken Wilber provides the conceptual framework for Integral Theory that informs this study. While it is impossible to keep up with the rapidly developing mind of such a knowledge-mapper, the fundamentals are relatively easy to grasp – yet even the fundamentals of quadrants and levels when turned toward a particular knowledge domain, such as Sustainable Design, have echoing repercussions that are immense. An Integral Institute (I-I) workshop on Integral Ecology and Sustainability in 2004 gave me the opportunity as a presenter to first express my work within the Integral Model. Sean Ebsjörn-Hargens and Barrett Brown were most enthusiastic and encouraging about the development of these Integral design ideas. They encouraged me to work with Kevin Snorf in articulating a position paper defining Integral design. Thanks are due to Kevin for the dialogue and prompting that, while we never produced the initial paper, motivated me to take these ideas to a new level. As a product of the workshop, my team ‘won’ a little competition and a team conference call with Ken Wilber. Susanne Bennett, who was to become my wife, and who I met at I-I, helped to organize the agenda for that call. It was transformative in the sense that it took my understanding of Integral Theory as applied to architecture and cities to a new level. Thanks again Ken, and Susanne, and all of my team. I am grateful to the folks at RedVector for engaging the University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design in a new online continuing education Certificate in Sustainable Design and Green Building. As part of that program, I wrote three online courses that have formed the majority of the text for the book. Thanks to Mike Vandall, Vicki Zambito, Ryan Sparks and Jeff Nippes at RedVector, our online delivery and marketing partner. Dick Kelso, as usual, has been a perfect colleague in his role as co-editor of the certificate program

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Integral Sustainable Design

with me. Several graduate students in architecture have contributed their time and skills over the course of the work. Kristin Karlinski helped out with image permissions on the first course. Robert Kown did amazing work assisting with the second and third courses, handling images, permissions, and assisting with research. In the book production phase, Clare Borsari read the manuscript and provided editorial suggestions while superbly managing the daunting task of turning the manuscript into the publisher’s preferred delivery protocol format. Emily Dover stepped in during the last days to help us meet our deadline. Our undergraduate intern from India, Jyotika Gupta, drew most of the diagrams and helped on various research tasks. Jason Stark deserves special thanks and recognition for his dedication and perfectionism in managing the whole image acquisition and permissions process for the over 300 images in the book. He not only worked for months on the task, he also worked overtime, often staying late into the night to pull it all together in the last weeks. The University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design provided match funding to support image production and permissions, as did the University of Tennessee Office of Research EPPE fund, along with a small faculty development grant. The UT Graduate Athletic Awards funded Jason’s work for a semester. Go Vols! Many architects and photographers provided images for the book at no cost or at a discount, given our meagre budget. The book would be just words without the illustrative work of so many amazingly talented designers as illustrations of each point. Integral Sustainable Design can be glimpsed in their collective efforts and products. Thanks to Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Gary Coates and Marilyn Hamilton for reviews of the proposal and draft chapters for the publisher. Nicki Dennis at Earthscan made the contract process painless and quick. Clare Lamont has been amazingly patient, supportive and crystal clear in her communications. Special thanks go to Nick Ascroft whose commitment to excellence in the production of the book shines forth on every page. Jonathan Chapman from Safehouse Creative did an excellent job with fulfilling our wishes for a clean modern design and put up with having a professor as critic throughout the process. All the folks at Earthscan have been a delight to work with, a model of the kind of publisher relationship an author should have. The person who deserves the most thanks and acknowledgement for her support of me and the work of the book is my magnificent wife Susanne. She supported me at getting up a 5.30am for the months it took to write the many drafts. She cooked, encouraged, kicked me out of bed and fed me power all along the way. She never doubted the completion or the value of the ideas. Susanne not only supported the project but partnered with me in its intellectual content. Our long discussions clarified my thinking about design and Integral Theory like no one else’s could. She read and edited the entire book dozens

Acknowledgements

xix

of times. She is indeed responsible for whatever comprehensibility this book may have, while I am responsible for whatever confusion may remain for the reader. She handled all the communications with the publisher, managed the five student workers on the project and fed us all lunch. She negotiated the contract and managed the book project’s finances. By the end, she became the office manager, project manager, my muse and critic, protector of my privacy and taskmaster. She is fully integral! Such devotion and support, such unwavering confidence in one’s contribution no man deserves, but since she is willing to be such a gift, I am willing to have miracles occur. Susanne, you support my best self in all ways, and this work would not be what it is, nor even complete, without your immeasurable contributions. Thank you. You are the prize.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

AQAL

All-Quadrants, All-Levels

ASHRAE

American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-conditioning



Engineers

CRS

Center for Regenerative Studies

FSEC

Florida Solar Energy Center

IEQ

Indoor Environmental Quality

I-I

Integral Institute

ISS

Institute for Sustainable Sites

LEED

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

LEED-NC LEED for New Construction and Major Renovation LL

lower left quadrant

LR

lower right quadrant

NIBS

National Institute of Building Sciences

SITE

Sculpture in the Environment

UL

upper left quadrant

UR

upper right quadrant

US EPA

United States Environmental Protection Agency

USGBC

US Green Buildings Council

VOC

volatile organic compound

WBDG

Whole Building Design Guide

Preface

My intention in writing this book is to help create a breakthrough in the effectiveness of the Sustainable Design movement such that it is transformed to greater power, relevance, meaning and positive effect on people and Nature. This book is probably unlike any other book about Sustainable Design that you may have encountered before now. The vast majority of works take a technical view of Sustainable Design in which performance is the primary value. This book transcends and includes the technological view in a deeper and wider perspective, defining for the first time an Integral Theory of Sustainable Design, one that is more satisfying and more effective. In Nature, form always performs. For some decades now, the design disciplines have been mired in adversarial distinctions, such as ‘art versus science’, ‘design versus technology’ and ‘analysis versus creativity’. Perhaps because of the dominance of empirically based sustainability perspectives, and the culturally predisposed listening that many of us have for it, designers commonly equate sustainability with technology and sustainable technology with quantifiable energy efficiency or its visible hardware, such as photovoltaic collectors. To be certain, there have been notable exceptions to the tendency to reduce Sustainable Design to the objective value sphere or to mere performance. However, while Sustainable Design is increasingly associated with performance measures, the wider profession is increasingly ideologically pluralistic. Despite this pluralism, the design fields, and Sustainable Design in particular, seem to have no collective framework for navigating and transcending the fragmentation that entrenches both academia and practice, locks intellectual camps into epic battles and confounds most of us in the design community to no end.

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Integral Sustainable Design

Figure i.1 Madrid Solar Decathlon Project: Sustainable Design driven by a technological definition of performance. Students from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

There are no LEED credits for creating experiences of beauty, none for creating or fitting to ecological order, and none for placing people into rich symbolic relationships with Nature.

Much of sustainable or ‘green’ design, such as the approach exemplified by the US Green Building Council’s (USGBC) programme for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), as worthy as it is, is based on an objective-only approach. Subjective perspectives are mostly missing. As an example, there are no LEED credits for creating experiences of beauty, none for creating or fitting to ecological order and none for placing people into rich symbolic relationships with Nature. Quality and subjectivity do not appear on this horizon. This is not to argue for devaluing this approach. The technological view of Sustainable Design has done great things for our awareness of the limits of resources and environmental sinks – and the relationships of buildings to these. However one cannot escape the partialness of this dominant view nor the fact that highperformance green approaches to building design are absolutely necessary!

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They are just not sufficient for the much-expanded idea of sustainability that this book explores. In the same way, environmentalism based on scientific rationalism has not been very effective. The message goes something like this: ‘Look, we have the facts … the sky is falling, we’re running out of everything you need, the climate is going wacko and Al Gore has pictures of the polar caps that should scare the pants off of all of us.’ Well, if that does not work to get our collective selves in action, statistics about the contribution of buildings to landfill waste, water consumption and CO2 production probably will not work too well either – when that’s the only argument we are making. This book presents an Integral Theory of Sustainable Design by turning the eye of the Integral Model on the subject of Sustainable Design. It proposes that Integral designs for sustainability are found in considering multiple levels of developing complexity – in the intersecting domains of self, culture and Nature. Integral Theory itself is a meta-theory, a network structure of other valid theories from multiple domains of knowledge. Its primary offering is that the world is disclosed differently depending on the perspective taken and that many perspectives are necessary to get a whole and complete understanding of the world, or even to fully grasp any particular occurrence. As such, it uses two primary frameworks (expanded later in this preface):1 1 The four perspectives, which arise from fundamental distinctions of value found in language (I, We, It/Its) and represent the methods of the arts, humanities, basic sciences and the complex sciences.2 2 Levels of complexity, which arise from the unfolding sequence of development in human individuals, cultures and physical systems, which manifest as developmental sequences such as those for values, cognition, biological evolution, economic systems and worldviews. Difficult and dangerous terrain calls for a more sophisticated map and a more highly developed map-reader.

This book outlines a new, rigorous theoretical and practical approach to understanding Sustainable Design. Though the concepts covered are fundamental to fully fledged Sustainable Design, they may challenge the reader. This book is not designed to deepen specific knowledge about sustainable technologies topics. Instead, it places technological sustainability (such as LEED) into its larger context of ecological sustainability, experiential sustainability and cultural sustainability, and thereby helps one to better understand both the

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technical perspective and the other non-technical perspectives on sustainability. As such, it provides the possibility for practitioners to communicate with and better understand the design team members who are not working with the purely technical aspects of Sustainable Design. This book covers all of the major classes of approaches to thinking about Sustainable Design. An Integral lens will be used to view Sustainable Design from four fundamental perspectives: •

behaviours perspective

•

systems perspective

•

experiences perspective

•

cultures perspective

(the what of individual parts);

(the how of complex wholes); (the who that intends, thinks and feels);

(the why of the collective we).

In doing so, the Integral approach offers the designer the potential for a better map of the Sustainable Design terrain.

A Short Primer on Integral Theory Contemporary Integral Theory, especially as outlined in the works of Ken Wilber (2000a, 2000b), attempts to create a comprehensive framework for understanding the complexity of multiple, competing theories, methods and products of any human knowledge domain. It begins with the assumption that everyone is right – at least partially – and fashions an intellectual framework that both transcends and includes differences. Simply put, an Integrally informed approach to design (or anything else) challenges us to hold multiple simultaneous perspectives and to address development in each major value sphere, including different levels of awareness across the spectrum of human development. Integral Theory is a model that could help design educators and practitioners reconsider the scope, breadth and multifaceted aspects of sustainability. It is based on a cross-cultural comparison of human knowledge, experience and inquiry (Wilber, 2000a, 2000b). Integral Theory advocates a comprehensive approach, often called AllQuadrants, All-Levels, or AQAL for short, that potentially takes into account in addressing any situation the factors of (Wilber, n.d.): 1 All quadrants (the matrix of four primary value spheres: Experience, Meaning, Behaviours and Systems). Within each quadrant: 2 All levels of developmental depth and complexity, such as the development of human consciousness, the evolution of organisms, political structures, cultural worldviews, etc.) 3 All lines of development (such as the lines of development of cognition; brain physiology, engineering structures, group ethics, etc.)

Preface Subjective

Objective

[UR]

Individual

[UL]

EXPERIENCES PERSPECTIVE

BEHAVIOURS PERSPECTIVE I WE

Collective

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CULTURES PERSPECTIVE

IT ITS SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

[LL]

Figure i.2 The four quadrants of Integral

[LR] Theory

4 All states of being (such as people’s normal and altered states, phase and thermodynamic states of matter, states of weather systems and forest succession, states of collective consciousness, etc.) 5 All types (such as human masculine and feminine types, biological morphologies, ecosystem and biome types, types of cultural contexts). While this may sound extraordinarily complicated, the hypothesis is that this is about the simplest model that can account for or map the complexity of humans and their universe. Proponents of Integral Theory aspire to create a common map of ‘orienting generalizations’.

Quadrants: The four fundamental perspectives At its most essential level, Integral Theory organizes variables for any problem into a matrix of quadrants that intersect individual and collective phenomena with objective and subjective knowledge. These combined variables reveal the following considerations: 1 Experiences: self and consciousness; 2 Behaviours: science, mechanics and performance; 3 Cultures: meaning, worldviews and symbolism; and 4 Systems: social and natural ecologies and contexts (see Figure i.2). The four quadrants – which are the four fundamental perspectives on any occasion (or the four basic ways of looking at anything) – turn out to be fairly simple: they are the inside and the outside of the individual and the collective (Wilber, n.d., p25).

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The four quadrants are not separate phenomena, but rather four simultaneous perspectives on any event. For this reason, and others that become clear later in this book, I will use the term perspectives in place of quadrants. Each quadrant or dimension of reality is ever-present and co-arises with the others. From the Integral point of view, all are necessary for a more complete understanding. Philosopher Michael Zimmerman notes that:

The quadrant perspectives correspond generally to the four ways in which universities divide research methodologies (that is, truth-claim generating practices or paradigms): fine arts (UL), humanities (LL), natural sciences (UR), and social and systemic natural sciences (LR).’ (Zimmerman, 2004) Often the two right-hand quadrants, both objective, are considered together in a shorthand way as one, yielding three value spheres, associated with Self (UL), Culture (LL) and Nature (UR/LR), or alternatively, Art, Morals and Science. Wilber refers to these as ‘The Big Three’, noting that each domain can be associated with the fundamental language distinctions of I, We, and It/Its, or first, second and third person perspectives (see Figure i.4). This indicates that the perspectives are not opinions or speculative theory, but rather, are so fundamental as to be embedded in natural languages. The Big Three are the classic value domains of Beauty, Goodness and Truth. The point is that every event in the manifest world has all three of those dimensions. You can look at any event from the point of view of the ‘I’ (how I personally see and feel about the event); from the point of view of the ‘we’ (how not just I but others see the event); and as an ‘it’ (the objective facts of the event) (Wilber, n.d., p24).

[UL]

Subjective (Interior)

Objective (Exterior)

Individual

Self and Consciousness Subjective

Objective

EXPERIENCES PERSPECTIVE

BEHAVIOURS PERSPECTIVE Truth

Truthfulness

I

WE Collective

Justness

Figure i.3 The four quadrants of Integral Theory, with their concerns and value criteria

CULTURES PERSPECTIVE Intersubjective Culture and Worldview

[LL]

[UR]

Brain and Organism

IT ITS Functional-fit

SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE Interobjective Social System and Environment

[LR]

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FirstPerson

I

IT

Beauty [Self]

Truth

WE

ITS

[Nature]

Goodness

ThirdPerson

[Culture] SecondPerson Figure i.4 Integral Theory’s four quadrants simplified to the ‘Big Three’ Source: Integral Institute

States and levels (structures) One of the fundamental realities of being human is that we can experience a variety of states of consciousness that arise and disappear, blending and changing from one to another to another. The three major states we are all aware of and have access to every day are waking, dreaming and deep sleep. There are also meditative and altered states and a spectrum of variations on each of these categories, such as emotional states, peak experiences and states of heightened creativity, insight or awareness. Each of these is typically a temporary experience. However, levels (structures) of consciousness are permanent acquisitions. Any state can occur at any structural stage, but in themselves, states do not provide a context of interpretation for wisdom. Integral Theory characterizes the difference between states and stages as ‘temporary states versus permanent traits’.3 In design we have creativity states, flow states, contemplative states, the state of being ‘one’ with the project, etc. Humans in many domains of life grow and develop over time through a sequence of predictable sequential stages or levels of structural development. Once a level is achieved the awareness or abilities of that stage do not disappear unless the body’s cognitive hardware is damaged or wears out. This assertion is borne out by hundreds of developmental researchers across a wide range of fields: the increasing complexity of biological evolution, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Jean Gebser’s epochs of worldviews, Don’ Beck’s ‘spiral dynamics’, the progressive development of monetary exchange systems, Aurobindo’s spiritual stages, the life cycle of organisms, Alistair Taylor’s stages of social organization and so on.

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Integral Sustainable Design

Several characteristics of developmental stage conceptions seem to be universal to all systems: • The same developmental characteristics can be investigated using different scales or subdivisions, just as the architect’s scale, based on multiples of 12, and the engineer’s scale, based on multiples of 10, both measure distance on a site plan. • Each progressive level transcends and includes its predecessor. It is not necessarily better, but is more inclusive, deeper, more embracing and for individuals, more expansive in its awareness. • Lower levels are fundamental to higher levels. Stages cannot be skipped. • Higher levels organize relationships of lower levels. Complexity increases. • Stages are like overlapping waves or ‘probalility clouds’, not like discreet levels in a building. • Each level has light and dark expressions and can have both healthy and unhealthy expressions. • Any state is theoretically possible at any level. Each structural stage represents a level of increasing complexity with identifiable emergent qualities of its own. In biology (the sequence of atoms, molecules, cells, organs, organism) each new level is more complex than its predecessor, includes the predecessor within it and exhibits new characteristics and behaviours not found in the lower level. Integral Theory often uses stage conceptions such as those of orders of consciousness developed by Robert Kegan, self-development in the work of Jane Lovinger and Susanne Cook-Greuter, and values in the Spiral Dynamics system of Don Beck and Christopher Cowan. We will look at some of these in more detail in Part II.

Levels and lines in Integral Theory Levels are always levels along a particular line of development. People can be good at different things. We are all unevenly developed, better at some things than others. There are two dozen or more lines of development for different researched, replicable measurable human potentials, such as lines for worldview, self-conception, morals, values, cognition, mathematics, music and so on. Each line has stages or levels. These stages emerge in a predictable one-way sequence across cultures. Human development unfolds. Howard Gardner’s research on multiple intelligences is a good example of levels along multiple lines, in which he finds that people can have a musical intelligence, a kinesthetic intelligence, emotional intelligence and so on. The psychograph diagram (Figure i.5) is an easy way to visualize this.

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First Stage

Second Stage

Third Stage

Preface

3





O

O

XD

O

QD

LR

H[

V\

FK

&

DO

RU

0

RV

YH

LWL

U RJ

RW

P

(

QD

VR

U SH

Figure i.5 Psychograph

U WH

Source: Integral Institute

,Q

Spirit Mind Body

Causal Subtle Gross

Me Us All of Us

Group Nation Global

Figure i.6 Three levels of complexity unfolding in the four quadrants Source: Integral Institute

In addition to the four quadrant perspectives and the stage-wise development of humans through levels, Integral Theory recognizes that all four quadrants show growth, development or evolution, exhibiting stages or levels as unfolding waves. Each quadrant has levels of complexity and depth. As a simple example, we can consider a developmental system with three levels of complexity along one of many potential developmental lines in each quadrant. In the Behaviours quadrant (UR) bodily structure expands from gross to subtle to causal. In the Systems quadrant (LR) social systems expand from simple groups to complex systems to global systems. In the Cultures quadrant (LL) collective values develop from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric. In the Experiences quadrant (UL) the individual sense of self unfolds from body to mind to spirit. When these three levels of development are overlaid on the four quadrants we get the Integral Institute’s diagram in Figure i.6.

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Integral Sustainable Design

Self & Consciousness

Brain & Organism

Achiever Self

1s

4

4

tT

ie

3 r

Mythic Self Egocentric Self

3

Magical Self

'

1

Instinctual Self Archaic

3 l a n

o iti

Scientific-Rational

4 d a Tr

5

Pluralistic

m

de

6 Mo

ITS

7

es

ct ur

tr u

Integral Meshworks 8

l

na

io

Social System & Environment

at

8 P

WE CuIture & Worldview

ra 2 Feudal Empires g H ing or 3 Early Nations tic ul Ag tu r 4 Corporate StaWes ra ar ia l n 5 In Value Communities du st 6 ria Holistic Commons l

rm

m

t os

Ethnic Tribes

Fo

fo

7 dem o

Integral

Complex Neocortex

In

Holistic

SF2

Survival Clans 1 1 7

Late Mythic

SF3

Neocortex (triune brain)

Animistic-Magical Early Mythic

f

SF1

2

2

n

ai

br

ls

5

c un

ra

5

Sensitive Self

ns

tio

6

eu

6

ga

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,n

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Holistic Self

c

ni

8 7

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IT

st at es

e Ti

7

,e

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d 2n

8 Integral Self

Figure i.7 Four quadrant correlates for humans along lines of increasing complexity Source: Author after Integral Institute

As the quadrants co-arise and describe multiple views of the same object or event, development in one quadrant is correlated in the other quadrants. For instance, Gebser’s development of the worldviews line in the lower left quadrant is correlated with emerging structures of individual consciousness in the upper left and with the developmental sequence of social/economic systems in the lower right: foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial, informational. As an example, Figure i.7 shows correlates in the four quadrants for humans and their collectives: • At developmental level

2

(UL) conceptual thought arises in the magical

self. • It is correlated with the evolution of a complex neo cortex in humans (UR), which makes such thoughts possible. • As these capacities are exhibited widely, people are organized socially into ethnic tribes and villages (LR). • People in these societies tend to hold an animistic–magical collective worldview (LL).

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Types Types are ‘horizontal’ typologies, that is, they do not distinguish developmental levels but do describe varieties of identifiable pattern. Examples include masculine/feminine types, yin and yang and Myers-Briggs personality types. Types occur at every level. For example, the masculine and feminine types can be identified at every level of human development on the line for sense of self. At higher levels, the self is more conscious of types and more able to integrate them, exhibiting and increasing choice about and union of masculine/feminine qualities and expressions. In design, Integral Theory’s understanding of types gives us a different take on gender issues, masculine and feminine space, building types and design typology. This book will not address types in depth. Integral Design is the theory and practice of design phenomena in the four perspectives at all levels of complexity.

Integral Theory and design An Integral approach to design is one that unites the beautiful, the art of design, and the good, the ethics of design, with the true, the science of design. We can also think of design as having four primary dimensions (the four perspectives of the quadrants), each requiring different perspectives on the practice and products of design: 1

systems perspective :

patterns of form that order ecological and social

relationships; 2

behaviours perspective :

individual parts or members with their performance,

activities, and functions; 3

experiences perspective :

systemic members (human and non-human) with

various forms of perception, sentience, and awareness; 4

cultures perspective :

shared meaning and understanding at various levels of

complexity arising from individual members interacting with each other. In this book, I identify that most of contemporary Sustainable Design is focused on issues and methods from the

behaviours perspective ,

which constitutes a re-

duction to ‘flatland’. High performance design typically collapses everything to the upper right quadrant. Green, ecological approaches collapse reality to the lower right quadrant, or to the right side of the four-quadrant matrix (the web of life). Wilber calls this subtle reductionism as contrasted with the gross reductionism of the upper right. But where are the interiors? This book is designed to tease out the roots of each perspective on Sustainable Design and to posit ways to create a more holistic, all-quadrant Sustainable Design.

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Integral Sustainable Design

Subjective

Objective

Subjective

[UR]

I

IT

[LL]

Collective

Collective

WE ITS

[LR]

Objective

[UL] Individual

Individual

[UL]

[LL]

[UR]

I

IT

WE

ITS

[LR]

Figure i.8 Gross (left) and subtle (right) reductionism

A more comprehensive map of design emerges if we intersect the four perspectives with a system of developmental levels in each perspective. Thus, Integral Design is the theory and practice of design phenomena in the four perspectives at all levels of complexity. In Part II, we term these intersections prospects as the view from each intersection of level and perspective discloses Sustainable Design differently. No prospect of any level occurs without the other prospects of that level in other perspectives. The four prospects of every level arise simultaneously, because each prospect of a level is a different aspect of the same phenomenon. As it turns out, each prospect requires different methods of inquiry, different design, analysis and evaluation methods. This may sound confusing on the front end of the book, but these logics as they apply to design will all be unfolded in the coming chapters. When we are able to see and consciously distinguish different ways of seeing the world, it allows us to inhabit other people’s perspectives. Much as putting on a new pair of glasses alters our vision, the Integral Designer can increasingly take other perspectives and acknowledge and validate important aspects of those perspectives. To be operating as Integrally informed does not mean you have to be a super-genius who knows everything, understands everything and therefore includes it. It does mean that at the very least you are not trying to purposefully exclude or marginalize other potentially valid views. You actively seek to understand and inquire into other perspectives and truths in your design practice.

The Author’s Perspective I assert that practising working with the ideas in Integral Sustainable Design can create a breakthrough in your ability to share your contribution to Sustainable Design. Not too long ago, I encountered Integral Theory primarily as expressed

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SUN, WIND, & LIGHT ARCHITECTURAL

DESIGN

STRATEGIES second edition

G. Z. Brown and Mark DeKay

Figure i.9 Sun, Wind, & Light cover

in the work of Ken Wilber. This broad integrating perspective, combining levels of development and multiple perspectives, underlies much of this book. The view presented here is not the truth about Sustainable Design; rather it is one that takes in multiple views. That it can enlarge your perspective is an understatement, and I encourage you to ‘try it on’ for the remainder of the book.

Figure i.10 ‘Fallingwater’, Edgar J Kaufman Sr., Residence, Bear Run, PA, 1936, Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

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Integral Sustainable Design

Not philosophical by nature, I spent the first 25 years of my career in architecture within a highly objective and technical perspective on Sustainable Design. I spent three years in graduate school studying how to make higher performance buildings with both passive and active environmental technologies. Later, I spent four years writing the book (with G.Z. Brown), Sun, Wind, & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd edition, which is about designing with climate: daylighting, solar heating, passive cooling and energy-efficiency (Brown and Dekay, 2001). As this book finishes, we are beginning work on the third edition of Sun, Wind, & Light. In working from this performance-driven perspective on Sustainable Design, I found that I was less effective than I hoped at getting others to understand, adopt and be excited about the ideas of sustainable technology.

Communicating with Different Perspectives My first discovery was that many designers and design students are motivated by aesthetics and experiences (an upper left

experiences perspective )

more than

by environmental performance and saving resources (an upper right behaviours perspective ).

As I began to cast technical issues in terms of how they related to

the concerns of these designers, they got more interested. When saving energy had a form or design opportunity that led to creating a more beautiful or experientially rich composition, they were more motivated to master the technology. Not only have I had to expand my own view of Sustainable Design to enrol others in ideas that are not central to their non-technical, more aesthetic values orientation; I also recognized another way that my work suffered in its effectiveness. I came upon another insight, which was that there was another group of designers more interested in what design means and the stories it tells (a lower left

cultures perspective )

than in how it looks or how it works. Again,

I had to expand my work and communications to include a way of speaking about Sustainable Design that would appeal to this culturally oriented listening. I began to look at how sustainable technology and ‘designing with Nature’ set up relationships between users and Nature. I learned how everything tells a story in the world. Mies, Corbu, and Wright all had their stories to tell about Nature though their architecture. So did Frederick Law Olmstead, Patrick Geddes and Ian McHarg.

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xxxv

The Integral view has offered me an effective framework for understanding the variations in points of view that we encounter in the design world today.

As someone who spent many years thinking about Sustainable Design as a spatial problem (lower right systems

perspective ) and as a quantitative problem, and

as someone who has made tools to create more resource-efficient designs (UR), I realized that these two types of people were left out of that conversation to such an extent that they could barely hear what I was saying. I was not speaking to their listening!

Connecting with different values Not only was there an issue with communicating with the left-hand perspectives, but I also found myself confronted with the difficulty of communicating with people expressing a range of values and worldviews. As the performancebased approach to design is basically a Modern approach, I tended to suggest solutions that allowed technology to make the decision. I found that some people could not appreciate the way of living dictated by Modern technical buildings; it ran counter to their basic sense of what made a great place to live or work or worship. Like much of the public, they were more Traditional in their values about design.

Figure i.11 ZeroHouse (unbuilt) 2005, Specht Harpman, architects

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Integral Sustainable Design

I also noticed another more pluralist or progressive group with more Postmodern values who were interested in new ideas; they were socially motivated, more liberal. They seemed to see my technical orientation as part of the problem of the modern world, part of what had failed in 20th-century design. For neither group did the impeccable logic of my rational, fact-based arguments for Sustainable Design seem to work! Both groups seemed to see Sustainable Design as a problem, as another short-sighted technological mindset solution that missed the boat on the human side of things. I did not always agree with them, but it became clear that some very savvy people were operating from these perspectives. If I wanted to maximize the effectiveness of what I had to offer in contributing to moving the design professions toward taking Sustainable Design seriously, then I would have to expand my understanding and speaking once again and be able to engage these contrasting points of view. These dilemmas, as we will see in Part II, are quite well explained by Integral Theory. An Integral Sustainable Design has to somehow address the multiple contemporary worldviews present today in our clients, users and in the public.

The value of being uncomfortable Most of us, myself included, are better at one of these ways of looking at the world than at other, less familiar perspectives. It was challenging and uncomfortable for me to think through these different ways that my friends and colleagues look at design and at sustainability. There may be times, when you think that I’ve gone too far or that what we’re examining sounds like academic, impractical, theoretical ideas and language. I invite you to work with it and discover so much more! You can expand to understand and take the viewpoint of the other major ways to see the world, and then you can look at Sustainable Design through all these lenses.

I’ve come to recognize the value in pushing through my discomfort to honour perspectives that I never understood before. For me, it has resulted in taking off the blinders to other valuable ways of perceiving the world. Working with an Integral view has offered me an effective framework for understanding various, sometimes contradicting, views that we encounter in the design world today. It has been powerfully transformative in my work. It does require some serious effort, some mental flexibility and the willingness to inhabit some new and at times uncomfortable conceptual terrain – but the payoffs are promising.

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xxxvii

May you, in reading this book, become more effective in mastering the languages of the major points of view that you may currently be weaker in taking. Maybe you are technically oriented or perhaps you see the world through the eyes of an artist, or maybe you think in whole systems like an ecologist, or maybe you see buildings as full of narrative and symbolism. The point is this: whatever your primary viewpoint, you can expand to understand and take the viewpoint of the other major ways to see the world, and then you can look at Sustainable Design through all these lenses. In doing so, you might find new inspiration, solutions, effective ways to connect to others, new languages for communication, and most importantly, you might (I declare, you will) get more of your ideas accepted. In doing so, you will be able to make a greater contribution to Sustainable Design, and your effective contribution is what is sorely needed.

Possible outcome The possible gains from taking these other, less familiar perspectives may not have been fully activated in us. After all, in order to excel, many of us have chosen to throw all our attention and resources, for the most part, into one perspective. Some of the value for taking these wider, longer perspectives from different angles will be to: • position you as a Sustainable Design team member to be heard better; • empower you to listen to others’ ideas about Sustainable Design and receive their message (especially those unlike you); • relate the design implications of your perspective to the design intentions that emanate from outside your perspective. Thus you will have the tools to create a better contribution to Sustainable Design: more creative, more integrated and more satisfying. What if you had the conceptual technology to do that? I hope you will agree that it is worth some effort.

Notes 1 More completely, Integral Theory uses five major distinctions: quadrants, levels, lines, states and types. In this book, we will primarily address quadrants (perspectives) and levels, and to a lesser degree, lines. States and types will be left to future development of these ideas relative to Sustainable Design. 2 Perspectives are more often referred to as quadrants, based on the ‘four-quadrant diagram’, which we will see later in the preface.

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Integral Sustainable Design

3 Although some trained states, such as higher meditative states, also develop in stages, most states cannot be experienced indefinitely. On the other hand, developmental structures, which also unfold in stages, are essentially a permanent condition, once fully established. For more on this topic, see Wilber, 2006.

References Brown, G.Z. and DeKay, Mark (2001) Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, www.ecodesignresources.net Wilber, Ken (2000a) A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality, Shambhala, Boston, MA Wilber, Ken (2000b) Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Shambhala, Boston Wilber, Ken (2006) Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World, Integral Books, Boston, MA Wilber, Ken (n.d.) ‘Introduction to Integral Theory & Practice: IOS Basic & the AQAL Map’, www.integralinstitute.org Zimmerman, Michael (2004) Integral Ecology: A Perspectival, Developmental, and Coordinating Approach to Environmental Problems, unpublished

Part One The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design: Touching All the Bases of the Green Design World

Introduction to Part I I like to start many of my presentations, prefiguring a bit, with this image of the Green Man, which is really the ornament at the intersection of vault ribbing from a cathedral. In this example, Nature, humanity and divine inspiration are all integrated via building. It is an artefact at once performing a structural function, engendering aesthetic experience, conveying rich cultural meaning and fit to its social context of collective human events: a kind of convergence rarely seen but increasingly needed today.

Each of the major perspectives is critical to the ultimate success of Sustainable Design. Leaving one out dampens effectiveness and may lead to failure.

Part I introduces a way of seeing, hearing, unravelling and reweaving that has helped me enormously in my work as an architect, as a teacher and as a human being on the planet right now. It’s a map, not invented by me, but one I use daily to unravel the multifarious streams of knowledge and phenomena so that they make sense and take their rightful place in the world of understanding. It’s called Integral Theory (Wilber, 2000b, 2000c; Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman, 2008). I will be speaking to you through this lens, and I invite you to consider it.

Figure I.1 The Green Man

4

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Figure I.2 LEED Gold Nueva School, Hillsborogh, California, 2007, Leddy Maytum Stacy, architects

Figure I.3 The first LEED platinum building, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Philip Merrill Environmental Center, Annapolis, MD; Smith Group, Inc., architects

At the base of this theory there is the premise that everyone is not wrong all the time, or, in other words, everyone’s right – partially. Part I introduces the idea of Integral Sustainable Design as a multi-perspectival, multi-values approach, using many perspectives for creating whole, living places that maintain and regenerate human and natural ecosystems. This book will weave together many approaches and ideas about what has variously been called green, sustainable, ecological, environmental and regenerative design. It looks through a new and holistic lens, the Integral lens, and

Introduction

5

Figure I.4 The model for Sustainable Design?

views a complex and emerging knowledge domain. To begin, let us mark out the terrain of ‘Integral Sustainable Design’ by looking back at the roots of these three words. Design is both a noun and a verb. It derives from the Latin designare, meaning ‘to mark out, appoint, nominate or designate’. Its root is signare, ‘to mark’. In addition to its origin as designation, design means, among many definitions: • to form a plan or scheme of; to arrange in the mind; • to purpose or intend (a thing) to be or do; to mean (a thing) to serve a purpose; • to have in view, contemplate; • to make the plans and drawings necessary for the construction of (a building, etc.). Design is also the object or product of the actions. The word sustainable appears in the Oxford English Dictionary (2001) meaning, in the sense we use it in design:

Utilization and development of natural resources in ways which are compatible with the maintenance of these resources, and with the conservation of the environment, for future generations.

6

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Therefore, we can think of sustainable design as the process of: • planning, purposing, contemplating, creating in ways that: • maintain resources and conserve the environment for future generations. The word integral derives from the Latin integralis whose root is integer, meaning ‘untouched, intact, entire’, the root of which is –tag, meaning ‘to touch’. The main definitions of integral are: • parts which constitute a unity; • having no part or element separated or lacking; • unbroken, unified, whole, entire, complete. Now we can refine our understanding of Integral Sustainable Design to be:

The formation of whole, unified, and complete plans and schemes that conserves the natural environment for future generations. Some further initial clarification is necessary up front. The point has been well made in environmental discussions that conservation in the sense of merely minimizing resource use is insufficient for sustainability. The maintenance of resources requires thinking in cycles and considering both sources (resources) and the outputs or wastes (pollution) and their ability to be absorbed into environmental sinks (such as the atmosphere or rivers). This brings us directly to consider natural ecosystem processes, which is one perspective critical to the

Figure I.5 Whole and complete

Introduction

7

‘conservation of the environment’. This was my first mental expansion, a shift from ‘performance-only’ to ‘performance plus ecological pattern’. It’s a logical progression from more linear thought to more holistic thought. One is cautioned, however, not to give up the often-valuable measure-and-weigh technological view of sustainability. How to achieve ecological performance while embracing the complexities of ecological processes and the messy subjective interiors of people and culture will be our main task.

As mentioned in the preface, Integral Theory recognizes four major perspectives that one may take on any occurrence: behaviours , systems , experiences and cultures .

One can consider Sustainable Design from each of these four view-

points. Here’s a brief overview. First, from the behaviours

perspective , Sustainable Design’s intentions include:

• reducing our consumption of resources (to sustainable rates for renewable resources); • creating more internal loops in our building economy (especially for nonrenewable resources); • reducing our waste products and pollutants (to zero for non-renewables and to an absorbable rate for renewables). ‘Less is more’ and ‘more is more’ (less consumption is more green and more recycling is more green). This is the most familiar aspect of an environmental approach to design, as commonly expressed in green building rating systems such as LEED, Green Globes and EarthCraft Homes. Second, from the

systems perspective ,

the environment is a living system,

even a system of living systems. Sustainability is concerned with keeping the living systems of the planet – locally, regionally and globally – in good health for future generations. Sustainable Design asks us to think, to contemplate, to make patterns with our intelligence in ways that fit human settlements (from furniture to cities) to their ecological contexts. Patterns can’t be measured in the same way as kilowatts and gallons can be counted. This requires high and new levels of creativity and consciousness. The good news is, next to many professionals, designers are actually good at pattern. Third, from the

experiences perspective ,

Integral Sustainable Design asks us

to reach even further into the capacities of being human to consider not only the exteriors (the physical word we can see) of the built and natural environment, but also to consider design with ‘artistic skill’ and a correlated sense of

8

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

ecologically connected aesthetics. Now it’s getting tricky: performance + ecological pattern + beauty. Difficult perhaps, but isn’t that what makes design fascinating? And I sort of knew this all along, but I was not trained for ecological thinking, and I was totally not ready for the fourth big perspective. Fourth, from the cultures

perspective ,

an Integral approach that is whole and

unified and complete in all its parts, asks us to design our built environment as operating within the context of natural systems, while at the same time transcending this whole systems view to embrace the cultural context of the building community and the culture(s) at large: performance + pattern + beauty + cultural meaning. If this were not challenging enough, add to this that you can’t even see culture! Yet language and stories and meanings are all around us all the time and, as it turns out, architecture is one of the most enduring manifestations of culture that exists. So the question becomes, what do our sustainable designs say about our relationship to Nature and what our culture believes? As we all know, design requires a complex faculty of mind and the development of many lines of skill and thought by the designer. To design artistically means to develop aesthetic perception. To articulate purpose, intentions and meaning are skills of personal depth. One will begin to see that we are engaged in the education, development, and practice of the individual creative self. We are also interested here in our collective values and understanding. To take action today for future generations is an ethical perspective only available in the context of community, where all ethics begin. So, note that we also will be entering the realm of culture. This realm is particularly expressed in the

Figure I.6 National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India 1961, Kapadia + Banker, architects: culturally connected coolness in a composite hot-humid/dry climate

Introduction

9

Figure I.7 Solar Demonstration Row Houses, Expo 2000, Stuttgart, Germany, c1998; ecological thinking, form responding to processes of solar heat and shade

relationships of humans to Nature. It also asks us to examine how what we build has something to say or to mean (which can also be purposeful). So there we have it, four broad perspectives that frame Integral Sustainable Design.

Part I: Objectives Part I has the intention of providing a sweeping view of the broad landscape of Sustainable Design. It provides a context and framework within which to place and understand Parts II, III and IV. As a whole, the book also offers a lens and a set of intellectual tools that can inform a lifetime of practice. You will have a map and an explaining story that will serve to improve your designs, expand your options for solutions and perhaps even accelerate the transformation of the design professions to greater and greater degrees of ecological effectiveness. Specifically, I hope that in reading Part I you will:

10

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

• expand your awareness of Sustainable Design to include its behavioral, experiential, cultural and systemic perspectives; • be able to readily identify which of these four foundational perspectives is embodied in a given sustainable design, intention, strategy or idea; • understand some of the basic issues and strategies for: 1 designing for engendering rich human experiences of Sustainable Design; 2 designing for maximizing performance of Sustainable Design; 3 designing for fitness to the context of ecological systems; 4 designing for manifesting cultural meaning in Sustainable Design.

References Anderson, William (1990) The Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth, Harper, San Francisco, CA Esbjörn-Hargens, Sean and Zimmerman, Michael E. (2008) Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World, Shambhala, Boston, MA Wilber, Ken (2000b) Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, 2nd edition, revised, Shambhala, Boston, MA Wilber, Ken (2000c) A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality, Shambhala, Boston, MA

1

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

In this chapter, you will be introduced to a way of thinking about Sustainable Design that accounts for: 1 how Sustainable Design performs; 2 how Sustainable Design is also an ecosystem; 3 how Sustainable Design creates beauty and deep human feeling; 4 how Sustainable Design conveys cultural meaning. My claim is that each of these is critical to the ultimate success of Sustainable Design and that leaving one out dampens that effectiveness and may lead to failure. Each of these perspectives is then explored in greater detail. We will look at how design methods can generate these multiple perspectives and how each is a paradigm revealed by its methods. Chapter 1 ends with a comparison of several approaches to principles of Sustainable Design. Finally, we cover a new set of Principles for Integral Sustainable Design.

What Is Sustainable Design, Really?

‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.’

(Albert Einstein)

Sustainable Design means many things to many people. Part of this Integral Sustainable Design approach is to include as many of the truths of these varied interpretations as possible in a more comprehensive view of Sustainable Design. In this book we will use the term sustainable in a broad and inclusive way.

12

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

COST OF ENERGY PRODUCTION 1 QBtu of Delivered Energy

COAL (CCS)

 $10 Billion                      

NUCLEAR



BUILDING EFFICIENCY



$256.0 Billion

$222.0 Billion

$42.1 Billion

Figure 1.1 Cost of energy production; 1 QBtu of delivered energy Source: Architecture 2030

Sustainable Design as it is most often discussed in systems such as LEED, and in the majority of the professional press, is essentially defined in its operational terms as a technological problem whose solutions can be measured by their performance. ‘Better performance equals greater (Sustainable Design) success.’ This is a useful and powerful approach. It provides clear objective benchmarks against which a design team can measure its work. To the extent that these strategies and systems become institutionalized, the design professions have great potential to help transform the building industry, particularly with regard to its potential for balancing the carbon cycle and halting the continuation of global climate change.

Performance and beyond This ‘technological sustainability‘ depends for its success on the wide agreement as to the nature and solutions to ecological issues based almost entirely on a scientific and rational way of thinking. Many thinkers have argued that scientific rationalism created the building technologies, transportation systems, fossil-based energy infrastructure and settlement patterns that got us into this environmental mess in the first place. It will take a higher order of rationality, or a trans-rational cognition, along with some additional thought modes, to get us out. In this book we will explore several other ways of understanding: •

the nature of environmental problems;

•

the context of Sustainable Design;

•

the kinds of design solutions possible;

•

the methods and perspectives needed for these pluralistic solutions.

The Integral approach does not minimize the importance of technological sustainability. Instead we will transcend and include the technological view. To foreshadow, observe that LEED, Architecture 2030, EPA’s Target Finder, ASHRAE Standards and other similar benchmark systems are taken by most professionals

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

13

as the accepted ‘operational‘ definition of Sustainable Design. In this realm, success is measured and weighed. By itself, however, efficiency (or percentage of recycled materials or any other discreet measure of performance) with certainty does not insure that future generations can meet their own needs.1 If humanity uses less of a finite resource (increased efficiency), it merely prolongs the date of the ultimate withdrawal.

Expanding our perspectives on Sustainable Design. The Integral approach expands on the valuable contributions of the most common perspective, that of Technological Sustainability, in three main ways to offer four main approaches: 1 Technological Sustainability: Design arises from applied principles of empirically based knowledge to reduce resource use and pollution. This is design committed to ‘less is more‘. 2 Expanding to include ecological pattern: Design is an analogic or literal ecosystem participant. Using fewer resources or polluting less by itself, or even having less sick days for workers, does not create healthy ecosystems. Notice that an oak tree is not efficient in making its thousands of acorns each year, in which only one or two become mature trees. It makes those acorns a part of a complex food web. This is design committed to ecological community. 3 Expanding to include rich human experiences: Design’s role is to reveal and express sustainable technology so people have the direct and indirect

Building Construction and Building Materials 8% (3.3 QBtu)

Industry 16% (6.5 QBtu)

Transportation

Proposition > Feedback > Analysis > …

Two types of methods Each of these general phases, which may overlap like successive waves in the loops of a design process, can be understood as having an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’. Each has subjective practices and objective practices. Analysis has both subjective and objective methods. For example, ‘place’ (context, site, etc.) is one of the major design input streams considered in the analysis phase of most design projects. Place can be understood both subjectively (first person, from inside the designer) and objectively (third person, observing patterns external to the designer). Subjective site analysis methods might include approaches such as: • on-site, direct observation; • practices to heighten sensory experience, such as directed attention, contemplation, aesthetic one-pointedness; • personal interviews and engagement with user; • various methods for experiencing and relating to Nature; • other types of direct and experiential knowledge of a place. Objective site analysis methods might include practices such as: • photographic documentation; • air photo interpretation;

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

21

Figure 1.7 Experiential site analysis, Experiential Landscape Place Research and Development Unit, University of Sheffield, UK A conceptual framework to show how experiences can be interpreted spatially as four components (centre, direction, transition and area) Source: Thwaites and Simkins, 2007

• mapping, slope and vegetation analysis; • diagramming of circulation patterns; • historical methods; • observations of contextual architectural patterns; • on-site measurements and so on. We can see, therefore, that each phase has associated methods that can be replicated. Each phase has both subjective (internal) and objective (external) methods. Each phase can engage at least one subjective and one objective method. For example, engaging place through the design process exhibits the following variations for our framework.

22

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

winter winds summer sunset 7:24 pm 299°

summer solstice sunrise 4:49 am 59°

winter solstice sunset 4:47 pm 241°

winter solstice sunrise 7:19am 119°

solstice

Figure 1.8 Exterior (objective) site analysis, Poquoson Elementary School, Poquoson, Virginia, July 2008, VMDO Architects, PC; integrating aerial photos, long-term climate data and orientation implications

storm winds

optimal orientation for solar management prevailing winds

Table 1.1 Framework of methods and design phases for place (or other issues)

Analysis Phase

Subjective Methods Objective Methods

Proposition Phase

Subjective Methods Objective Methods

Feedback Phase

Subjective Methods Objective Methods

Touching all the bases: The singular and plural of the subjective and objective We can also expand the methodological pluralism for investigating place to include both singular and plural perspectives. Said another way, the second fundamental distinction is between individual and collective. Adding the collective to our methods map expands subjective (I) and objective (IT) to add the perspectives of inter-subjective (WE) and inter-objective (ITS). We then have firstperson, second-person, third-person and complex third-person perspectives on our analytic, generative and evaluative methods. To continue our framework for understanding place, again using the analysis phase to touch all the bases, we can frame the four fundamental perspectives as design questions:

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

Subjective

Objective

[UL]

[OR] PERSPECTIVE OF BEHAVIORS

Individual

PERSPECTIVE OF EXPERIENCES

Place as MEASURABLE MATERIALITY

Place as WHAT ONE PERCEIVES

I WE PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURES

Collective

23

Place as SIGNIFICANCE SHARED

IT ITS PERSPECTIVE OF SYSTEMS

Place as TANGIBLE & INTANGIBLE CONTEXTS

[LL]

[LR] Figure 1.9 Four perspectives on place

1 Subjective-Singular Methods: place as what one experiences. How do I experience and understand this place?

Personal site visits, focused sensation awareness, sketching as a way of looking deeply, contemplation, artistic and poetic perception and representation, etc.

2 Subjective-Collective Methods: place as significance shared. What does this place mean to us collectively?

Reading the interpretations of others, collective dialogue, public meetings, decoding the place’s symbolic meaning, hermeneutic approaches, theoretically based criticism, etc.

3 Objective-Singular Methods: place as measurable materiality. What are the forces at work in this place that can be observed here?

Photography, field measurements and mapping, site documentation, air photo interpretation, contour models, soils analysis, slope/terrain analysis, scientific and empirical studies, etc.

4 Objective-Collective Methods: place as tangible and intangible contexts. What are the contextual natural and social systems in which this place participates?

Systems diagrams of circulation, hydrology and other site processes, flow analysis, dynamic modelling, multi-scalar spatial system analysis, space syntax, ecological and social context, etc.

24

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Essentially, and as an orienting generalization, of the above methodological perspectives, 1 takes the perspective of the arts, 2 of the humanities, 3 of the basic sciences and 4 of the complex sciences. Leaving out any one of these four methodological perspectives is potentially disastrous to an Integrally informed Sustainable Design. These four approaches are irreducible perspectives. Each has its value. Each of these methodological perspectives discloses the world in a different way. For instance, in our example, the site, its forces and patterns and the larger situation of a project show up in different ways. The place actually appears as new and different as a different world. These same methodological distinctions can be made for methods used in the proposition and feedback phases of the design process and for the other major design issues (such as experience, use, technology, idea, space, etc.). Leaving out any one of these four methodological perspectives is potentially

Figure 1.10 Landscape design from multiple perspectives: Landscape at the Lewis Environmental Center, Oberlin College, Ohio, 2001 Andropogon Assoc., landscape architects; William McDonough + Partners, architects Landscape design ‘includes sustainable green systems that serve as a living laboratory for learning’ and ‘seeks to celebrate and to regenerate human and natural environments’

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

25

disastrous to an Integrally informed Sustainable Design, leaving out a huge part of the design process and therefore limiting the types and number of alternative schemes or the effectiveness and success of a chosen scheme. The implication for an Integral design process is that in each phase (analysis, proposition, feedback) methods based on each of the four foundational perspectives can be learned and employed. Methods, of course, can be simple or complex: simple methods in the beginning of a design process (or in the beginning of our understanding), which unfold over time to greater complexity (in the design process and in our careers). The methods grow more complex at higher levels of design awareness, taking in more complex inputs, generating and proposing solutions that resolve a wider range of forces with more sophisticated order and a greater embodied intelligence, elegance and depth of meaning.

Figure 1.11 Crosby Arboretum, Picayune, Mississippi Andropogon Assoc., landscape architects; E. Fay Jones, architect The country’s first ecological arboretum. Can you see embedded in this image design methods from the four perspectives? ‘The design goal was to synthesize art (drama, beauty and expression) and science (correct relationships between plant and plant, and plant and place). All master planning for the arboretum … revealed the natural processes of the Piney Woods and expressed their evocative qualities.’

26

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Principles and Strategies of the Four Sustainable Design Perspectives Given the breadth of Sustainable Design as we have begun to outline it here, you can imagine that there are many differing statements of basic principles and core strategies. Let us explore a few to see how divergent the ideas are. We will use the abbreviations for the Sustainable Design perspectives as follows, based on their placement in Wilber’s four-quadrant diagram: •

experiences perspective :

UL (upper left quadrant);

•

behaviours perspective :

UR (upper right quadrant);

•

systems perspective :

•

cultures perspective :

LR (lower right quadrant); LL (lower left quadrant).

The Whole Building Design Guide The National Institute of Building Sciences publishes the Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG) online, claiming over 250,000 users.2 The WBDG gives advice on a range of ‘design objectives’: • accessible [UR]; • aesthetics [UL]; • cost-effective [LR]; • functional/operational [UR, LR]; • historic preservation [LR & weak LL]; • productive (really about occupant comfort) [UR, LR]; • secure/safe [UR, LR]; • sustainable [UR & weak LR].

From this list, one can see that the objectives are functionally dominated (the simple functionality of the UR behaviours ality LR

systems perspective ).

perspective

and the complex function-

The WBDG attempts to cover a wide range of is-

sues and, where possible, to interconnect them. In this sense it is mostly a LR approach operating from the systems

perspective .

It does have weak forays into

the UL (aesthetics), but has little to say about the issue and into the LL where a range of pluralistic value options are offered for approaches to designing in historic context. Looking deeper into the principles recommended for the sustainability objective, which ‘pertains to environmental performance of building elements and strategies’, we find an approach to Sustainable Design clearly and dominantly centred in the objective, right-side quadrants. We have said that

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

27

Figure 1.12 Whole Building Design Guide logo

the design goal in the

behaviours perspective

maximize performance and in the

(UR) is basically to shape form to

systems perspective

(LR), to fit to contextual

systems. To its credit, the WBDG promotes a number of approaches based on fitting the design to its natural context. The WBDG says, ‘While the definition of what constitutes sustainable building design is constantly changing, there are six fundamental principles that nearly everyone agrees on.’ I like the list, but it is incomplete. If these are subcategories, what are the larger categories that are missing? • optimize site potential (LR); • optimize energy use (UR & LR); • protect and conserve water (UR & LR); • use environmentally preferable products (UR); • enhance Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) (UR); • optimize operational and maintenance practices (UR). What is interesting to note is that these sustainability principles have no mention of human experiences other than those that can be quantified as occupant comfort in the UR. Aesthetics, a larger objective, is not tied to Sustainable Design. Sustainable Design in the WBDG has no human experiences! Also note that, if there is meaning or ethics here, it is completely unexpressed and tacitly assumed. There appear to be no questions for the WBDG as to the shared myths, embedded symbolic content and subjective or intersubjective relationships to Nature. While it actually attempts to change the building culture, particularly within the federal government, it is silent on matters of culture. I assert that this is precisely because the authors are operating from a single dominant perspective and seem to be somewhat unaware of the others. Though the WBDG is highly effective in its domain – the objective world – it cannot be considered whole if we use an Integral definition of wholeness since it has little to say about the other domains. The irony for me is that 20 years ago when I was using the word holistic most often, I was still thinking in these same incredibly partial terms.

28

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

massing

daylight

heating & cooling

block

east horseshoe

west horseshoe

atrium

Figure 1.13 WBDG case study building: US EPA Region 8 Headquarters, Denver, Colorado, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, LLP

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

29

Figure 1.14 US LEED-NC, 2009 Source: USGBC, ‘LEED’ and related logo is a trademark owned by the US Green Buidling Council and used with permission

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) The US Green Building Council (USGBC) says about LEED:

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria.  (USGBC, 2010) They further clarify:

LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.  (USGBC, 2010) Note that a ‘whole-building approach’, which one presumes is a wide-ranging holistic approach, recognizes performance (UR criteria) as its measure of success. Personally, with my eco-geek UR centre, I think LEED is the coolest. It has made a huge impact on greening the marketplace, particularly for government buildings. Yet it has not transformed the building industry. Could this have something to do, even when all that is working so well, with what may be missing if we only use LEED as a guide? LEED-NC (LEED for New Construction and Major Renovation) has a potential of up to 80 points (see Table 1.2). Six of these 80 are unspecified and open to the designer’s application under the category of ‘innovation and design process’. Of the 74 specified possible points, only eight points, or 10.8 per cent, can be considered as not having their intention and success centred in the UR. These are criteria such as:

30

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

• ‘development density and connectivity’ (LR), because it seeks to fit the design to a systemic neighborhood context; • ‘certified wood’ (LR), because it chooses wood based on its fitness to complex sustainable forestry practices; • ‘daylight and views’ (UL), because it is primarily concerned with the occupants’ experience of a connection to Nature. Like WBDG, LEED is quite effective in the domain of performance; nevertheless, it almost entirely ignores the other three foundational perspectives. In its own territory, it is the North American standard of excellence. Therefore, looking from inside its UR perspective, it would be truly unfair to critique it from another perspective. It would be unjust to say that LEED is invalid because it takes the rational-empirical view, or that of another perspective – for instance, if one asserted that the UL artistic-oriented perspective was better. Yet, it is entirely fair – and imperative – to say that while it is true in its own domain, a more successful Sustainable Design approach would master LEED and its associated quantitative methods, and then transcend it by using other methods outside of measurement.

Table 1.2 LEED-NC criteria

Sustainable Sites 

26 Possible Points

Prerequisite 1: Construction Activity Pollution Prevention Required 1

Site Selection 

1

2

Development Density and Community Connectivity 

5

3

Brownfield Redevelopment 

1

4.1

Alternative Transportation – Public Transportation Access 

6

4.2

Alternative Transportation – Bicycle Storage and Changing Rooms 1

4.3

Alternative Transportation – Low-Emitting and Fuel-Efficient Vehicles 3

4.4

Alternative Transportation – Parking Capacity 

2

5.1

Site Development – Protect or Restore Habitat 

1

5.2

Site Development – Maximize Open Space 

1

6.1

Stormwater Design – Quantity Control 

1

6.2

Stormwater Design – Quality Control 

1

7.1

Heat Island Effect – Nonroof 

1

7.2

Heat Island Effect – Roof 

1

8

Light Pollution Reduction 

1

Water Efficiency 

10 Possible Points

Prerequisite 1: Water Use Reduction Required 1

Water Efficient Landscaping 

2–4

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

2

Innovative Wastewater Technologies 

3

Water Use Reduction 

Energy and Atmosphere 

31

2 2–4 35 Possible Points

Prerequisite 1: Fundamental Commissioning of Building

Energy Systems Required

Prerequisite 2:

Minimum Energy Performance Required

Prerequisite 3: Fundamental Refrigerant Management Required 1

Optimize Energy Performance 

2

On-site Renewable Energy 

1–7

3

Enhanced Commissioning 

2

4

Enhanced Refrigerant Management 

2

5

Measurement and Verification 

3

6

Green Power 

2

Materials and Resources 

1–19

14 Possible Points

Prerequisite 1: Storage and Collection of Recyclables Required 1.1

Building Reuse – Maintain Existing Walls, Floors and Roof 

1.2

Building Reuse – Maintain Existing Interior Nonstructural Elements 1

2

Construction Waste Management 

1–2

3

Materials Reuse 

1–2

4

Recycled Content 

1–2

5

Regional Materials 

1–2

6

Rapidly Renewable Materials 

1

7

Certified Wood 

1

Indoor Environmental Quality  Prerequisite 1:

1–3

15 Possible Points

Minimum Indoor Air Quality Performance Required

Prerequisite 2: Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Control Required 1

Outdoor Air Delivery Monitoring 

1

2

Increased Ventilation 

1

3.1

Construction Indoor Air Quality Management Plan –



During Construction 

3.2

Construction Indoor Air Quality Management Plan –



Before Occupancy 

1

4.1

Low-Emitting Materials – Adhesives and Sealants 

1

4.2

Low-Emitting Materials – Paints and Coatings 

1

4.3

Low-Emitting Materials – Flooring Systems 

1

4.4

Low-Emitting Materials – Composite Wood and Agrifiber Products 1

5

Indoor Chemical and Pollutant Source Control 

1

1

32

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

6.1

Controllability of Systems – Lighting 

1

6.2

Controllability of Systems –Thermal Comfort 

1

7.1

Thermal Comfort – Design 

1

7.2

Thermal Comfort – Verification 

1

8.1

Daylight and Views– Daylight 

1

8.2

Daylight and Views – Views 

1

Innovation in Design  1

Innovation in Design 

2

LEED Accredited Professional 

Regional Priority  1

6 Possible Points 1–5 1 4 Possible Points

Regional Priority 

1-4

Source: USGBC (2008)

Van der Ryn and Cowan’s Ecological Design Ecological Design (Van der Ryn and Cowan, 1996) is one of the most widely read and influential books on Sustainable Design thought. Sim Van der Ryn has a long history as an authority in the field and as one of its pioneers. The aptly named Ecological Design uses five basic principles, centred, as can be seen in the systems perspective

(LR).3

1 Solutions grow from place (LR). Ecological design begins with the intimate knowledge of a place. It is small-scale and direct, responsive to local conditions and people. If we are sensitive to the nuances of place, we can inhabit without destroying. 2 Make Nature visible (UL & LL). Making natural cycles and processes visible brings the designed environment back to life. Effective design helps inform us of our place within Nature. 3 Design with Nature (LR). By working with living processes, we respect the needs of all species. Engaging processes that regenerate rather than deplete, we become more alive. 4 Ecological accounting informs design (LR). Trace the environmental impacts of design and use this information to determine the ecologically sound design possibilities. 5 Everyone is a designer (LL & LR). Listen to every voice in the design process. As people work together to heal their places, they also heal themselves. Van der Ryn and Cowan’s Ecological Design articulates the philosophy and perspective that Sustainable Design requires a quite complex whole-systems understanding of natural systems and the interaction of natural systems with human

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

33

systems. That is its centre of gravity and its eloquence. Principle 1 grounds the design in the contexts of ecological and social place, looking for ‘shaping of form’ from the outside. Principle 3 sees Nature (in its expression as living systems) as the main model for design. Ecological accounting (principle 4) places the (LR) economic system in an inclusive and sophisticated view that economy and ecology are intimately interrelated. Including as many people as possible in the design process (principle 5) is to place the designer and the project within its social context but also exposes an ethic of community and a narrative about healthy relationships (LL). All of these are mostly variations on the spective

systems per -

(LR). Students of Van der Ryn’s work will remember his long history in

energy efficiency and climatic-based design solutions (UR), including a stint as California State Architect and his interest in the consciousness that is required for ecological design (UL). He clearly views the LR as transcending and including the UR. Principle 2 is quite similar to John Lyle’s admonition to ‘shape form to manifest process’. It is here that Ecological Design moves squarely into the lefthand quadrants. It is concerned partly with occupants’ individual experience (UL) and partly with placing us into a living and meaningful relationship with Nature (LL). The introduction to this book uses David Orr’s distinctions of technological sustainability (a ‘kinder, gentler form of reductionism’) and ecological sustainability to argue for the latter's systems view (Orr, 1992). Perhaps you will agree that the thrust and real power of Ecological Design is in its arguments for a deeply ecological approach over a more limited approach of technological performance (while still including it). At the same time, Van der Ryn and Cowan clearly open the door to the interior, subjective perspectives of Sustainable Design.

Figure 1.15 Ecological Design, cover

34

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Figure 1.16 Green Architecture, cover

James Wines’ Green Architecture Another well-known figure within the Sustainable Design conversation is James Wines, founder of the SITE practice (Sculpture in the Environment) and former Chair of the Environmental Design Department at Parsons School of Design and Dean of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. His 2000 book, Green Architecture, is widely read and cited and offers a multi-perspectival view of Sustainable Design. In his chapter on ‘Environmental Architecture Today’, Wines writes:

Certainly one of the major problems facing environmental architecture, aside from the absence of a strong societal endorsement, is a professional choice to over-emphasize the technological advantages and undervalue the social and aesthetic aspects.

‘Second-rate (and worse) pieces of architecture that claim the mantle of sustainability always have a “Get out of jail free” card safely tucked away.’ 

He outlines the ‘standard eco-friendly checklist’ as: • smaller buildings; • use of recycled and renewable materials; • use of low embodied energy materials; • use of (managed versus virgin) harvested lumber; • water catchment systems; • low maintenance;

(Michael Crosby)

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

35

• recycling of buildings; • reduction of ozone-depleting chemicals; • preservation of the natural environment (vegetative cover); • energy efficiency; • solar orientation; • access to public transportation. Readers should now readily recognize these as almost entirely UR perspective

behaviours

strategies. While this list is not exhaustive, it does cover elements

from most of the major eco-performance categories, such as those in LEED. Wines is interested in the aspects of Sustainable Design beyond those of performance and technology alone. He surveys a broad spectrum of projects and designers, articulating the following categories ‘beyond performance’: • The integration of architecture and landscape, the fusion of buildings with context [LR]. • The combination of shelter and garden space, created as microcosms … which produce a symbolic tableau of other situations [LL]. • The use of nature-related symbolism as a means of connecting architecture to its cultural context [LL]. • A translation of the most advanced environmental and construction technology … into aesthetic terms [UL]. • Green design research and environmental technology that provide the foundations of sustainable and ecologically responsible architecture [LR]; • Bridge-building environmental design ideas … that have encouraged a new acceptance of green architecture [LR].

Figure 1.17 Tucson Mountain House, Tucson, Arizona, 2001, Rick Joy, architect Aesthetics of massive rammed earth, forms and materials of the desert context

36

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

• Environmental attitudes that … have implications for the architectural profession in terms of conceptual thinking [UL as intentions and thought modes]. • Visionary and conceptual ideas … based on changes in global communications and social and political (as well as design influences) [LL and LR]. Wines summarizes the ‘primary challenges of environmental architecture’, lamenting that few designers have made a concerted effort to address all three: • The integration of buildings with context [LR]. • The conversion of environmental technology into aesthetic terms [UL]. • The development of a persuasive theoretical context [LL]. In Wines, we can see a critique of the technocentric approach to sustainability (UR only), while he also gives it due credit and recognizes its critical value and contribution. However, we also clearly see that his survey of the field in 2000 identified numerous other approaches, ones he argues are necessary to Sustainable Design if it is to be ultimately successful and move forward from its pioneer stage as an emerging set of ideas. While not framed as explicitly Integral, and while he underplays the technological as well-understood (I’ve never found this to be true except among the converted; have you?), Wines has aptly articulated principles and foundational ideas in each of the four quadrants.

Figure 1.18 Wilber’s Integral four quadrant model Source: Graphic Facilitation by Brandy Agerbeck, loosetooth.com

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

37

This brief survey of several statements of the central principles of Sustainable Design shows the value of a more Integral approach that takes into account multiple perspectives. Are we really willing to leave out one or more major classes of perspectives developed by human consciousness over millennia and common to all cultures? A rich view of Integral Sustainable Design is now emerging.

New Principles for Integral Sustainable Design Given the wide range of principles articulated by this sample of authors and institutions, all circling around the heterogeneous idea of Sustainable Design, let us now define a set of principles that touches most of the bases. Principles don’t seem to work for everyone – they are too abstract – yet I love them because there’s nothing like a principle to make an idea portable. Though it will seem obvious to some, for the sake of clarity, what follows is the distinction between principles and strategies. A principle is a statement of the fundamental basis of something, a fundamental truth or proposition, as an injunction. Principles serve as the basis of a system of belief or reasoning, and they must be able to be applied across a range of situations within a field. A strategy, on the other hand, is a plan of action designed to achieve some purpose. The injunction ‘design buildings to make use of available on-site energy flows’ is a principle. Photovoltaic roof shading, solar room orientation and floor plans to accommodate natural ventilation are strategies.

Figure 1.19 The concerns and questions of ecological design, diagram by Sim van der Ryn, architect Note that the four perspectives are clearly expressed: SELF = UL ECO-LOGIC = LR IDEO-LOGIC = LL TECHNO-LOGIC = UR

38

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

The following is a short list of principles distributed in the four perspectives. There could be more or less than those given. There could be 10 for each perspective. Nevertheless, these principles get at the most important ideas of each perspective relative to Sustainable Design. And just for symmetry, there are three in each category. I do like the fun and provocation of stating something as potentially universal in a time when everything is taken to be so relative. Actually, I will go so far as to assert that there is something of real value here, something that I’ve meditated on for years and honed into something that has a bit of shine for me and seems worth considering. Of course, use what’s helpful and leave the rest. This community is encouraged to send me additions and improvements to these stated principles. The principles below follow as articulations of the One Overarching Principle of Integral Sustainable Design, which may make more sense by the end of the book. In fact, many of the principles are distillations that may not ring true without the explanations and deeper explorations that come later in this book. This overarching principle expresses the essence of what Integral Sustainable Design is about.

The One Overarching Principle Design for sustainability by considering multiple levels of developing complexity in the intersecting domains of self, culture and Nature. Integral Sustainable Design requires the balance and integration of important aspects from each of the four foundational perspectives. It asks designers to express visions from both the individual and the collective views of both the subjective and the objective perspectives. Each domain can be considered from greater and greater levels of unfolding inclusiveness, complexity and depth.

Experiences perspective [UL] • Design profound aesthetic experiences, accessing multiple senses of natural processes and a living world. Reveal and celebrate cycles, seasons, light, life and hydrology through design, heightening perception and bringing delight to the fully experiencing human being. • Design to access human psychological connections to place, at multiple levels from archetypes to the Transpersonal. Create healing opportunities for the contemporary psyche, inspiring and comforting by reintroducing the natural world into our settlements. • Design centring places conducive to self-aware transformation to higher levels of Nature consciousness. The higher the level of self-awareness,

Design Principles from the Four Perspectives

39

the wider is the circle of value, thus the more spontaneous the effort and internal capacity put to the benefit of that larger circle.

Behaviors perspective [UR] • Design high-performance buildings that maximize efficient use of water, energy and material resources while minimizing waste and pollution. Reduce throughput and create recycling. • Design with on-site renewable resources of sun, wind and light. Heating, cooling, lighting and power in a sustainable society can only temporarily rely on finite sources. • Design to create safe, healthy places with long-term value, eliminating toxicity to present or future generations.

Systems perspective [LR] • Design at three levels of holarchy: to build a larger whole, to create a whole and to organize smaller wholes. Ecological designers think at multiple scales of nested networks. • Design living systems using ecology as the model. Fit flows to local renewable systems while also supporting techno-industrial ecosystems. Nature’s patterns of organization mean that waste equals food; recycling is endemic; resources are localized; and solar energy fuels all. • Design solutions fit to particular places, considered as local site, larger neighbourhood and region. Patterns of structure and function in natural systems are always grounded in patterns of location that form the context of social patterns.

Cultures perspective [LL] • Design based on a high and conscious environmental ethic in which humanity and Nature both thrive in regenerative human ecosystems. Be a stand for designing to insure the appropriate rights of all species and ecosystems and of future generations. • Design to place people into significant relationships with Nature by making visible how culture is interconnected with living systems. Manifest natural processes and ecological services via design. • Design for cultural communication by using the symbolic languages of design. Use the power of design as an inhabited art to make evident the meaning of ecological systems and our place in the many levels of the Kosmos.

40

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Notes 1 The oft-cited definitions created by the Brundtland Commission defined sustainable development as that which ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs‘ (United Nations, 1987). 2 The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) was authorized by the US Congress in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. NIBS is a non-profit, nongovernmental organization whose mission is to improve the building regulatory environment, facilitate the introduction of new and existing products and technology into the building process and disseminate nationally recognized technical and regulatory information. 3 For quick reference see: Ecological Design Institute, www.ecodesign.org/edi-principles.html. Text explanations are from this website.

References Esbjörn-Hargens, Sean (2005) ‘Integral ecology: A post-metaphysical approach to environmental phenomena’, AQAL Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, Spring, vol 1, no 1 National Institute of Building Science, Whole Building Design Guide, available at www. wbdg.org, accessed 1 June 2010 Orr, David W. (1992) Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Post-Modern World, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY Thwaites, K. and Simkins, I. (2007) Experimental Landscapes: An Approach to People, Place and Space, Routledge, New York United Nations (1987) ‘Report of the World Commission on environment and development‘, General Assembly Resolution 42/187, 11 December 1987 USGBC (2008) ‘LEED for new construction and major renovations,‘ version 3.0, Nov, www. usgbc.org/LEED USGBC (2010) US Green Building Council, available at www.usgbc.org, pages for LEED, accessed 1 June 2010 Van der Ryn, Sim and Stewart Cowan (1996) Ecological Design, Island Press, Washington DC Wilber, Ken (2000a) A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality, Shambhala, Boston, MA Wilber, Ken (2000b) Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: the Spirit of Evolution, 2nd edition, revised, Shambhala, Boston, MA Wines, James (2000) Green Architecture, Taschen, Köln

2

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective

Subjective [UL]

Objective [UR] PERSPECTIVE OF

Individual

BEHAVIOURS Shape Form to MAXIMIZE PERFORMANCE Energy, water, material efficiency Zero energy & emissions bldgs LEED rating system High performance buildings I

Collective

WE

IT ITS

[LL]

This chapter explores deeper into the

[LR] Figure 2.1 Behaviours perspective issues

behaviours perspective ,

where perform-

ance rules. Here we examine the logics behind the strategies and criteria from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) programme, GreenGlobes and the Sustainable Sites Initiative. This is the terrain of the high performance green building.

42

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

U.S. Building Impacts:

Figure 2.2 US building impacts on the environment

12%

39%

65%

71%

water use

CO; emissions

waste output

electricity consumption

Source: USGBC, LEED and related logo is a trademark owned by the US Green Building Council and is used by permission

Goals and Strategies in the Behaviors Perspective (UR) We will now, in this and the following three chapters, take a deeper look at Sustainable Design from each of the four perspectives. The best place to start is with the

behaviours perspective

(UR), the home turf of the technological view of

Sustainable Design. It is accessible and it’s what most designers want to know first: ‘What can I do on my next project? How do I know if I am designing a sustainable building?’ Green building rating systems offer an insight into the range of issues and performance expected of green buildings today.

Leadership in energy and environmental design LEED categorizes its credits into seven areas: 1 Sustainable Sites: site development, stormwater, heat islands, alternative transportation. 2 Water Efficiency: efficiency of consumption, landscape use, innovative wastewater. 3 Energy and Atmosphere: energy efficiency, renewable energy, building commissioning, green power. 4 Materials and Resources: building reuse, construction waste, materials reuse, recycled content, regional materials. 5 Indoor Environmental Quality: low-emitting materials, thermal comfort, daylight, control systems. 6 Innovation in Design. 7 Regional Priority. The LEED Reference Guide is a good source for recommended strategies and calculation techniques for meeting the credit requirements (USGBC, 2007).

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective

43

Figure 2.3 LEED logo Source: USGBC, LEED and related logo is a trademark owned by the US Green Building Council and is used by permission

Green Globes The Green Globes rating system of the Green Building Initiative uses seven categories, quite similar to LEED, with some additions (GBI, 2010): • Project Management: design process, purchasing, commissioning, emergency plan. • Site: area, ecological impact, watershed, site ecology enhancement. • Energy: performance, efficiency, demand, renewables, CO2, transportation. • Indoor Environment: air quality, lighting, acoustics, ventilation, thermal comfort. • Emissions and Effluents: air emissions, ozone, water effluents, pollution control. • Resources: life-cycle analysis, construction waste, recycling, building reuse, renewable. • Water: performance, conservation, treatment, stormwater.

Green Globes objectives, like LEED, are clearly dominated by the behaviours spective

(UR), as can be seen from their stated intentions:

Green Globes rated buildings are intended to use less energy, conserve water resources and emit fewer pollutants (in the form of greenhouse gases, airborne pollutants, liquid effluents and/or solid waste) than other buildings at large. As such, projected benefits to building owners and investors accrue in the form of reduced operating costs for energy, water and waste disposal while at the same time making the facilities more enjoyable and better places to visit, live or work.

Figure 2.4 Green Globes logo

per -

44

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Emissions

Proj Mgmt

Resources Energy

Water Site Indoor Environment

Figure 2.5 Areas of assessment in the Green Globes rating system

GREEN] GLOBES

A few more categories Since we are broadly covering a range of design fields in this book, we can also add to the general categories covered so far by LEED and Green Globes the following Sustainable Design categories that might be made part of a rating system that begins to go beyond measurement: • Community Governance Strategies, which include common facilities at various scales, decentralization and local production. This is essentially a strategy of ‘design for sharing’, such as the efficiencies found in the Cohousing concept, where workshop, laundry, guest facilities, parking areas, meeting spaces, play areas and other facilities are shared and thus not duplicated by each nuclear family. • Food Production Strategies, which include urban agriculture, edible landscaping and agriculture/ building integration. These keep production and transportation local and eliminate landfilling organic waste. • Sustainable Landscape Strategies, which include habitat, native hydrology and native planting. These reduce pesticides, water use, fertilizers and impacts on local habitat. They reduce stormwater runoff and stream pollution, among other benefits.

Rating sustainable sites The Sustainable Sites Initiative is developing a similar assessment system for Landscape Architecture (SSI, 2009). Their report ‘Standards and Guidelines’ identifies criteria similar to LEED in nine areas. As you can see in Table 2.1, most of these are defined in such a way as to be quantifiably verified against measurable criteria, a

behaviours perspective

mainstay, which one would expect

from a rating system. However, some of these criteria, such as those in the Site Design – Water category, mostly make use of the systems

perspective

(LR) where

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective

45

THE SUSTAINABLE SITES INITIATIVE

GUIDELINES AND PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS 2009

American Society of Landscape Architects

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin United States Botanic Garden

Figure 2.6 Sustainable Sites guidelines

hydrology is treated as a complex system requiring a dynamic balance of flows. The Pre-Design Assessment and Planning category addresses tive

cultures perspec -

approaches in its inclusion of stakeholders (criteria 2.3). The criteria for

Site Design – Human Health and Well-being depend on designing experiences for people and therefore make use of the

experiences perspective

(UL), such as

in criteria 6.5 and 6.7 dealing with wayfinding, views and mental restoration, while others address

cultures perspective

issues, such as equity, education and

cultural preservation.

Table 2.1 Sustainable Sites Initiative: Index of prerequisites and credits with associated possible points

Site Selection Select locations to preserve existing resources and repair damaged systems Prerequisite 1.1:

Limit development of soils designated as prime farmland, unique farmland and farmland of statewide importance

Prerequisite 1.2:

Protect floodplain functions

Prerequisite 1.3:

Preserve wetlands

Prerequisite 1.4:

Preserve threatened or endangered species and their habitats

1.5: Select brownfields or greyfields for redevelopment 

5–10

1.6: Select sites within existing communities 

6

1.7: Select sites that encourage non-motorized transportation and use of public transit 

5



21 possible points

46

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Pre-Design Assessment and Planning Plan for sustainability from the onset of the project Prerequisite 2.1:

Conduct a pre-design site assessment and explore opportunities for site sustainability

Prerequisite 2.2:

Use an integrated site development process

2.3: Engage users and other stakeholders in site design 

4 4 possible points

 Site Design – Water

Protect and restore processes and systems associated with a site’s hydrology Prerequisite 3.1:

Reduce potable water use for landscape irrigation by 50 per cent from established baseline

3.2: Reduce potable water use for landscape irrigation by 75 per cent or more from established baseline 

2–5

3.3: Protect and restore riparian, wetland and shoreline buffers 

3–8

3.4: Rehabilitate lost streams, wetlands and shorelines 

2–5

3.5: Manage stormwater on site 

5–10

3.6: Protect and enhance on-site water resources and receiving water quality 

3–9

3.7: Design rainwater/stormwater features to provide a landscape amenity

1–3

3.8: Maintain water features to conserve water and other resources 

1–4



44 possible points

Site Design – Soil and Vegetation Protect and restore processes and systems associated with a site’s soil and vegetation Prerequisite 4.1:

Control and manage known invasive plants found on site

Prerequisite 4.2:

Use appropriate, non-invasive plants

Prerequisite 4.3:

Create a soil management plan

4.4: Minimize soil disturbance in design and construction 

6

4.5: Preserve all vegetation designated as special status 

5

4.6: Preserve or restore appropriate plant biomass on site 

3–8

4.7: Use native plants 

1–4

4.8: Preserve plant communities native to the ecoregion 

2–6

4.9: Restore plant communities native to the ecoregion 

1–5

4.10: Use vegetation to minimize building heating requirements 

2–4

4.11: Use vegetation to minimize building cooling requirements 

2–5

4.12: Reduce urban heat island effects 

3–5

4.13: Reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire  

3 51 possible points

47

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective

Site Design – Materials Selection Reuse/recycle existing materials and support sustainable production practices Prerequisite 5.1:

Eliminate the use of wood from threatened tree species

5.2: Maintain on-site structures, hardscape and landscape amenities 

1–4

5.3: Design for deconstruction and disassembly 

1–3

5.4: Reuse salvaged materials and plants 

2–4

5.5: Use recycled content materials 

2–4

5.6: Use certified wood 

1–4

5.7: Use regional materials 

2–6

5.8: Use adhesives, sealants, paints and coatings with reduced VOC emissions 

2

5.9: Support sustainable practices in plant production 

3

5.10: Support sustainable practices in materials manufacturing  

3–6

36 possible points

Site Design – Human Health and Well-Being Build strong communities and a sense of stewardship 6.1: Promote equitable site development 

1–3

6.2: Promote equitable site use 

1–4

6.3: Promote sustainability awareness and education 

2–4

6.4: Protect and maintain unique cultural and historical places 

2–4

6.5: Provide for optimum site accessibility, safety and wayfinding 

3

6.6: Provide opportunities for outdoor physical activity 

4–5

6.7: Provide views of vegetation and quiet outdoor spaces for mental restoration 

3–4

6.8: Provide outdoor spaces for social interaction 

3

6.9: Reduce light pollution 

2



32 possible points

Construction Minimize effects of construction-related activities Prerequisite 7.1:

Control and retain construction pollutants

Prerequisite 7.2:

Restore soils disturbed during construction

7.3: Restore soils disturbed by previous development 

2–8

7.4: Divert construction and demolition materials from disposal 

3–5

7.5: Reuse or recycle vegetation, rocks and soil generated during construction 

3–5

7.6: Minimize generation of greenhouse gas emissions and exposure to localized air pollutants during construction 

1–3



21 possible points

48

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Operations and Maintenance Maintain the site for long-term sustainability Prerequisite 8.1:

Plan for sustainable site maintenance

Prerequisite 8.2:

Provide for storage and collection of recyclables

8.3: Recycle organic matter generated during site operations and maintenance 

2–6

8.4: Reduce outdoor energy consumption for all landscape and exterior operations 

1–4

8.5: Use renewable sources for landscape electricity needs 

2–3

8.6: Minimize exposure to environmental tobacco smoke 

1–2

8.7: Minimize generation of greenhouse gases and exposure to localized air pollutants during landscape maintenance activities  1–4 8.8: Reduce emissions and promote the use of fuel-efficient vehicles  

4

23 possible points

Monitoring and Innovation Reward exceptional performance and improve the body of knowledge on long-term sustainability 9.1: Monitor performance of Sustainable Design practices 

10

9.2: Innovation in site design 





8 18 possible points

Source: SSI (2009)

Each of these criteria can then be associated with a range of possible design strategies that work toward achieving the goal. For example, here are some of the strategies suggested by the ‘Standards and Guidelines’ that are associated with the criteria from the category of Site Design – Materials Selection: • Identify suppliers who provide wood products from sustainably managed forests; consider using recycled plastic or composite lumber instead of wood. • Identify opportunities to incorporate existing site materials into site design. • Design construction details to facilitate deconstruction without damage to the material. • Look for materials and salvageable plants existing on your site. • Do not reuse materials that are a source of pollutants to stormwater. • During construction, ensure that the appropriate certified wood products are installed and quantify the total percentage of FSC-certified wood products installed. • During construction, ensure that the specified local materials, plants and soils are installed or used.

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective

49

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE DIVERT FOR ENERGY RECOVERY

Figure 2.7 Sustainability spectrum for resource and materials management strategies

DISPOSAL

LESS

SUSTAINABILITY

MORE

Source: Redrawn from Sustainable Sites Initiative (www.sustainablesites.org)

• Specify low-VOC (volatile organic compound) materials in construction documents; ensure that VOC limits are clearly stated in each section of specifications where adhesives, sealants, paints and coatings are addressed. To the extent that these strategies are targeted toward the understanding and manipulation of objective phenomena that are not set in a systemic context, they are operating from the

behaviours perspective .

Note Figure 2.7, redrawn

from the Institute for Sustainable Sites, in which less consumption equals more sustainability. Our theme, once again, is that while this is mostly true, necessary and important, it is still partial.

The Logic of the Behaviors Perspective (UR) The design logic from this perspective, what Lance LaVine (in Shilbey et al, 1984) once called ‘the logic of parts and performance,’ as contrasted with the (LR) ‘logic of systems and relationships,’ often looks like this: 1 Define the problem in objective terms that can be empirically known, such as reducing the energy use of a building to a target amount. The design question then becomes: how do I reduce energy to a specific target value while providing for the needs of the users and the building operations? 2 Identify the elements with influence over the outcome, such as, in this case, the surface area, insulating value of the building materials and the indoor and outdoor temperatures. 3 Find or create a model that describes the magnitude of the relationships between the elements, such as an engineering formula for the flow of heat by conduction, which defines heat flow as the product of surface area, U factor (rate of heat flow through an assembly) and the difference between inside and outside temperature. 4 Given this model, determine the most important performance variables, and where possible, generalize about these in quantifiable architectural

50

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

terms such as: insulation type (low density is better) and thickness (more is better), edge configuration (smoother is better), surface-to-volume (lower is better), window size (smaller is better) and indoor thermostat setting (lower is better in winter; higher is better in summer) and so on. 5 Apply these general principles of form behavior to the specific design situation, bringing these abstractions together in combination for a proposed design configuration such as a house design. 6 Evaluate the proposition using the performance model and compare the estimated performance to the target performance. 7 Adjust the elements of the design, using the design variables available until the design’s performance meets the target performance. OK, I made up these steps, but if you put your logical mind to the question, you can also come up with something similar or better as a rational process, right? Maybe you don’t like thinking in this much abstraction. Then think of how you would rationally determine what kind of electric lights to put in a classroom. You would probably research foot-candle recommendations, look at manufacturers’ data on distribution patterns and light output, think about the tasks in the room, where the daylight was coming from, the size and shape of the room,

150

141 71.3

126

120 98

60

86

54.6

86

90

84 75

74

74

71

46.2

71

68 60

40

38.0 33.6

20

31.0 29.8 29.1 28.5 27.9 27.5 27.2

s s of ar or an St Ro g w ns S F y l n C e e i e g s s V p . G mm rew er ctiv .S Ba m al En fle cp Di La c. S Sc c e 8 O R e TSp e

s Ca

B

/E

ng

i az

EB

er

ll hi

S

EM

VS

ps

m Pu rol nt Co

t.

Cooling Capacity (tons)

Energy Use Intensity (kBTU/ft2)

80

30

0

n Ve

Figure 2.8 Results of energy optimization process ‘Graphic illustration of a building optimization process. Shown are the incremental reductions in energy use (kBtU/ ft2) and cooling system capacity (tons) from each measure. The optimized building reduces the base building energy use by 62% and cooling capacity by 52%.’ (Parker, Fairey and McIlvaine 1995) Source: Florida Solar Energy Center

51

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective

maybe even the efficiency of the lamps and fixtures, and so on. And you would sort all this out to select from the options you could afford and come up with selection, placement, spacing, etc. to meet as many of your criteria as possible. Even if you have never done this, you could imagine solving the problem. If so, then you have a handle on this perspective. This is a powerful method, which can get more and more complicated as the number of issues considered increases and the sophistication of the models improves. Its advantage is a high degree of certainty about the results due to the empirical basis of the methods, and therefore a lower risk of failure at meeting performance goals such as: • safety from toxins in the kindergarten; • structural stability of tall buildings in earthquakes and wind storms; • indoor thermal comfort in homes; • acoustic isolation between hotel rooms; • reverberation times matched to musical type in a concert hall; • the right level of light for an office worker at a computer; • the lack of unpleasant odors from our bathroom plumbing; • smoke evacuated effectively in a fire (and many more). When this type of thinking is applied, such as in the LEED process, it can yield significant results for Sustainable Design including:

Site EUI (kBtu/ft2-yr)

140

120

Service Water Heating Heating

100

Fans Cooling Interior Lighting Exterior Lighting Interior Equipment

80

60

40

20

0 1A

2A

2B

3A

3B

3C

4A

4B

4C

5A

5B

6A

6B

7A

8A

DOE Climate Zones

Figure 2.9 Elementary school annual energy baseline, end-uses across climate zones ‘Adopting measurable energy goals at the beginning of the project will guide the team and provide a benchmark throughout the project’s life’. ‘Emphasize goals that relate to large energy uses and can produce the most savings.’ (ASHRAE, 2008)

52

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

• reductions in energy use; • healthy standards for indoor air quality; • reduced stormwater runoff; • increased use of recycled materials.

Thinking in the upper right The ‘logic of parts and performance’, as LaVine characterized it, represents analytic logic that allows designers to dissect projects, measure performance and assess results. It assures efficiency of the constituent building parts. We understand the order of the whole in terms of our knowledge of individual elements. It is without doubt the most clear and certain way of design thinking. UR behaviours

perspective

methods depend on observation and on what can be

derived from observation. They require us to look scientifically and objectively at observable phenomena, the behaviours of things and people and at the relationships that are seen and quantifiable. Let’s now grapple with some distinctions. The

behaviours perspective

meth-

ods are monological, not diological. That is, they do not require inquiry into the interiors of things, people and cultures but rather remain on the exteriors. Of course, we have lots of tools to help us in our looking, such as aerial photos, soil testing equipment, x-rays of structural welds, topographic surveys, water quality samples, city maps, video equipment, pencil and paper, and so on. This type of inquiry doesn’t require that your subject have any response or participate in any way. Methods in this quadrant are propositional. A proposition is made that can be proved or disproved. The criterion for success is: how close is the proposi-

Figure 2.10 Measured versus proposed savings percentages ‘Some buildings do much better than anticipated, as evidenced by those in Figure [2.10] with measured EUI below the dotted line. On the other hand, nearly an equal number are doing worse – sometimes much worse.’ (Turner and Frankel, 2008, p4)

tion to empirically assessed truth? In other words: how close is the ‘map’ of

100% Certified Silver Gold-Platinum

75% 50% 25% 0%

These buildings use more energy than the code baseline!

-25% -50% -75% -100% 0%

75% 100% 50% 25% Proposed Savings %

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective

53

our building science (and construction methods and site analysis and structural engineering) to the ‘territory’ of the biological and physical reality of buildings and sites? It is also a matter of how the predictions we make about performance and behaviour match up to the measured performance and behaviour after construction and inhabitation. For example, does the modelled energy consumption predicted by a whole-building energy analysis (for example, Energy-10 or Ecotect software) match up well with the measured energy consumption of the building two years after occupancy? When we get it right, or just close enough, that can feel great.

Generating form via considering performance The UR

behaviours perspective

is also not without immense creativity and po-

tential for sourcing design ideas, if conceived of in that way. Creative I say? Logic and engineer-think? Yes! Often the methods arising from science or engineering are analytical (helping us understand the nature of a problem) or evaluative (helping us understand how the proposed design performs). They are not traditionally helpful in generating the actual proposal in response to the analysis of the situation (site, context, programme, etc.). In order to evaluate, one must first have a proposal. The question is, how does one find the design

Figure 2.11 Sizing atria for daylight in adjacent rooms Source: Brown and DeKay (2001)

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

proposition? One way, considered from this perspective, is to begin linking performance to spatial or formal pattern. Figure 2.11 is an example from Brown and DeKay, 2001. The graphic shown is a tool for helping to size an atrium, a design strategy for bringing daylight into the centre of a thick building, thus helping to light adjacent rooms and with proper controls to reduce energy used for electric lighting indoors. The graph expresses the relationship between the aspect ratio (three dimensional proportions) of the atrium and the daylight factor (daylight level relative to outdoor daylight) in rooms adjacent to the atrium. This tool is limited to a four-sided atrium lit from the top. It becomes readily apparent that for a given desired light level in the rooms, some atrium designs will be too tall and narrow and others may be oversized and thus the atrium will be too big for that required by lighting criteria. Part of a creative solution is defining the limits of the problem.

Strategies that link form and performance As discussed already, Sustainable Design includes a wide range of environmental design goals or intentions in many categories (water, site, materials, energy, etc.). Each goal can be accomplished using a variety of interrelated design strategies. Each design strategy has one or more tools available. The graph shown in Figure 2.11 is a tool to help accomplish the atrium strategy. For illustration, consider the list of design strategies in Table 2.2, based on the material in Sun, Wind, & Light (Brown and DeKay, 2001). Each of these covers some discreet phenomenon related to heating, cooling, power or lighting and specifically related to energy use. Each design strategy links the energy phenomenon with its related architectural elements (rooms, courtyards, windows, walls, etc.) and with design characteristics (size, organization, shape, orientation, etc.). Choices about form and space are related to how these choices affect energy use. Using the design strategies, a designer can create building designs that use vastly less energy than typical conventional buildings today. In Chapter 3, we will explore how these strategies can be part of a more systemic conception from a (LR)

systems perspective .

In such a perspective, these many discreet

strategies can be linked into families or systems of strategies, organized at multiple scales to form a kind of web of design ideas about form and energy use. Once again, here are the principles identified in Chapter 1 for the

behaviours

perspective :

• Design high-performance buildings that maximize efficient use of water, energy and material resources while minimizing waste and pollution. Reduce throughput and create recycling.

Exploring Deeper into the Behaviours Perspective Table 2.2 Design strategies from Sun, Wind & Light, 2nd edition

Building Groups Radial Ventilation Corridors Shared Shade Topographic Microclimates Solar Envelopes Tall Buildings Balanced Urban Patterns Glazed Streets Loose or Dense Urban Patterns Gradual Height Transitions Daylight Envelopes Breezy Streets Dispersed Buildings East–West Elongated Building Groups Interwoven Buildings and Planting Interwoven Buildings and Water Winter Outdoor Rooms Neighborhood Sunshine Windbreaks Green Edges Overhead Shades Buildings Migration Locating Outdoor Rooms Layer of Shades Clustered Rooms Permeable Buildings Thin Plan East–West Plan Deep Sun Borrowed Daylight Heat-Producing Zones Stratification Zones Buffer Zones Daylight Zones Rooms Facing the Sun and Wind Direct-Gain Rooms Sunspaces Source: Brown and DeKay (2001)

Roof Ponds Thermal Collector Walls and Roofs Cross-Ventilation Stack-Ventilation Wind Catchers Night-Cooled Mass Evaporative Cooling Towers Atrium Daylit Room Depth Earth Edges Water Edges Breezy or Calm Courtyards Shady Courtyards Building Parts Skin Thickness Mass Surface Absorptance Daylight Reflecting Surfaces Exterior Surface Colour Photovoltaic Roofs and Walls Double-Skin Materials Solar Reflectors Thermal Mass Low Contrast Skylight Wells Solar Hot Water Breathing Walls Insulation Outside Separated or Combined Openings Ventilation Openings Arrangement Well-Placed Windows Reflected Sunlight Solar Apertures Daylight Apertures Air Flow Windows Light Shelves Movable Insulation Daylight-Enhancing Shades External Shading Internal and In-Between Shading Window and Glass Types

55

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• Design with on-site renewable resources of sun, wind and light. Heating, cooling, lighting and power in a sustainable society can only temporarily rely on finite sources. • Design to create safe, healthy places with long-term value, eliminating toxicity to present or future generations. Can you see how the ‘logic of parts and performance’ that wants to measure and weigh things would arrive at high-performance buildings as its goal? Its logical extension is zero-energy building, zero-emissions buildings, and so on. This is also the perspective whose methods reveal that we are running out of many resources and polluting at rates faster than Nature can absorb. It implies a shift from finite to renewable resources since anything else is merely delaying the inevitable and making our environment worse. It’s also the perception that takes our vital signs and researches what is healthful and what is not. Thus, in addition to net-zero resource use, infinite recycling and the transition to design with renewables, it promotes a non-toxic environment. Who can argue with that?

References ASHRAE (2008) Advanced Energy Design Guide for K-12 School Buildings: Achieving 30% Energy Savings Toward a Net Zero Energy Building, ASHRAE design guide, special project 111, American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Atlanta, GA Brown, G.Z. and DeKay, Mark (2001) Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, available at www.ecodesignresources.net GBI (2010) Green Building Initiative, www.thegbi.org Shibley, Robert G., Poltroneri, Laura and Rosenberg, Ronni (1984) Architecture, Energy, and Education: Case Studies in the Evaluation of Teaching Passive Design in Architecture Workbork Series, American Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), Washington DC, pp36–38 Parker, Danny S., Fairey, Philip W. and McIlvaine, Janet E.R. (1995) ‘Energy efficient office building design for a hot and humid climate: Florida’s new energy center’, Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), FSEC-PF-291-95 SSI (2009) ‘Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and benchmarks’, available at www.sustainablesites.org. (The SSI is a project of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin and the US Botanic Garden) Turner, Cathy and Frankel, Mark (2008) ‘Energy performance of LEED for new construction buildings, final report’, 4 March, New Buildings Institute, Vancouver, WA USGBC (2007) LEED Reference Guide: New Construction, version 2.2, 3rd edition, USGBC, Washington, DC

Individual

3

Exploring Deeper into the Systems Perspective

Subjective [UL]

I WE

Objective

[UR]

IT ITS

PERSPECTIVE OF SYSTEMS Collective

Shape Form to GUIDE FLOW Fitness to site & context Ecoeffective functionalism Bldgs as ecosystems Living buildings [LL]

In this Chapter, we explore deeper into the

[LR] Figure 3.1 Systems perspective issues systems perspective

where we con-

sider Sustainable Design from a whole systems viewpoint, integrating with local ecosystems and organized on the model of living systems. Principles of ecosystems, the ‘language of nature’, are outlined, along with patterns of ecosystem organization. The idea is Nature as a model for design.

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Figure 3.2 Grape vines on an outdoor trellis, edible shading, an alliance of building and plants, Stanford University campus

Developing Ecological Thinking We are now in the midst of transitioning to a new thinking. For most of us, it is very hard work. As an underpinning for introducing ecological thinking, consider the following work from another field. Jean Gebser, the famous philosopher/ cultural theorist/poet, in his landmark work of 1949, The Ever-Present Origin, outlined five epochs of the development of cultures, which he termed ‘structures of consciousness’: Archaic, Magic, Mythic, Rational and Integral (Gebser, 1949). According to Gebser’s observations, each new development in the collective consciousness of a culture involves an unfolding of deeper and wider perception and value. Each progressive stage is characterized by an increase in mental organization and complexity. Ken Wilber agrees. In an epic sweeping survey of human developmental models, Wilber finds western developmental psychology in conclusive agreement that ‘the mind itself has at least four stages of growth: magic (2–5 years), mythic (6–11 years), rational (11 onward) and integral-aperspectival or vision-logic (adulthood, if then).’ (Wilber, 2000b)

Exploring Deeper into the Systems Perspective

Figure 3.3 Jean Gebser

Figure 3.4 Cultural epochs: Time, population, consumption Sim Van der Ryn’s mapping of Gebser’s epochs. He names the integral

level

as the ‘Ecological Epoch’.

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Shifting to Integral These cultural and psychological references do have a point for Sustainable Design. To design ecologically, we have to begin with thinking ecologically. Though it sounds simple, as it turns out ecological thinking is a challenging cognitive task that is part of a transition in the developing capacities of humans. Although we will detail developmental levels in Part II, suffice it to say that the perspectives in each quadrant show greater and lesser levels of complexity. To get at the ecological systems view in the LR quadrant, we have to not only shift our perspective to that quadrant, but also raise our perspective in that quadrant by at least a level in complexity. Ecological thinking sees the world in dynamic systems terms, and therefore requires a corresponding complexity in cognition. This new capacity is characteristic of the shift that Gebser and Wilber describe as the shift from rational to integral awareness. Integral stage awareness, according to Gebser, is characterized by: • integration of all previous structures; • concrete, present-centred awareness; • aperspectival (not holding a singular perspective), holistic perception; • non-identification with the ego. Though this discussion may seem a long way from Sustainable Design, consider that Modern 20th-century industrial cultures are centred in the rational stage, which is characterized by: • Modern analytic and scientific thought; • a three-dimensional, ‘perspectival’ world-view (one singular perspective at a time); • individual self-consciousness; • the identification of being with thinking (‘I think therefore I am’).

‘What gradually happens is not just a linear accretion of more and more that one can look at or think about, but a qualitative shift in the very shape of the window or lens through which one looks at the world.’ 

(Robert Kegan)

Ecological thinking is Integral-level thinking Modern architecture had access to lots of rational thinking, but it still produced almost no Sustainable Design. From two decades of experience teaching ecological design to students, it is increasingly evident to me that learning to think

Exploring Deeper into the Systems Perspective

61

ecologically is much more than the mental–rational consciousness at work on manipulating a new set of facts. Harvard developmental psychologist Robert Kegan writes:

What gradually happens is not just a linear accretion of more and more that one can look at or think about, but a qualitative shift in the very shape of the window or lens through which one looks at the world.  (Kegan, 1982) This is what we are talking about when we say that we take a different perspective. It is an entirely ‘other’ way of looking. Whereas the

behaviours perspective

(UR) is objective, the

systems perspective

(LR) is inter-objective. The individual objective behaviours of things are included in more complex relationships among things. Individual organisms are linked together in social systems. Organisms and the physical environment are linked through their relationships into ecosystems. The complex functions of Nature and society are interrelated in the complexities of human ecosystems and the studies of human ecology. This is what LaVine has called the ‘logic of systems and relationships’.

Figure 3.5 Ecological consciousness finds interconnected patterns of living processes at work in any form

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Systems thinking in design In architecture, energy-efficient elements can be combined in intelligent ways to make buildings as energy systems. An example is a passive solar-heated building that can be combined with efficient envelopes and with spatial organizations, orientations and materials to collect, store and redistribute solar energy in complex diurnal and seasonal patterns. Sounds impressive? Or simple? If it was so simple, why did it take us until the fourth quarter of the 20th century to figure it out? To think ecologically is to understand something about the basic principles of how ecosystems operate and about how they are organized.

The systems of the passive solar-heated building can be combined with those of the naturally ventilated and daylighted building systems. These can be integrated with the more active mechanical systems and with systems and technologies for producing on-site green power, and so on. These energy systems can be further integrated with spatial systems, with patterns of use and human behavior (the patterns of social order), with the order of structural, material and construction systems, with the systems of water and hydrology in the building and on the site, with systems of natural habitat on site, with larger contextual urban systems and so on. This is now beginning to resemble the real-world complexity of design! To get to this kind of systemic integration is to think ecologically. To think ecologically, is to understand something about the basic principles of how ecosystems operate and about how they are organized. Thinking ecologically, we also shift how we perceive and think about the world to a perspective of relatively less reductionism and greater complexity.

Order in Ecosystems Principles of ecosystems Fritjof Capra, in his writing from the Center for Ecoliteracy, defines the ‘principles of ecology,’ or what he calls, ‘the language of Nature’ (Capra, 2010), see Table 3.1. These principles and their earlier variations have had a profound impact on me and my ability to comprehend what Sustainable Design will ultimately be up to including.

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Table 3.1 Principles of ecology

Cycles Members of an ecological community depend on the exchange of resources in continual cycles. Cycles within an ecosystem intersect with larger regional and global cycles. For example: water cycles through a garden and is also part of the global water cycle. Networks All living things in an ecosystem are interconnected through networks of relationship. They depend on this web of life to survive. For example: In a garden, a network of pollinators promotes genetic diversity; plants, in turn, provide nectar and pollen to the pollinators. Nested Systems Nature is made up of systems that are nested within systems. Each individual system is an integrated whole and – at the same time – part of larger systems. Changes within a system can affect the sustainability of the systems that are nested within it as well as the larger systems in which it exists. For example: Cells are nested within organs within organisms within ecosystems. Flows Each organism needs a continual flow of energy to stay alive. The constant flow of energy from the sun to Earth sustains life and drives most ecological cycles. For example: energy flows through a food web when a plant converts the sun’s energy through photosynthesis, a mouse eats the plant, a snake eats the mouse and a hawk eats the snake. In each transfer, some energy is lost as heat, requiring an ongoing energy flow into the system. Development All life – from individual organisms to species to ecosystems – changes over time. Individuals develop and learn, species adapt and evolve and organisms in ecosystems co-evolve. For example: hummingbirds and honeysuckle flowers have developed in ways that benefit each other; the hummingbird’s color vision and slender bill coincide with the colors and shapes of the flowers. Dynamic Balance Ecological communities act as feedback loops, so that the community maintains a relatively steady state that also has continual fluctuations. This dynamic balance provides resiliency in the face of ecosystem change. For example: ladybugs in a garden eat aphids. When the aphid population falls, some ladybugs die off, which permits the aphid population to rise again, which supports more ladybugs. The populations of the individual species rise and fall, but balance within the system allows them to thrive together. Source: Capra, 2010; Center for Ecoliteracy, 2010

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Capra also published a longer set of principles a decade earlier (Capra, 1994a). The principles are so compelling as to warrant quoting at length:

• • • • • • • •

Interdependence . All members of an ecosystem are interconnected in a web of relationships in which all life processes depend on one another. The success of the whole depends on the success of its individual members, while the success of each member depends upon the success of the system as a whole. Diversity . The stability of an ecosystem depends crucially on the degree of complexity of its networks of relationships; in other words, on the diversity of the ecosystem. Partnership . All living members of an ecosystem are engaged in a subtle interplay of competition and cooperation, involving countless forms of partnership. Energy Flow . Solar energy, transformed into chemical energy by the photosynthesis of green plants, drives all ecological cycles. Flexibility . In their function as feedback loops, ecological cycles have the tendency to maintain themselves in a flexible state, characterized by interdependent fluctuations of their variables. Cycles . The interdependencies among the members of an ecosystem involve the exchange of matter and energy in continual cycles. These ecological cycles function as feedback loops. Coevolution . Most species in an ecosystem coevolve through an interplay of creation and mutual adaptation. The creative reaching out into novelty is a fundamental property of life, manifest also in the processes of development and learning. Sustainability . The long-term survival (sustainability) of each species in an ecosystem depends on a limited resource base.

To Capra’s list I add: • Wholeness. Properties of the whole are emergent and not exhibited by the parts individually. Life is an emergent property of wholeness; that is, if you dissect a living thing, it dies. Whole living systems are self-preserving. Each of these principles of ecosystems involves a shift in our perception if we are to design from this new window. These perceptual shifts are summarized in Table 3.2. Part III explores in depth six important perceptual shifts for thinking ecologically as a part of Integral Sustainable Design. The Center for Ecoliteracy uses ecosystems, fundamentally understood through the lens of a

systems perspective ,

as a model for successful human

systems. In particular, Capra uses ecosystems as a model for the design of learning communities. ‘The link between ecological communities and human

Exploring Deeper into the Systems Perspective

65

Table 3.2 Principles of ecosystems 1

Ecosystem Principles

Perceptual Shifts

Derived Concepts and Principles

WHOLENESS

aliveness, emergent quality, distributed being, holism, gestalt,

INTERDEPENDENCE

“community, niche, network, synergy”

from Parts to Wholes from Objects to Relationships

DIVERSITY

from Efficiency to Redundancy

PARTNERSHIP

from Competition to Cooperation

“richness, variety, beauty, stability,” complementarity,

“cooperation, symbiosis,” collaboration,

ENERGY FLOWS

“photosynthesis, solar energy, soft technologies”

FLEXIBILITY

“fluctuations, dynamic balance, tolerance limits, stress”

CYCLES

“feedback loops, information flow, recycling, conservation”

SUSTAINABILITY

carrying capacity, longevity, health, bioregion, ecological accounting

from Structure to Process from Rigidity to Resilience from Vectors to Rhythms from Consumption to Metabolism

Note: Principles adapted from Capra (1994a), except ‘wholeness’

communities exists because both are living systems.’ (Capra, 1994a) Can you begin to image how a building might be thought of as a living system with these characteristics? What about a building as part of an ecosystem or a building as a habitat for multiple species?

Organizational patterns of living systems Living systems theory, of course, is not new. It is the domain of biologists, ecologists and other scientists, especially scientists operating from a systems thinking point of view. Some examples are the works of physicist Fritjof Capra, systems scientists Ervin Laszlo and Erich Jantsch, and biologist James. G. Miller, among others (Jantsch 1980; Laszlo, 1972, 1994; Miller, 1978; Capra, 1996).

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Capra, building on the work of the Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine and others working on the science of self-organizing systems, goes further to develop a theory for the organizational patterns of living systems (Prigogine and Stengers, 1984; Capra, 1994b). Patterns, as we can all agree, are significant to the designer. Essentially, all design is the making of one kind of pattern or another. So, what if our design patterns took on the patterns that helped organize sustainable ecosystems? Some of these organizational patterns of living systems include: • (Nested) Networks: patterns of nonlinear relationships of nested ‘systems within systems’. (Systems are integrated wholes that are simultaneously part of larger wholes and contain a network of smaller wholes with them.) • Feedback: some messages travel in cycles to return to their origin, thus influencing future system behavior. (Feedback is made possible through the pattern of network structures. To learn any system, one must have accurate, timely feedback.) • Self-regulation: using feedback, systems can keep themselves in dynamic balance. (Living systems maintain their form while energy, information and materials move through that form. Structure is contingent on process.) • Self-organization: because life is a network, it can organize itself, including its own direction, purpose and creative self-transcendence. (Self-organizing living systems create order spontaneously out of chaos. Purposeful and inventive behavior is their expression.) To Capra’s list I add the following principles of ecosystems organization. This synthesis is based on a broad study of systems thinkers, including Jantsch, Laszlo, Capra, Miller and others: • Patterns: living systems are organized in recurring sets of interconnections, repeated events and linkages among ecosystem members. The topology of living systems is that of a network – decentralized, complex and lattice-like. • Self-similarity: in many ways, including processing functions and spatial pattern (in other words, fractal geometry), systems exhibit similar characteristics between larger and smaller scales. • Multiple membership: humans are members of many systems, both natural and cultural. We have a dual nature as individuals and as social members; yet the larger systems in which we participate overlap. I am aware that we are venturing outside the traditional bounds of the design fields, into a different language. Increasingly, the language of ecology, rather than ornamental and formal composition, is becoming the foundational language of landscape architecture. I predict that in architecture the same language of systems, relationships, processes, networks and hierarchies will

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67

become a fundamental language complementing other Traditional design approaches. I assert it will be a necessary perspective for any regenerative version of Sustainable Design. Looking back at Table 3.2, the series of organizational principles required associated perceptual shifts. Capra has suggested a few of these perceptual shifts in books such as The Web of Life (Capra, 1996). These are only a few of many ways that the evolving Integral ecological consciousness, taking the systems perspective , perceives the world differently than the more mechanistic behaviours perspective . Living systems are by definition sustainable systems. They incorporate 4 billion years of embodied intelligence.

Ecosystems as a model If we are then shifting perception from the UR the LR

systems perspective ,

behaviours perspective

to

what mind and what eyes would create human

systems that help Nature to flourish? Further one might ask: can we align our minds with the web of life? There are two types of answers offered to this question by contemporary Sustainable Design. One answer, from the

behaviours perspective ,

says that we should maximize efficiency

to reduce resource consumption (such as fossil fuels and metal ores) and the overloading of environmental sinks (such as the atmosphere and local steams). Architect William McDonough calls this approach ‘doing less badness’ (McDonough and Braumgart, 2002). Oberlin environmental educator David Orr calls it ‘technological sustainability’(Orr, 1992). We have talked about its benefits and dignity already. The second answer, from the

systems perspective ,

incorporates the first,

but focuses more on restructuring. It says that living systems are by definition sustainable systems. They incorporate 4 billion years of embodied intelligence about what works on planet Earth, and in particular what works in our own corner of the planet. Since human communities and ecosystems are both living systems (in their LR exteriors), we can use an understanding of living systems as a conceptual framework for organizing human activities, including our built environment. Nothing else could work in the long term. Now that is a powerful idea! That is an idea as new and profound as those that sparked Modernism or the industrial revolution. McDonough calls this approach ‘eco-effective’. David Orr calls it ‘ecological sustainability’ (Orr, 1992).

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Figure 3.6 Center for Regenerative Studies, Cal Poly, Pomona, California, John T. Lyle, architect and landscape architect A complex of buildings designed around ecological flows

Exploring Deeper into the Systems Perspective

69

The essential theoretical imperative for ecological literacy in design is the connection of form with process.

This view embodies Van der Ryn’s principles of 1) ‘design with Nature’ and 2) ‘ecological accounting informs design’ (Van der Ryn and Cowan, 1996). McDonough articulates several LR systems

perspective

principles in his Hannover Principles of

1992: ‘Recognize interdependence’, ‘Eliminate the concept of waste’ and ‘Rely on natural energy flows’ (McDonough and Partners, 1992). John T. Lyle, one of the fathers of Sustainable Design thinking, sums up the perspective of this view as: ‘Shape form to guide flow’ (Lyle, 1994). One can now see how the performance and mechanics of the behaviours systems perspective

perspective

is both important to the

and yet transcended by it.

Form and Process: The Basic Ecological Perception for Design Form and process, or to an ecologist, structure and function, are inflections of each other.

The essential theoretical imperative for ecological literacy is the connection of form and process. This conversation gets a little tricky in its language, but it is really no harder than understanding ‘form follows function’. It seems to me that formalism, which we can think of as the study of the shape and order of form and space, while worthy, is always an incomplete representation. It is only half the picture of the world. Form is the ‘objectness’ of things. Form coexists with its inseparable diad-partner, process. Process is the relatedness of objects in time and in transformation. Form and process, or to an ecologist, structure and function, are inflections of each other. Louis Sullivan gave us the dictum, ‘form follows function’, which the Modernists picked up. Most often we take this function to mean activity, use and programme. These are processes or sequences of events in time. In this view, processes are flows and exchanges of materials, energy, people, plants, animals and information that create the patterns of relationships in Nature, which in turn give rise to the manifestation of structural order. Architectural form is then not mere objective pattern. Rather, what is more useful and accurate is to see any architectural pattern as process-form. Process gives rise to form. We can see form and space as analogous to patterns of ecological

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Figure 3.7 Creative Habitat Mosaics, Bo01, Malmo, Sweden Creative Habitat Mosaics: • all walls covered with climbing plants; • all roofs are green roofs; • a bird box for every flat; • facades to have swallow nesting facilities; • bat boxes in the courtyard; • a habitat for specified insects; • at least 50 species of native herbs; • vegetation selected to be nectar giving; • a 1m sq. pond for every 5m2 of sealed area; • amphibian habitats with space for hibernation; • a courtyard of semi-natural biotopes. ‘The result is a mosaic of habitats including green roofs and walls, wetland retention ponds and courtyard gardens.’ Source: Ann Beer

structure. Everything else can be seen as a process with underlying patterns that can manifest in or be guided by form. David Orr has said that the problem with Modernists was not that they were too much concerned with functionalism, but rather that they were not functional enough! By this he means that there are lots of important processes, particularly ecological processes, which Modern architecture ignored.

From the

systems perspective ,

the fundamental ecological design question

becomes: How can we find or generate form that reflexively orders and is ordered by process?

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71

Figure 3.8 Lyle’s diagram of flows of energy, nutrients and water in the CRS, Center for Regenerative Studies

Examples A whirlpool is a good example of an open system structure that is sustained by a dynamic process. When there is no more water to flow (the process), the form of the whirlpool (the structure) disappears. The human body is another example. While relatively stable in its organization, it is nevertheless dependent upon a whole set of complex processes. When the processes involving the flows of air, water and food stop the body’s organization disintegrates rapidly. Death in a living system is a disorder threshold.

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Processes in buildings Alvar Aalto once remarked that there is no new form without new social content, by which I think he meant that form for him in large part arises from a careful consideration of the social organization and relationships within the building. It is easy to see how buildings are shaped in response to certain processes. In buildings, it is easy to see some processes and how buildings are shaped in response to them. The processes of sun and rain are two visible examples. The rain, we want to keep out of the interior of buildings and either move it off of the building, feed it to plants, return it to the soil or store it for later use. The sun we might want rejected or admitted, depending on the other conditions found in the climatic processes of the moment and the thermal needs of the building for heating or cooling. The sun, in particular, is a fairly predictable kind of process. Architecture, when thought of as a manifestation of process, becomes the structure that mediates between the external processes of solar energy and climate and the interior processes of human bioclimatic response and experiential delight. In solar heated buildings, for example, solar energy is supplied by the sun, collected through apertures, stored in thermal mass (or water or phase change materials) and distributed by radiation or convection to meet the needs of human biological and psychological processes that require a comfortable temperature range. Similarly, the order and design of the form orchestrates the climatic forces to yield patterns of heat and cool, stillness and air movement, sun and shadow, bright and dim, specular and diffuse and animated.

Concluding on the Systems Perspective The

systems perspective

(LR) is what LaVine calls the logic of systems and rela-

tionships. It is concerned with finding patterns as a basis for making effective design decisions. It is an ‘associative logic’ that allows designers to see relationships between facts, forces, processes and form. Whereas the perspective

behaviours

(UR) tends toward thinking about the ‘application of technology’

and uses quantity as the criteria for success, this perspective embeds technology in architectural elements for a ‘technology from within’. As Capra calls this, it is ‘thinking in terms of pattern’, in the tradition of Pythagoras and Goethe, Gestalt and Ecology and in particular ‘systems thinking’. In terms of its subject, Wilber defines the

systems perspective

as referring to

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73

Figure 3.9 Beaver Creek Green Infrastructure Plan, Knox County, Tennessee, 2006: A conservation and development plan based on multi-scalar systems thinking for networks of transportation, recreation, habitat, water, settlement, etc.

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

… any of the concrete, material, embedded social forms of communities (the exterior forms of social systems), including modes of tools and technology, architectural styles, forces of production, concrete institutions, even written (material) forms and so on.  (Wilber, 2000c) The

systems perspective

is inter-objective, describing the exterior of collective

holons, the forms of social holons and their products, ideas which are covered in Chapter 4. It is a third-person perspective on social and natural systems. Integration is its most prized value and measure of success. I hope that the principles and ideas in this chapter will open up new possibilities for you in the role that you play in generating the built environment. These are conceptual tools with many applications. Sometimes the hardest part of solving any problem is coming up with the right method or approach. Using the principles of ecosystems, their patterns of organization and the central insight of form and process and the application of this insight to the six lines of design awareness (discussed in Chapter 8) are powerful ways to reframe problems and their solutions. May they empower your good works.

References Capra, Fritjof (1994a) ‘From parts to whole, systems thinking in ecology and education’, Seminar Text, Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley, CA Capra, Fritjof (1994b) ‘Ecology and community’, seminar text, Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley, CA Capra, Fritjof (1996) The Web Of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems, Anchor Books, New York Capra, Fritjof (2010) ‘Ecology and community,’ and ‘Life and leadership,’ online essays available at www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/ecology-and-community and also www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/life-and-leadership-0, ‘Ecological principles’ was originally published by the Center for Ecoliteracy, ©2005 Center for Ecoliteracy, reprinted by permission, www.ecoliteracy.org Center for Ecoliteracy (2010) ‘Explore ecological principles’, available at www.ecoliteracy. org/nature-our-teacher/ecological-principles Gebser, Jean (1949) Ursprung und Gegenwart, (trans. Noel Barstad and Algis Mickunas, The Ever-Present Origin, Athens), Ohio University Press, Ohio, 1985 Jantsch, Erich (1980) The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution, Pergamon Press, New York Kegan, Robert (1982) The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Laszlo, Ervin (1972) The Systems View of the World: The Natural Philosophy of New Developments in the Sciences, George Braziller, New York

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Laszlo, Ervin (1994) The Choice: Evolution or Extinction, a Thinking Person’s Guide to Global Issues, G.P. Putnam, New York Lyle, John Tillman (1994) Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development, John Wiley, New York McDonough, William and Partners (1992) ‘The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability’, prepared for EXPO 2000, The World’s Fair, Hannover, Germany McDonough, William and Michael Braumgart (2002) Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, North Point Press, New York Miller, James Grier (1978) Living Systems, McGraw Hill, New York Orr, David W. (1992) Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Post-Modern World, State University of New York Press, Albany Prigogine, Ilya and Stengers, Isabelle (1984) Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature, New York: Bantam Van der Ryn, Sim (2005) Design For Life: The Architecture of Sim Van der Ryn, Gibbs Smith, Layton, UT Van der Ryn, Sim and Cowan, Stuart (1996) Ecological Design Island Press, Washington Wilber, Ken (2000b) Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, 2nd edition, revised, Shambhala, Boston, p128 Wilber, Ken (2000c) Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy, Shambhala, Boston p144

4

Exploring Deeper into the Cultures Perspective

Objective

Subjective

Individual

[UL]

[UR]

I WE

IT ITS

Collective

PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURES Shape Form to MANIFEST MEANING Relationships to nature Green design ethics Green building cultures Myths & rituals

Figure 4.1 Cultures perspective issues

[LL]

This chapter delves into the cultures

perspective ,

[LR]

where we consider Sustainable

Design as a way to manifest ecological value in cultural terms and to use the symbolic language of design to convey meaning about Sustainable Design. We will cover a new and unique approach to Sustainable Design ethics based in part on ecological insight into the order of nested networks, defining Nature and culture. This chapter finishes with considering meanings and ideas of Nature and metaphors of Nature that may be engaged or conveyed via Sustainable Design.

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Figure 4.2 Discovery Center, Seattle, Washington, 2005, The Miller | Hull Partnership, architects Rainwater from the roof scupper falls to the rain garden below, making visible the flows and life-impacts of water

What Is Missing in Sustainable Design? What ecological design means is as important as how it functions.

The preceding section on the

systems perspective

described how design based

in ecological principles is absolutely necessary for Sustainable Design’s success and how this view is in alignment with recent knowledge from ecology and the complexity sciences. However, Sustainable Design as currently understood and practiced, even the complex-living-systems form advocated from the perspective ,

systems

is insufficient. It is not the whole story, and remains a true but

partial yet still incomplete map.

Where are the interiors? Whole systems Sustainable Design is an insufficient approach to design in general and to ecological issues in particular because it usually ignores the human subjective landscape. The view of the world as the ‘web of life’ tends to deny and reduce the whole interior, subjective and cultural realm. It is a ‘flatland’

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Sustainable Design will have to become more encompassing and less dismissive of subjective or interior values.

view that leaves out at least half of the world (the left-hand perspectives). This is ironic because Sustainable Design often identifies itself with a holistic view. For ecological Sustainable Design to succeed in having wide influence, it will have to become more encompassing and less dismissive of subjective or interior values. What ecological design means is as important as how it functions. How real humans experience Sustainable Design is as important as its impact on ecosystems. This was hard for me to accept at first, but I have been enrolled in the critical importance of this perspective to Sustainable Design. The perspective

cultures

is the lens through which we take our worldview. Sustainable Design

is nothing if not a worldview! Left out by right-side-only perspectives on Sustainable Design are both lefthand quadrants, the subjective perspectives. As I have already mentioned, this is some very significant stuff for the design world to leave out! As a generalization,

Figure 4.3 ING bank headquarters, Amsterdam 1999–2002, Alberts and Van Huut, architects Considered the premier sustainable building of the 1980s, the former NMB Bank Headquarters building was designed as a pedestrian-friendly district of mid-rise towers, rather than a statement high rise. It established the possibility of dense urban buildings expressing natural rhythms of light, air, and water, while also fostering social interaction.

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if you examine any of the excellent texts on ecological design, sustainability or green architecture, you will usually find little about ethical standards, cultural values, symbolic communication, integrity, aesthetics, human feeling or any of the other subjective interior aspects of architecture (for example, Yeang, 1995).

Contemporary Sustainable Design ignores cultural meaning As I see it, here’s the crazy state of ideological affairs in which we find ourselves today. Sustainable Design, in its rational expression as LEED, is equivalent to a portable, national standard that is poorly adapted to local conditions and cultures. Sustainable Design in its regionalist (sometimes neo-vernacular) expression tips its hat to the cultures

perspective ,

but the current ideas of architectural

regionalism are mostly still mired in the modern fascination with novelty and individuality. The ‘international’ strain of Modernism thoroughly ignored centuries of cultural meanings associated with architectural symbols. Postmodernism, attempting to revive the symbolic language of architecture, cannot come to agreement on anything other than its commitment to pluralism. My ‘ism’ is just as good as your ‘ism’, or no ‘ism’ for that matter! That leaves Sustainable Design in a quandary. Since most of current Sustainable Design is a more complex form of functionalism, it is stuck between the poverty of Modernism’s abstractions and the

Figure 4.4 Carl T. Curtis Midwest Regional Headquarters of the National Park Service, Omaha, Nebraska, Leo A. Daly, architect Meant to ‘exhibit its philosophies about the environment‘, the building achieves a LEED Gold rating and is built on a brownfield. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find regional expression in the glass box. The message conveyed is that performance = values and performance is independent of expression.

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plethora of Postmodernism’s metaphors, revivalisms and repackaged wrappers for modern buildings. Could there be a way out? I think so.

Symbols, communication and justness Sustainable Design tends to lack a solid grounding in the methods of the tures perspective .

cul -

These include the symbolic language of architecture and the

building industry’s creation of meaning about design and Nature. I’ll be the first to admit – since my strengths are in the right-hand perspectives – that I have to work the hardest from this perspective. I did not really want it to be significant, partly because I knew it would mean my own thinking had to change. In one of its purest forms, Sustainable Design actually seeks to redefine culture in terms of Nature, collapsing the LL into the flatland of LR. Thus, the criteria for -success from the cultures

perspective

(LL), namely cultural symbolism, co-

mmunication and justness, get collapsed into the expression of functional fit. The

systems perspective

defines success as the functional fit between

the built environment patterns (LR social systems) and natural patterns (LR web of life natural systems). ‘Better fit to the web of life equals a better culture‘, or so it conveys. That’s not necessarily wrong; I believe it is actually partially true. It just totally ignores the story we have about why the good fit is a good thing, and that is where meaning and motivation come in.

The flatland of culture To be fair, cultural critics and philosophers of the Postmodern persuasion are often reducing the empirical world to a flatland of their own. The perspective ,

cultures

in its pathological expression, denies the very existence of the world

as revealed by the right hand objective perspectives. I’ve been called every version of ‘mere‘ utilitarian, positivist, pragmatist and so on, for even using mathematics to examine architecture. But as this is mostly only found in academic circles, and then only from the humanities point of view, and rarely in practice, Sustainable Design suffers little from these extreme critiques. Nevertheless, such collapses of perspective by its proponents make the powerful ideas available in the

cultures perspective

as difficult to listen to as the gross reductionist behav-

iorism theory in the psychology of B.F. Skinner.

Ethics Ask a dozen Sustainable Design advocates why protecting the environment or saving energy is a good idea and you will get a wide range of answers. How can

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Figure 4.5 Cambridge Cohousing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998, Elton-Hampton, architects At 41 units on a 1.5-acre site, this project expresses an ethical position about the value of living in participatory community, the relationship of community order to resources and the preservation of undeveloped land outside the city

we explain that? In regard to environmental ethics, a prime tive

cultures perspec -

topic, Sustainable Design has not developed a clear, more advanced, more

integrated ethics of Sustainable Design, or perhaps better stated – an ethics of Integral Sustainable Design. We have not honored the insights of the ‘great chain of being’ that human culture depends on mind, which depends on living Nature, which depends on matter (Lovejoy, 1964; Wilber, 2000a). We have not developed an ethics of architectural holarchy (a hierarchy of whole parts), but we will explore this later in this chapter. The value of the living world, above its inherent right to being, is obviously that all higher beings depend on it. Destroy Nature and culture tumbles, which makes Nature more fundamental even if it is less significant than culture. We are not talking about something that is optional. Sustainable Design is a required responsibility. Destroying ecological services is like dynamiting a building’s foundations: none of the upper stories can stand.

What’s in the Cultures Perspective? (LL) Given these missing and important elements, what’s here in this perspective for Sustainable Design? Looking at design from the

cultures perspective

(LL),

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

designers take up the following questions: • How can design be ordered to fit its cultural context? • How can design convey symbolic meaning about what culture values? • How shall we express though design what is important? • How is building a product of practices and perceptions embedded in the building culture itself and in the pattern languages used by that building culture? • How shall we practice design with ethical responsibility? Looking in particular at the implications of this view for Sustainable Design, we can frame these questions more directly as: • How can Sustainable Design be appropriately ordered to fit its cultural context? • How can Sustainable Design convey symbolic meaning about culture’s relationship to Nature? • How shall we express though Sustainable Design the understanding and importance of ecological process? • How can sustainability be embedded in the practices and perceptions of the building culture itself? • How shall we practice from a motivation of Sustainable Design ethics? Is solving (LR) ecological relationships all there is to successful Sustainable Design? All designers know that there is more than one successful way to solve any design problem. All designers also know that there are simultaneous sets of relationships for which successful design must solve. These relationship sets are both the relationships of the natural world (gravity, climate, hydrology, etc.) and of human relationships (human behaviors and social interactions, human perceptions and experiences and the relationships of cultures). Seeing Sustainable Design from the

cultures perspective

asks designers to look at

how any design places us into relationship with Nature in ways that embody meaning. Anything we design creates or modifies a system of ecological relationships. Anything we design places humans into an inhabited system in which our relationships to natural forces and processes are tightly bound. Sustainable Design, as ‘design-for-relationships,’ can expand its perception further than the determinism of eco-relationalism by asking:

How can the patterns of ecological relationships in which the building participates be made culturally significant and appropriate? Cultural significance and meaning arises from dialogue among members of a society or group. To have mutual understanding, you have to talk about it!

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Figure 4.6 Hawaii Gateway Energy Center, Ferraro Choi and Associates, Ltd, architect Manifesting the client’s values. Buildings can communicate their green intentions though design. The building exuberantly expresses its natural energy flows to ‘demonstrate the unique resources and mission of the Natural Energy Laboratory‘. Note the ‘building as a thermal chimney’ and the 20KW ‘building-integrated photovoltaic system’ – it doesn’t hide that the form is a response to climate and energy.

To have meaningful discourse about ecological relationships in designed things, individuals must be able to perceive and experience these relationships. Sustainable Design can then ask the design question:

How can important ecological relationships – and the ways design creates relationships to these – be made into significant human-felt experiences?

Sustainable Design Ethics Strangely enough, Sustainable Design has not developed a well-articulated ethics. Neither has the environmental movement in general, with its various ethics of biodiversity, animal rights, stewardship, intergenerational ethics and holism. However, a more Integral view may help bring some synthesis. In his famous essay, The Land Ethic, Aldo Leopold writes:

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to

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Figure 4.7 Sidwell Friends Middle School, Washington, DC, 1971 renovation, KieranTimberlake Associates, LLP, architects; Anropogon Assoc., landscape architects Manifesting the way building and designed landscape integrate with natural process. ‘Green design provides an opportunity to achieve an outstanding level of integration between the curriculum, values and mission of the School’. Multiple processes of water intersect in the visible landscape. ‘Micro-restoration areas‘ are intended to showcase native ecosystems, ‘including more than 80 regionally appropriate species. Green roof, biology pond, infiltration rain garden, naturally treated water reused'. Source: www.andropogon.com

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Figure 4.8 Aldo Leopold in field research

compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for). The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively: the land.  (Leopold, 1949) William McDonough in his well-known sermon at St. John the Divine, says in reference to the Endangered Species Act of 1969:

For the first time, the right of other species and organisms to exist was recognized. We have essentially ‘declared‘ that Homo Sapiens is part of the web of life. Thus, if Thomas Jefferson were with us today, he would be calling for a Declaration of Interdependence, which recognizes that our ability to pursue wealth, health and happiness is dependent on other forms of life, that the rights of one species are linked to the rights of others and none should suffer remote tyranny.  (McDonough, 1993) At the heart of ethical questions for Sustainable Design are the following issues and questions. These questions come up over and over in the Sustainable Design conversation.

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1 What is more important, the part or the whole? Is there an ethics of holism for design? 2 What is an individual and what is community? And, therefore, what are the responsibilities of each? 3 What is culture? What is Nature? How are they related, and therefore what are our responsibilities to Nature through our design and what are our rights relative to it?

Parts and wholes Let’s start with question 1. There are some new terms introduced here, and I encourage you to stay with the discussion because I think you will find it worthwhile in the end. Let us define something called a holon as having characteristics and roles of both whole and part. For example, a cell is a whole made of molecules, but is also a part of an organ. Holons are considered a natural structure of sentient beings. We can also understand that there are more complex and less complex holons. More complex holons ‘transcend and include’ the less complex holons, as cells ‘transcend and include’ molecules. This leads to the idea of holarchy, that is, a nested hierarchy of holons. You are a being made of nested holons, from atoms to your whole self. In evolutionary time, less complex holons (let’s call them lower) precede more complex (let’s call them higher) holons. Atoms came before molecules, which came before cells, which came before thinking mammals. This is all intuitively obvious, even if we don’t think about it very often. How do we make sense of the competing claims of different environmental strategies? Is energy or water more important? Should we have Nature in the city or draw a sharp boundary between the city and the country to limit spraw? Should sustaining culture or sustaining Nature be given more resources? These and many other questions can be sorted through with the aid of a holarchic values framework.

Three kinds of environmental value From the idea of nested parts and wholes in a holarchy, Ken Wilber derived three kinds of value relative to environmental ethics, each with implications for design actions (Wilber, 2001). Note in the following discussion that the same design action can be supported by different ethical bases or by more than one kind of value.

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water pumped from reservoir to fields via pipes water returned to reservoir and cleansed via bioswale

FARM FIELD

BIOSWALE

PATH

FARM FIELD

typ. water level

food

overflow

Figure 4.9 Viet Village Urban Farm, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2006, Spackman Mossop + Michaels, landscape architects The project is an effort to reestablish the tradition of local urban farming in the Vietnamese community located in New Orleans East, an area hard hit by hurricane Katrina. Driven by a range of ecological and social ethics, its goals include: • •

• •

to establish a certified organic farming practice; to become a model for low-tech sustainable site development in the New Orleans area through the use of biofiltration of water resources and alternative energy sources such as wind and passive and active solar power; to establish relationships with area restaurants and grocery stores; to create an economic and cultural resource for the community.

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Ground value This is the value of all things to exist because they exist. The idea of ‘ground‘ is the ultimate fundamentalness. Things and creatures and other people get to exist even if we think they are dumb and useless. Ground is thought of in some philosophies as the ‘emptiness’ or ‘void’ out of which all manifestation emerges (as in Buddhist philosophy, or in Genesis, ‘the deep’ that darkness was on the face of). The idea of ground value is to value something, such as other species, because they have made it this far in evolution and thus embody 4 billion years of evolutionary progress, because they are a part of creation, because they exist as a perfect manifestation of spirit or emptiness, depending on your view. In India, Jain priests wear masks to keep from breathing in insects and sweep the ground before them to keep from stepping on any living creatures. Grasshoppers, gorillas, green slime mould and Gandhi are all equally valuable. Thus, for design this shows up as a version of the medical profession’s injunction to ‘do no harm’. The implication is that, if all species have a right to exist, then we should make design decisions that allow each the opportunity to compete and continue to evolve in their habitat. This gives validity to approaches such as the US Endangered Species Act, biodiversity, wilderness protection and ecosystem health and the philosophy of deep ecology. For designers working from ground value this means acting for: • Preservation of biodiversity and thus of ecosystems and landscapes in ways that allow them to continue to thrive. In this way, as many species as possible in an area are sustained.

Figure 4.10 Suburban cul-de-sac housing In terms of ground value, suburbia is the most destructive of the most habitat of the most species. In terms of extrinsic value, it is the most consumptive of resources of any means of settling yet devised.

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• Preservation of a range of types of natural communities within a region. We should not wipe out entire plant–animal associations or land cover types with our expanding development. • Preservation of the habitat of indicator species for particular ecosystems or communities. Certain sensitive species can stand in for an entire ecosystem. Spotted owls only live in old growth forests, etc.

Intrinsic value Intrinsic value means, in holarchic terms, that the higher (more complex) the holon in the scheme of evolutionary complexity, the higher its intrinsic value. As Wilber puts it, it is better to kill a carrot than a cow, because a cow has more consciousness. Calatrava trumps cow trumps carrot trumps carbon. What follows is that each holon, in its nature as a whole, has rights; and the more complex the holon, the more rights. Humans have rights to exist and to flourish, but they also have the responsibility to act in ways that preserve as much depth and consciousness as possible. This gives validity to the approaches of animal rights, rescue programmes for dolphins and birds of prey, for large predator programs, and so on. For designers working from intrinsic value means acting for: • the preservation of habitat for higher animals; • landscape ecology and green infrastructure networks, with spatial patterns of habitat patches and connectivity within the settled matrix; • consideration of human needs for settlement and for modifying our environment; • a range of intensity of human occupancy and activity across the landscape.

Extrinsic value Extrinsic value refers to the value of a holon as a part. The lower (less complex) the holon, the more other higher holons and the more levels above it depend on it for existence; therefore, the more fundamental it is. So basically, if we or other higher organisms really need it, we ought to make sure it stays around and works right. Therefore its existence (not necessarily as an individual) has to be given priority. This seems clear and logical. This gives validity to resource conservation, efficiency programmes, cultivating soil health, erosion control, recycling, protecting ecological services, and so on. For example, water is a low order holon, existing as a simple molecule. However, it is critical to all life and therefore to mind and culture – it is fundamental. No clean water, no art! For designers working from extrinsic value this means acting for:

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• resource conservation, energy efficiency, pollution prevention; • reversing global climate change; • preserving ecological services, such as air and water filtration.

Levels of evolution To answer question 2 (about individual and community responsibilities) and question 3 (about culture and Nature definitions and responsibilities), it is useful to look at the relationships among those things that are fundamental and those that are significant. First, three definitions that add a useful context: 1 The physiosphere is the domain of physical matter on the planet: atomic energy, subatomic particles and molecular and chemical matter, as studied by the physical sciences. For short, let’s call it matter. 2 The biosphere refers to the thin film of green on the planet, the domain of life, including the range of life forms from simple to complex, as studied by the life sciences. For short, let’s call it Nature. 3 The noosphere (from the Greek, nous, referring to mind or intellect) is the domain of higher intelligence from higher mammals to humans, studied by psychology and other human sciences. For short, let’s call it culture. In terms of holarchy, the noosphere transcends and includes the biosphere, which transcends and includes the physiosphere. By this view (and yes, we are taking a particular perspective now), culture is more inclusive, more complex, a higher holon, than Nature or matter, but also includes Nature and matter: culture is more significant; Nature is more A B

C

Level 3

Level 2

Figure 4.11 Levels of evolution adapted from Wilber (2000b), p115 A = physiosphere, B = biosphere, C = noosphere.

Level 1

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fundamental. We can now see exactly why Gregory Bateson says, ‘When an organism destroys its environment, it destroys itself’ (Bateson, 1972). Urban ecosystem health is important because it affects the viability of both human communities and natural communities, which in the urban ecosystem are closely interlinked. The human and natural communities are interlinked because in the biosphere (System B, Nature in Fig 4.11) they are one single living system. Consciousness, the activity of the mind and its resulting culture (the more inclusive System C) are built on top of the work of living systems. The cultural city (C) is built on and encompasses the biological living city (B), which is built on and encompasses the material city (A).

Who’s a part of what in the city?

The cultural city is built on and encompasses the biological city, which is built on and encompasses the physical city.

Nature is embedded in the city and in all of us. Urban designers, such as the New Urbanists, tell us that the city is a cultural artefact, not a natural artefact, and therefore the city is a human environment, while Nature belongs in the countryside. This is not wholly true. The city is existentially, fundamentally dependent on Nature, a Nature which is ‘right here’, inside as much as it is ever ‘out there’. As higher-order conscious beings, humans have the most rights to exist (intrinsic value) and also the most responsibilities to other individuals and societies. In environmental terms:

We have the highest consciousness and therefore the most responsibility to preserve the biosphere, globally and locally, as the context for both ourselves and other species.

The individual and the social In this way of thinking, what is a building or city? Humans are individuals participating in a community of the ecosystem, such as Leopold suggests. Each individual holon (UL and UR perspectives) also has a social or community holon (LL and LR perspectives). Social holons (such as families, tribes and societies) are more loosely organized and do not have a central self-consciousness. Social holons are made up of individual holons plus their exchanged artefacts. Artefacts are what holons produce, such as carbon dioxide breathed out, heat radiated, poetry written and cities constructed.

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( Planetary

chemodynamics)

Macroevolution

Gaia system Heterotrophic

ecosystems

extension

Societies with division of labour

Spatial

Groups, families

Complex animals Multicellular

organisms

Eukaryotes Prokaryotes Dissipative s t r u c t u r e s

Microevolution Time

Figure 4.12 Co-emergence of individual (microevolution) and social holons (macroevolution) Source: Jantsch (1980)

Humans are not part of (as a sub-holon) the web of life (the biosphere), but we are spatially and functionally a member of ecosystems and living landscapes.

The social or environmental holon appears simultaneously with the individual holon. They cannot be separated. In this sense, we humans as higher individual holons, include all the lower levels in our compound makeup. We therefore also have as our social holon, all the social holons (environments) up to this point in evolution. We humans are participating members of many communities, many social holons. That is not the same as being a part of a higher individual holon, not the same as being a part of the web of life.

An urban design example Working in Chattanooga, my colleagues and I in the GreenVision studio began developing a green design pattern language of solutions, which we described in a way consistent with the holarchic view of humans as both natural and cultural (and physical) beings. Green patterns offer us a way to think about the city and Nature in a single, non-dualistic language. As long as we use the language of dualism – Nature versus culture, the urban and not the environmental, the impact of humans on ecosystems, the balance of growth and conservation – as long as we are in that mind, we can never integrate these apparent opposites.

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Figure 4.13 Green urban patterns, Chattanooga Downtown Plan, Chattanooga, TN, GreenVision Studio, drawing by author Both/and patterns emerging from Nature/culture

Green patterns shift from an either/or logic to a both/and logic. Green patterns focus on preservation and conservation of the health, safety and welfare of the built city and of the native environment of the place; on human habitat and wildlife habitat, on the environment as one environment with many interrelated systems. The result would be, we believe, a city that: • is healthy for its residents and creates a healthy urban ecosystem; • provides a high quality of city life with access to both urban amenities and the cycles of Nature; • reconnects us with living natural environments and to other people in community; • increases development opportunity and increases preserved open space; • invests for a great legacy to future generations and is profitable today.

Expressing Ideas of Nature One of the propositions about Sustainable Design from this cultures

perspective

is that design ought to (and in some way, consciously or unconsciously, always does) express through its language of form the relationships between humans and Nature. Philosopher Michael Zimmerman describes the difficulty of this:

Unfortunately, the definitions of both ‘humankind’ and ‘Nature’ are very diverse and hotly contested. Are humans and the rest of terrestrial life the

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products of a transcendent Creator? Or is life, including human life, merely the accidental consequence of millions of years of aimless cosmic and terrestrial evolution? Is Nature the vast systemic reality that exists quite independently of humankind and its trivial affairs? Or is Nature merely a social construction, a complex phenomenal domain disclosed by and involved in myriad human practices? Are humans merely clever animals limited by structural features generated by evolutionary processes, or does complex language and intelligence enable humans to transcend their supposedly ‘natural’ origins by establishing historical domains that must be understood on their own terms? Is Nature a totality of material phenomena that humans ought to utilize for increasing their power and security, or is Nature the life-generating matrix that humans ought to regard as sacred? Clearly, defining humanity’s relation to Nature is not an easy affair. (Zimmerman, 2004)

Mechanics and meaning Lance LaVine, in Mechanics and Meaning in Architecture, develops a strong argument for the way in which architecture as an inhabited technology becomes a metaphor that places us into relationship with Nature (LaVine, 2001). He identifies four technological metaphors, that is, ‘different ways of metaphorically portraying Nature through the buildings that people create’.

The metaphor of ‘Nature as tangible transactions’ The core of Nature can be understood by contemplating how it appears to work. In this approach, Nature is revealed through making its processes evident in the way the building responds to or interfaces with the forces of Nature. For example, the order of primary and secondary roof structural members is revealed to our view and the forces can be visibly traced from roof to foundation. Architectural patterns are a reflection of the elegance of natural patterns. Nature is understood as empirical force.

The metaphor of ‘Nature as sensually revealed belief’ Architecture presents Nature as the embodiment of mythic interpretations via ritual and the support of ritual. As Joseph Campbell said, rituals are the enactment of myth. Myth, according to Campbell, is an ‘explaining story’ of how and why things come to be as they are. Nature in this view is what we ritualize, such as the passage of the sun (the sun of the Aztecs or the sun of the Norse?). There is purpose in Nature driven by unseen forces. Architecture helps us to make sense out of being in the world by visibly embodying our story of Nature and our relationship to it. How we build shows us what we believe.

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Figure 4.14 Nature as tangible transactions: Solar Energy Research Facility, Golden, Colorado, Anderson DeBartolo Plan, Inc., architects An elevation/roof form directly expressing the behavior of light and sun. The reflections can be visualized on the inside. The shading is visibly seen on the outside. The building is more meaningful to those who can read the behavior of natural forces in their interplay with the forms.

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Figure 4.15 Nature as sensually revealed belief: House of Spiritual Retreat, 25 miles north of Seville, Spain, 1975, Emilio Ambasz, architects A project that seeks harmony with Nature by merging or forming an extension of Nature and ‘returning the site to Nature’. At the same time, the interiors are a setting for ‘intimate communion, most especially with an intensified sense both of the inner self that it draws outward and the distant cosmos that it draws down into its center.’ (Ambasz et al, 2005)

The metaphor of ‘Nature as embedded origins’ Nature is indirectly contained in what we learn of it from the making of things. In constructing something that is made to purpose and residing in the world, intellectual ideas and abstractions emerge about what Nature might be. We understand Nature because we have to engage it by the act of building. We build

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Figure 4.16 Nature as embedded origins: Solar Umbrella House, Venice, California, 2005, Pugh + Scarpa, architects Designed to establish a precedent for the next generation of California modernist architecture.‘Nature is revealed as the elements abstracted by the roofs, walls and openings whose origin is the forces they helped to modify.’ (LaVine, 2001) A modern reduced Nature as ‘outdoors’. A large lightweight photovoltaic roof makes power and shades permeable layers of space, a technological tarpaulin that allows living ‘in’ this clarified Nature.

our designs as intellectual constructs, but these frameworks of response are still sourced and originate in Nature. We don’t build Nature, but what we can know of it is present as a record in our works. Just as a farmer knows the seasons and the signs of weather in the clouds through their successes and failures in planting, architects know Nature through building. Design can express what we abstract to be true about Nature, such as the way a uniform structural grid might be said to express the nature of gravity as a constant, relatively invariant force across all places on the planet.

The metaphor of ‘Nature as dialectic distinctions’ ‘Nature is what technological form is able to argue about it convincingly’ (LaVine, 2001). In this sense, design makes distinctions about what the designer proposes is so and then the building makes the argument, such as presencing the distinction between sky (heavens) and earth (horizon) and its impact on the orientation of windows (skylights and clerestories for light vs. windows for view). Nature in this view is presented as a pure abstraction of the intellect. LaVine identifies that the metaphors about Nature can derive both from tangible forces and from the intellectual and abstract. Many other metaphors are possible. Part II develops the idea that each perspective exhibits unfolding stages of developmental complexity. As such, it presents four levels of unfolding in the cultures

perspective .

Each level is a worldview with a different dominant

mythos about Nature and the human relationship to it. Part IV explores many

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Figure 4.17 Nature as dialectic distinctions: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, 2002, Tadao Ando, architects Not all buildings that place people into relationship with Nature are necessarily ‘green’ from the perspective of performance (UR behaviors). Nature here is experienced as highly abstracted and intellectualized. Light understood against regularity and order of structure vs. clarity of glass. Pond as water, rocks and reflections. Inner separated experiences of art in concrete-walled galleries contrasted with the wrappers of outer public experiences of Nature itself as modern art, mediated and presented through architecture.

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other ideas of Nature and how to design for connecting people to Nature. It uses the language of metaphors too. If you open to thinking about Sustainable Design metaphorically, then you open yourself to many more possible solutions than those embedded in measurement and quantification.

The point of such metaphors is the expression in symbolic form, using the means of physically built design, to say what is significant about our being in the world, about our inhabitation here, about how we belong in Nature. Since design inherently deals with how we inhabit the context of Nature, Nature shows up for designers as something to be inhabited. But how do we inhabit it? LaVine suggests that design, via technology, ‘need define Nature in a manner that allows people to belong within it physically, emotionally and spiritually’. To design so is to care as much about what Sustainable Design means as how it performs. That is not to say that it should not perform well environmentally; indeed, it should! We cannot also apologize for poor performance simply by making an argument for a rich symbolic connection to Nature. Why not do both? That is a future worth being called toward. If you open to thinking about Sustainable Design metaphorically, then you open yourself to many more possible solutions than those embedded in measurement and quantification. You can then use the tools of performance to get performance from a more significant design solution. These metaphors are intended primarily as generative tools for designers; however, they might also be used to convey or express the ideas embodied in the building. Hopefully, the concepts of matter, Nature and culture and their relationships, as introduced in the preceding discussion of ethics, present a framework for answering many of our questions about the relations between humans and Nature: • Can design express our idea of Nature? • Can it reveal our understanding of our ethical responsibilities toward Nature? • Can design transcend the idea of being a strand in the great web? • Can it express ecosystems as our community? • Can it meaningfully manifest natural process? • Can Sustainable Design teach people about ecosystem principles and order? This is the work of the new generation of Integral Sustainable Designers.

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References Ambasz, Emilio; Alassio, Michele and Buchanan, Peter (2005), Emilio Ambasz Casa de Retiro Espiritual, Skira, Milan Bateson, Gregory (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Jantsch, Erich (1980) The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution, Pergamon Press, New York LaVine, Lance (2001) Mechanics and Meaning in Architecture, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Leopold, Aldo (1949) ‘The Land Ethic‘, in A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River, Ballantine Books, New York Lovejoy, Arthur O. (1964) The Great Chain of Being, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA McDonough, William (1993) ‘Design, Ecology, ethics, and the making of things‘, a centennial sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 7 February, New York Wilber, Ken (2000a) A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality, Shambhala, Boston Wilber, Ken (2000b) Sex, Ecology and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Shambhala, Boston Wilber, Ken (2001) ‘Environmental Ethics and Non-Human Rights,‘ New Renaissance, vol 10, no 3, issue 34, Autumn Yeang, Ken (1995) Designing with Nature: The Ecological Basis for Architectural Design, McGraw-Hill, New York Zimmerman, Michael E. (2004) ‘Integral ecology: A perspectival, developmental, and coordinating approach to environmental problems’, World Futures special issue on Integral Ecology, Hargens, Sean (ed.), vol 61, no 1–2 (Jan to Mar, 2005), pp50–62

5

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Subjective

Objective [UR]

[UL]

Individual

PERSPECTIVE OF EXPERIENCES Shape Form to ENGENDER EXPERIENCE

Collective

Environmental phenomenology Experience of natural cycles, processes, forces Green design aesthetics

I

IT

WE

ITS

[LL]

[LR] Figure 5.1 Experiences perspective issues

This chapter investigates the often-overlooked interior experiences of individuals via an inquiry into the experiences

perspective .

It develops the idea of human

feeling as a dependable shared barometer of quality and ties patterns of experience to patterns of space. Several sources for shared design knowledge about designing for the human experience of Nature are summarized. The chapter ends with a new set of ideas for Sustainable Design aesthetics. Later, in Part II, we will cover another major component of an Integral approach to the interior perspective, that of accounting for individual human developmental stages and the impact of this ‘spiral’ on cultural worldviews and on understanding Sustainable Design variations.

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Hopefully, so far we have established the validity and contribution of the perspectives of behaviors, systems and cultures. There is another perspective, historically important to designers, which in my opinion is not given its due by much of the Sustainable Design world. Sustainable Design most often ignores the experiences

perspective

(UL), having little to say about delight or human

feeling. It has missed out on the way we experience and interpret the built environment as individuals. Contemporary Sustainable Design has little to recommend to us about how psychological types, or our internal makeup, or different types of intelligences, or different levels of ethical development might influence our way of experiencing buildings. Sustainable Design, like the design fields in general, has little formalized, agreed-on aesthetics. Beauty in Sustainable Design is sometimes equated with engineering elegance (UR efficiency of means) or with the patterns of organizing flows of life processes (LR), although this is rarer. More commonly, aesthetics is considered a ‘non-green’ issue, as we saw when examining the criteria of the Whole Building Design Guide.

Figure 5.2 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Molecular Foundry, Berkeley, California; SmithGroup, architects Though the building achieves LEED Gold and several awards, and much of its basic organization is related to solar and lighting goals, its expression and aesthetics are mostly unrelated to its greenness: two simultaneous but only slightly intersecting perspectives

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From the

experiences perspective ,

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Sustainable Design is understood through

the internal experiences of individuals. This perspective is especially interested in: • the phenomenology of Sustainable Design as experienced by occupants; • the human aesthetic response; • the intentions of designers about design and Nature; • the attention of designers on creating rich human experiences of Sustainable Design; • the interior development of the designer that allows understanding and practice of an Integral Sustainable Design.

The Feeling of Sustainable Designs From this perspective, the designer is concerned with how Sustainable Design can be experienced in rich and aesthetic ways by users. Let’s start with the idea that we can experience the phenomena, the objects and events of the world, as they show up in our own awareness. To understand how others might experience the places, spaces and objects, the designer can cultivate his or her own

Figure 5.3 Backyard toilets at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia Even in the places of most utility, experiences abound – patterns of light and shade, the arc of the tree trunks, rich old brick textures, contrasting white mortar and doors, individual steps up – higher than usual

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refined sense perception and the directed attention required to take in the phenomena. The experience of the world ‘just as it is’ often requires significant attention, the quieting of the mind, the relaxation of the restless body and the suspension of interpretations. These are skills taught in the great wisdom traditions of both East and West. Once a designer can fully experience ‘what is so’, the unfiltered experience of sun, wind, light, darkness, shadow, heat and cold, damp and dry, pleasant and unpleasant smells – without judgement – she is present to her true experience ‘as it is’ and, so much as possible, not how it is thought or interpreted to be. This is a beginning point for designing places that facilitate or engender particular experiences for others. It requires regular practice. It requires the discipline of seeing clearly, something that is often introduced in design school via sketching. The practice of drawing is one that reveals much greater detail, pattern and subtlety of experience than casual observation. Through this practice, the sense of sight is heightened. Other senses need other practices.

Patterns of experience Over time, out of this relatively raw, bare experience, patterns of experience emerge in one’s awareness. We see the passage of light, hear the rhythms of sound across the day, perceive the path of the sun in day and season, feel the heat of west walls in the afternoon and their coolness in the morning. We find one pattern of life in the rain and another in dryness. These basic distinctions of experience, which begin in the contrasts of natural forces as felt experiences, are the basis of more complex patterns of our experience of Nature. As the four perspectives co-arise, one cannot fully escape the colouring of language and culture in perception, but one can increasingly witness one’s perceptions and increasingly become aware of the framing that culture gives on that experience. In the Good House: Contrast as a Design Tool, Jacobson, Silverstein and Winslow (1990) describe several basic contrasts that we can perceive in buildings and that can be used in design to facilitate desired experiences: • inside and outside; • exposed and tempered; • up and down; • something and nothing; • light and dark; • order and mystery. One can imagine right away that Nature is present in these contrasts. The purpose of considering these patterns of experiencing contrasts is to ‘go beyond

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Figure 5.4 Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, India; Anant Raje, architect Unconditioned circulation corridor dense with multiple patterns of experiential contrast: inside and outside, exposed and tempered, up and down, light and dark, order and mystery

competence and [satisfy] in deeper ways – aesthetically, emotionally, intellectually, perhaps even spiritually.’ Buildings designed in this way have ‘the capacity to awaken the senses, memories and minds of their occupants and inspire productive energies’ (Jacobson et al, 1990).

Patterns of experience are embedded in patterns of space All of our experience happens somewhere, in some place. All the events of our lives are anchored in space. A wonderful evening with friends happens around the kitchen table. The ritual of greeting and parting happens from the front steps to the porch to the entry hall to the living room and back again. Just as this is so of our social events, it is also true of Nature’s events. The events of good and bad weather, cool breezes and cold winds, are driven in my home landscape by their location in the ‘Great Valley’ of the Tennessee River, in East Tennessee, stretching southwest to northeast and bounded on one side by the Cumberland Plateau with its 1000-foot escarpment and on the other, the 6000-foot Smoky Mountains. Similarly, our patterns of experience

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Figure 5.5 Library alcove at University of Virginia Rotunda, Charlottesville, Virginia; Thomas Jefferson, architect A space almost perfect for the events of a library: soft transitions at the jamb from splayed edges, daylight from two sides, chairs that can move, options for where to sit, book storage to create intimacy. Only the added electric lighting departs from the fit of activity and space.

are grounded in these same natural forces and physical phenomena, which are in turn intimately interconnected with their patterns of space. Recalling our discussion of the

systems perspective ,

we see again that form and process are

intertwined. To this we add that the process of experience is grounded in form and place.

Feelings distinguished from emotions The designer can ask, ‘What patterns of space give rise to the best patterns of experiences?’ In particular, the Integral Sustainable Designer asks, ‘What patterns of space can engender rich human experiences of Nature?’ In considering what are the best patterns of experience, we can distinguish between feelings and emotions. Feeling is how we directly experience a phenomenon: the January snow in Minneapolis is cold; the July sun in Phoenix is hot. Emotion is an affective state of consciousness, such as joy, sorrow, fear, hate, like and dislike, and so on: ‘I love the cold or I hate it; I feel happy in the heat or miserable in the heat.’ Theories disagree as to whether thought intervenes between feeling and emotion. Often the jump in our awareness is experienced as instantaneous. However, the contemplative practices of many wisdom traditions and the findings of contemporary psychology suggest that the process may be uncollapsed,

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Figure 5.6 Siddi Sayed Mosque, Ahmedabad, India Patterns of space giving rise to experiences of Nature. The retreat of the shade is made more powerful by the intensity of the sunny forecourt, yet the beauty of the intense light can be appreciated through the elegant carved stone trees-of-life screen below the arches in the back wall. The ritual washing of one’s feet is followed by the experience of hot, unshaded stone paving and then by the cool shaded stone floor.

giving a gap between feeling and thoughts about it and between interpretive thoughts and emotional response. If one is careful in self-observation, one often if not always notices that a judgement is involved preceding an emotion. At least this is true in the early formation of these patterns of response, before they become automatic grooves of psychological habit. One may fairly ask, ‘Why is this important?’ As a designer if you can have relatively pure, direct experiences separate from personalized judgements, then you are well positioned to be able to create experiences of Nature for others. To experience ‘good’ patterns of experience, particularly in ways that will be more universal and more significant to a wider range of people, it is useful to witness our automatic responses: ‘Hot sun is bad. Keep it away and get me to the air conditioning!’ Instead, we begin with, ‘Heat is like this; perspiration is like this; shade is like this; breeze in the shade is like this.’ When viewed from a breezy, shady place, heat is actually beautiful. Hot becomes much more relative ‘… cooler here than there, cooler now than before, not so bad …’, or even, ‘What a gift is this breeze!’

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Feeling as a tool of discernment Christopher Alexander, in The Nature of Order, argues that human feeling is the key to determining what is good and bad space, in particular what is alive or dead, whole or fragmented, life affirming or unhealthy (Alexander, 2001). Sustainable Design is concerned with making alive, whole, life-affirming places for many species. This perspective offers us access to a wholly different means of making Sustainable Design decisions. The kind of feeling he refers to is a deep sense of well-being, of when we are most truly alive and whole ourselves. His experiments suggest the agreement amongst the majority of people on comparisons between options that are judged to have more or less ‘life’ as sensed by an inner resonance between the self and the space or object. In other words, it appears that by paying very close attention to their inner states of consciousness people can both ascertain and largely agree on the existence of design quality and its characteristics. If true, is not that profound? Alexander goes to great lengths to show the possibility of our ability to be objective about human subjective experience.

Figure 5.7 Management Development Centre, Ahmedabad, India; Anant Raje, architect Even without being occupied by people, this space of open circulation and courtyard is alive with feeling. To be there is to feel calm and unself-consciously at home, yet alive and resonating with the place. Somehow the order of the place brings forth order in the person.

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Design Patterns for Experience Agreement about the feeling of forms Alexander’s approach in The Nature of Order is in part an updating and variation on the underlying methods used to document the patterns in his classic, A Pattern Language (Alexander et al, 1977). In the contemporary world of design, experience is often dismissed as mere opinion: ‘My experience is different from yours, and they are both OK, but since we don’t always agree, there is nothing to be learned.’ Instead, consider the pattern of a sheltering roof, in which the basis of the problem is described as:

The roof plays a primal role in our lives. The most primitive buildings are nothing but a roof. If the roof is hidden, if its presence cannot be felt around the building, or if it cannot be used, then people will lack a fundamental sense of shelter.  (Alexander et al, 1977, p570)

For the Sustainable Designer, the challenge is to experience Nature and its patterns so that one may use this personal wisdom as a way to design spaces for others to experience Nature.

I have asked class after class of architecture students, demonstrating with my hands, ‘Which feels more sheltering, a roof like this [hands folded to make a gabled roof shape] or one like this [hands flat to make a flat roof]?’ Then, I ask them, ‘And does this roof [flat] or this one [butterfly shape] feel more sheltering? In 100 per cent of cases, 100 per cent of students in the class have agreed that the gable roof feels more sheltering than the flat roof, which feels more sheltering than the butterfly roof. This suggests a wide agreement even across cultures. Chinese, German, Nigerian and Venezuelan students answer the same. 18 year olds answer the same as 40 year olds. It appears that at some archetypal level, we are hardwired the same. Since our bodies and psychological natures have evolved for millions of years, we are perhaps more alike than different. I assert that this truth resides in the deep, archaic, mythic and archetypal realms where phenomena occur in similar ways for all of us. Similarly, there are variations among cultures and regions as to the interpretations of phenomena; but even there within a particular culture, we often find vast agreement about what is experienced as good or desirable.

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Figure 5.8 First Church of Christ Scientists, Bernard Maybeck, architect

Figure 5.9 Magney House, New South Wales, Australia, 1982 Glenn Murcutt, architect Which roof feels more sheltering? The majority of people say that the room above creates a feeling of greater shelter. Both have large walls of glass. The room in the bottom image may feel more open or more connected to the sky or more Modern, but not more sheltering.

The interlocking patterns of space and experience In that spirit, we can look for the connections between patterns of experience, about which we must make some orienting generalizations, and the patterns of space that support those experiences. For example, consider the following list of patterns from A Pattern Language and see if each one does not evoke, even in its mere naming, an experience of Nature or its forces: Green Streets

Common Land

High Places

Still Water

Accessible Green

Animals

Pools and Streams

Site Repair

Exploring Deeper into the Experiences Perspective

South-Facing Outdoors

Gallery Surround

Wings of Light

Connection to the Earth

Half-Hidden Garden

Terraced Slope

Hierarchy of Open Space

Tree Places

Courtyards Which Live

Garden Growing Wild

Sheltering Roof

Window Place

Roof Gardens

Sunny Counter

Arcades

Low Sill

Indoor Sunlight

Deep Reveals

Zen View

Roof Caps

Tapestry of Light And Dark

Dormer Windows

Light on Two Sides of Every Room

Filtered Light

Sunny Place

Small Panes

Outdoor Room

Pools of Light

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Street Windows Even without defining these, you can see that space is connected to experience, particularly the experience of sun, light, breeze, shade, plants, ground and so on, and that these are directly connected to a context of space. The challenge of the UL

experiences perspective

is to orchestrate space for experiences.

Design for separation or connection? Contrast this to the characteristics of many Modern and Postmodern buildings (which by and large use modern technology). Contemporary buildings often have the effect of isolating people from Nature via a separating kind of architecture. This separation is often characterized by: • Air conditioning that makes a constant, invariable temperature all year round. Businessmen in Atlanta and Miami can wear three-piece wool suits in August. • Sealed envelopes with inoperable windows cut off the possibility of feeling the breeze or hearing the birds or smelling the blooming flowers. • Thick floor plans, the result of reliance on fluorescent lights, create vast distances between occupants and windows. Daylighting becomes impossible and electric lights are required all the time. Light is available in all places at all times in the desired intensity. In such buildings, Nature is what is seen through the tinted glass facade. Charles Correa, the famous Indian architect, once said in a lecture I heard him give at Washington University that the difference between Indian buildings and North American buildings was that in North America the wall is a separator,

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Figure 5.10 Courtyard at the British Consul, New Delhi, India, Charles Correa, architect In Indian architecture, there are many ways to inhabit the edge of a building in a more fluid and connected relationship between inside and out: balcony, buffer zone, terrace, outdoor room, courtyard

a hard line where you are either inside or outside, while in India, the edge of buildings is a deeper, inhabited, more ambiguous zone of layers designed to connect inside and outside to varying degrees.

Shared design knowledge Each design discipline has its sources for shared knowledge. Knowledge of how to design great experiences of Nature and natural rhythms abounds. In Sarah Susanka’s book, Home By Design (Susanka, 2004), she outlines many design principles, some focused on experience: • layering: framed openings, openings in series, connecting pass-throughs, arcades and sliding partitions; • inside-outside: continuous surfaces, almost frameless windows, an outdoor focus and outdoor rooms; • openability: sliding doors, sliding screens, sliding panels and movable window walls;

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Figure 5.11 Entry, Johnson House, Inverness, California, 1999; JSW/D, architects An entry demonstrating several patterns, including ‘places in-between’ and ‘creating rooms inside and out’

• light to walk towards: light at the end of the tunnel, window at the end of a hallway and window at the end of a main axis; • light intensity variations: layers of light and shade, light defines form, indented window and brilliance in a dark place; • view and non-view: light but not view, one-way view, art glass focus and small panes. Similarly, in Patterns of Home, many of the patterns deal directly with the relationship between space and the human experience of Nature (Jacobson et al, 2002): • Inhabiting the Site; • Creating Rooms, Outside and In; • Sheltering Roof; • Capturing Light; • Private Edges, Common Core; • Refuge and Outlook. In a slightly different language focused on types (meaning a replicable spatial form in a regular situation), Malnar and Vodvarka describe spatio-sensory types

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as reflecting the ‘collective unconscious in a peculiar format that is perceptible in both cognitive and sensory terms’ (Malnar and Vodvarka, 2004). They connect individual sensory experience to shared archetypal patterns of the human psyche. In this view, ‘typology depends on sensation – both in the perception of the type and in verification of its authenticity’.

Sustainable Design Aesthetics Aesthetics is a major area of attention for designers operating from the experi ences perspective

(UL). Of course, experience is at the root of aesthetic explana-

tions. Aesthetic experience is a response to conditions of beauty. Aesthetics as a study of philosophy is an attempt to explain the human aesthetic experience. The sustainable designer might ask: What if anything is different about aesthetics for Sustainable Design?

Increasing complexity of aesthetic perceptions In thinking about Sustainable Design aesthetics both logically and experientially, I have generated a working hypothesis that I submit for your consideration. What follows is a proposition for a progression of increasing inclusiveness, that is, stages of Sustainable Design aesthetics. Each new level requires the increasing integration of understandings and representations of phenomena from different sources and from extensions of the senses via the application of certain tools. As an integration of Sustainable Design aesthetics through the lens of Integral Theory, consider these five levels of increasing complexity and inclusiveness.

Visual aesthetics This refers to the aesthetics of visual experience and order, often referred to as formal aesthetics because the objects of consideration always show up as objective form. From this aesthetic perception emerge the formal compositional principles of colour, unity, balance, variety and repetition, proportion and so on. This notion of beauty tends to be static: a tree, plaza or building is experienced as a fixed object to view. Most people consider Nature visually beautiful. A sustainable building that is also visually beautiful can open people to its other green benefits. Sustainable Design can also become a foil or a frame for a way to present the visual power of Nature.

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Phenomenological aesthetics This refers to the experiential side of process; that is, what is considered beautiful is not confined to only what something looks like, but also is constituted by how we experience something with our whole being in multiple senses, such as the aesthetic experience of riding a bicycle. The bicycle is a beautiful experience not merely as a visual object of art hanging on the wall (although it may be that, too) but because it connects us to the subtleties of air and terrain, changes our perception of time and space and creates the opportunity for the pleasure of movement. This notion of beauty can be dynamic and includes time and change. A phenomenological aesthetic does not reject visual aesthetics; it includes the visual as one important means of perception. A Sustainable Design can be experienced with all the senses. It is possible for the designer to create form with the intention of bringing users into a rich full-body experience of Nature.

Process aesthetics This refers to the recognition of the ‘patterns that connect’, the elegant fitness and interplay between form and process. Something can be beautiful if it reveals a process and if the patterns of space help resolve the inner forces present in its contextual situation. The aesthetic experience of a great meal is more than the taste of the food; it is the entire ritual set in a particular place. Process is also the order of change. This notion of beauty is always dynamic. A process aesthetic includes phenomenological experience as one type of process but transcends it by expanding to many others. A Sustainable Design in this view gives people a beautiful experience of Nature through highlighting the elegance of its processes. A Sustainable Design may also forward the interaction of these processes with the patterns of space in the design, revealing the beauty of their connections.

Ecological aesthetics This refers to appreciation for the beauty of things whose patterns create ecological health and are thus aligned to ecological principles and order. How can something be called beautiful if it destroys our living systems? Like process aesthetics, this requires a certain level of ecological awareness from the perceiver (or designer) to even have the perception that yields the aesthetic experience. This notion of beauty is complex and systemic. One can find beauty in the perception of the web of life and in the relationships of human constructions to it. One can see a beauty to the network structure of processes in a Sustainable Design.

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Figure 5.12 Visual aesthetics: Scotch Elm at Washington University. Beauty in form, colour, tone, structure and repetition.

Figure 5.13 Phenomenological aesthetics: Riding the bicycle. Beauty experienced through multiple senses, through time, including movement in space.

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Figure 5.14 Process aesthetics: AIA North Carolina HQ competition, Matt Hall and Shane Elliott, OBSTRUCUTURES, architects The processes of food, water and shade revealed elegantly in a rainwater-irrigated, operable, user-interactive, symbolic, responsive ‘food wall’ facade

Consider that an ecologically sophisticated Sustainable Design makes a place that is a whole living system. Such living systems organize many processes: water, food, information, energy, human activity, the habitats of other species, etc. For this reason an ecological aesthetic transcends and includes process aesthetics. Ecological aesthetics can be thought of as one type of contextual aesthetics focused on our perception of the elegance of ecological contexts and the beauty of their relationships to the sustainably designed patterns. Said another way, ecological aesthetics is the perceived beauty and appreciation of the degree to which Nature and societal products are integrated at the biospheric level as one system. The same physical facts might be observed in a visual aesthetic perception, but depending on the type of prior knowledge and conceptual framework, these experiences (taken in at the level of feeling) may show up in potentially very different ways. I once took a walk in the St. Louis Arboretum with a knowledgeable landscape architect. He pointed out various ecological communities, from sunny rocky glades to seasonal wetlands. He could identify plant communities and associations and their relationships to slope, solar aspect, soil, moisture, underlying geology and on and on. He was able to reveal patterns that my eyes could take in but my mind could not before interpret (and new patterns I could not even see). Emerson called this the ‘instructed eye’: the more we know, the more we can appreciate. In doing so, the landscape architect revealed an order and a beauty that is clearly an ecological aesthetic. A sophisticated Sustainable Design might aspire to such a revelation of beauty in and via design.

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Figure 5.15 Ecological aesthetics: Lagoon Park, living at the edge of wilderness, Santa Barbara, California; Van Atta landscape architects ‘Created wetland habitats, an inviting place for students and a system that filters and cleans runoff – all have been incorporated into a site that was once a gravel parking lot.’

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Evolutionary aesthetics This refers to the perception of the order of process. Something can be considered beautiful if it reveals how it changes and evolves over time, especially toward greater integration, order and complexity. It is in one sense a very indirect perception, one almost entirely detached from the senses and yet, in another sense, very direct because the same phenomena are taken in by the organs of perception. What is required is memory and a long-term perspective. The term evolutionary is used here in a loose way to mean change over long periods of time (not limited to the more restricted definition as the genetic change of biological evolution). Carl Steinitz, the Harvard landscape planner, once lectured that to truly know a place, a designer should live there for at least 20 years. He was talking about taking in a long view of how the landscape (as a mosaic of ecosystems) patterns and processes change over decades and centuries. It requires the tools of natural and cultural historians and the extensions of the senses with aerial photos and satellite multi-spectral imagery. This notion of beauty is highly intellectual and abstract. However, evolutionary aesthetics still transcends and includes ecological aesthetics.

The aesthetic perspective on multiple perspectives

An Integral view will come to terms with the multiple aesthetic perceptions of the same designed object. Jusuck Koh discusses some of the distinctions between formal, phenomenological and ecological aesthetics in his article, ‘An Ecological Aesthetic’ (Koh, 1988). Koh’s article is significant for its time. However, he tends at times to collapse the UL experiences

perspective

into the LR systems

perspective .

He seeks a synthesis of

aesthetics and ecological thought in a ‘general theory of creativity’. For Integral Sustainable Design, however, the domains of these distinct perspectives have an irreducible character. The Integral Sustainable Designer endeavours to consider the aesthetics of phenomena as they also appear or are disclosed by individuals’ experiences (UL experiences ) and from the other major perspectives (behaviours , systems , cultures ).

An Integral view of aesthetics will honor and integrate the multiple aesthetic perceptions of the same designed object. For example, consider the following many views of a bridge:

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• The average citizen can look at a bridge and appreciate the beauty of the line of the arch, the rhythm of its elements and its contrast with the horizontal line of the river and the organic shape of the surrounding terrain. • If we consider a bridge from an engineer’s aesthetic perception, we will see the elegance of the efficient relationship between the forces at work and the form of the bridge. • If we look at the bridge from the view of a systems thinker, we can see the elegance of the bridge as an element in the larger system of traffic and circulation carrying people, vehicles, goods, etc. We may also then see the way it creates a primary axis in the city around which urban life is organized. • At the same time, its form can also be appreciated as an expression of the materials, technologies and aesthetics of its particular place in the cultural history of that city. It can be seen as a beautiful and efficient connector of two subcultures on either side of a gorge or as a bottleneck that limits their connection.

Aesthetics as a potential line of human development Abigail Housen’s Harvard doctoral dissertation research reveals five stages of aesthetic development. The significance of this is that it appears true that aesthetic appreciation, at least with regard to the kind of art viewed in museums, develops in individuals in a stage-wise fashion in a particular sequence, described briefly as follows (Housen, 1983). • Stage I, Accountive Viewer: ‘Lacking a framework upon which to organize his responses to works of art, the Accountive viewer relies on sense perceptions of the subject matter as his guide to the work’s meaning.’ • Stage II, Constructive Viewer: Uses sense perceptions and memory, but also makes reference to ‘rudimentary aesthetic traditions, principles and values.’ The goal is to construct a framework for viewing art. • Stage III, Classifying Viewer: ‘Looking for clues which reveal the art work’s messages, the viewer tries to decode the structure of patterns within the work.’ This is a diagnostic, active, abstracting, analytical approach. • Stage IV, Interpretive Viewer: ‘Focusing on the expressive aspect of the work, he accepts and tries to cultivate his intuitive reading of the work.’ Stage IV is an individualized quest characterized by a resurgence of emotional sensual response. • Stage V, Recreative Viewer: ‘The standards, rules, theories he has learned in the past, he realizes must be willingly transcended as the artist himself

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transformed or transcended, even violated those rules.’ The Recreative Viewer searches for embedded meanings; becomes interested in visual play, ambiguities, paradoxes; and plays with suggestions possibilities and multiple interpretations.

Aesthetic Levels for Sustainable Design Housen notes that the sequencing of stages continues though adulthood and is correlated with age and degree of previous aesthetic exposure. There is a progression from egocentric understanding to a rule-based ‘ethnocentric’ perspective to multi-levelled and multi-perspectival aesthetics. We cannot now say with certainty from an empirical perspective that the succession of more inclusive aesthetic views proposed earlier in this chapter (Visual Aesthetics to Phenomenological Aesthetics to Process Aesthetics to Ecological Aesthetics to Evolutionary Aesthetics) is in fact developmental. Housen’s evidence does suggest, however, that artistic production communicates to different levels of seeing, aesthetic response and meaning making. A child at Housen’s Stage 1 and an educated landscape architect at stage 5 experience the aesthetics of a sustainable landscape in very different ways. The implication for the Integral Sustainable Designer is found in the question:

How can we design for a variety of different aesthetic experiences for an audience interested in or capable of vastly different aesthetic perceptions? In Part II of this book, we will look deeper into the ideas of levels and lines in human development and how development of our worldview impacts our design perspective, including aesthetics and perception. For now, I offer the following propositional framework of four levels of Sustainable Design aesthetics, based on four levels of contemporary worldview/values/cognitive structures that we will explain in greater detail later. From many years of observation, experience and contemplation, it appears to me that as other self-related lines develop, an individual also shifts from one way of appreciating design to another.

Level 1: Traditional aesthetics of Sustainable Design • rule, tradition and code-based systems manifesting long-term experiments of a culture; • visual and phenomenological aesthetics; • vernacular and regional form languages; • experiencing ‘Nature as tangible transactions’; • visible responses to natural force;

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Figure 5.16 Traditional aesthetics of Sustainable Design: Solar Farmhouse, Fox, Arkansas, designed and built by Gary Coates and Kansas State Architecture Students Vernacular dogtrot meets atrium and solar greenhouse in a Traditional farmhouse language. Ventilation via windows, shading via overhangs, etc. For more information, see Dowden et al, 1987

• evidence of tools shaping designed elements in response to natural forces; • design for primal, archetypal and emotional responses to natural forces; • experiencing Sustainable Design and natural beauty as mysterious and wonderful.

Level 2: Mental aesthetics of Sustainable Design • transcending and including the traditional

level ;

• uses abstractions of the Modern mind as aesthetic principles and formal language; • designing for force/process appreciation and experience; • eco-minimalism as the expression of essentialness and efficiency; • experiencing visible patterns of process; form-active structures; • the beauty of design as built mental abstractions of Nature; • conscious experience of multi-sensory, multi-variable designed environments, microclimates, gardens, etc.; • transfer of form languages and responses from one region to a similar bioclimatic region; • experiencing Sustainable Design and natural beauty as full of design order.

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Figure 5.17 Mental aesthetics of Sustainable Design: Loblolly House, Taylors Island, Maryland; KieranTimberlake Associates, architects ‘The west wall is an adjustable glazed system with two layers: interior accordion-style folding glass doors and exterior polycarbonate-clad hangar doors that provide an adjustable awning as well as weather and storm protection.’

Level 3: Pluralist aesthetics of Sustainable Design • transcending and including the mental level; • informed by multiple aesthetic theories from multiple cultural traditions; • appreciating ecological process; • the beauty of design as multiple readings of Nature, including once again the emotional; • high tolerance for formal ambiguity and paradox; • translation of ecological technology to artistic expression; • emphasis on aesthetic fitness to ecological context; • attention to offering the perception of the design’s interaction with natural process and to perceiving the patterns of context;

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Figure 5.18 Pluralist aesthetics of Sustainable Design: Blue Ridge Parkway Destination Center, Asheville, North Carolina; Lord, Aeck & Sargent, architects ‘Nestled into a hill, the building evokes a ‘tree-house’ atmosphere that allows the visitor to experience the majestic views …’ Wood, steel and concrete elements; Modernist eco-facade and more Traditional, vernacular-related, pitched, wooden, exposed beam ceilings with green roof

• unafraid of making visible the tensions between beauty and non-beauty, between a beautiful healthfully designed process and a process at odds with Nature; • experiencing Sustainable Design and natural beauty as the result of optional constructed perspectives.

Level 4: Integral aesthetics of Sustainable Design • transcending and including the pluralist level; • aware of multiple levels of aesthetics; • uses different aesthetic ideas and compositions as appropriate to the situation; • appreciating ecological and evolutionary patterns; • reveals holarchic structure; • the beauty of design as the integration of multiple aesthetic levels of perceiving Nature; • the beauty of a multi-perspective, integrated, ‘polyphonic’ perception of design; • more life-affirming and fuller of life is more beautiful;

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Figure 5.19 Integral aesthetics of Sustainable Design: Rudolph Steiner Seminariet, Järna, Sweden; Erik Asmussen, architect A large building complex whose aesthetic cannot be comprehended from single images. ‘A functional and organically expressive form language, which evokes an experience of aliveness and a sense of participation in the forms and processes of the natural world' (Coates, 1997). Integral aesthetics expresses perceptions from multiple quadrants and is intended to create healing or high-state experiences. For an exquisite exploration of Asmussen’s work, see Erik Asmussen, Architect (Coates, 1997).

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

• Sustainable Design aesthetic experience as an entry point to the sublime and for potential individual Transpersonal experiences of Nature; • aesthetic perceptions as self-aware states of consciousness; • beauty of Sustainable Design as a transformational opportunity; • experiencing Sustainable Design and natural beauty as an expression of the maker’s embedded consciousness in the work. None of these aesthetic levels is inherently better or worse than the others. Each one has its appropriateness. aesthetic levels.

level 2

level 1

is foundational and is included in all other

is included in level

able designers operating at levels

1–3

3

and so on. Unfortunately, sustain-

are not often aware of levels above their

centres of perception. Mental level (think Modernist) aesthetic practitioners can usually not understand or appreciate the Pluralist Level aesthetics. Pluralists (which goes along with Postmodern thinking) also typically reject the abstraction of the Modern mentalists and their tendency to rational reductionism. Most often, until we get to

level 4 ,

a higher level rejects a lower level’s claims

to authenticity and value while a lower level cannot see or imagine a higher level. Only from level

4 integral

awareness of aesthetics can the developmental

process be seen and appreciated and the dignities of each aesthetic level be included. For Integral Sustainable Design there are many ways to express and to construct experiences of ‘design with Nature’.

Summary for Experiences Perspective Responsible environmental action flows most freely from affection, which of itself requires an engaged relationship. In summary, in thinking about the experiences

perspective , we are concerned with

the interior experiences and intentions of designers and with the experiences of the occupants of a sustainable design. We are interested in how Sustainable Design occurs from the experiential perspective. To return to an earlier theme, Sustainable Design as a UR spective ,

and even as a ‘holistic’ LR

the left-hand perspectives of

systems perspective ,

experiences

and

cultures .

behaviours per -

so far tend to leave out If we want Sustainable

Design to be more effective, sustainable designers might want to intentionally address the fundamental reality and richness of our human interior experiences. Essentially, if the public is to love sustainably designed environments, by necessity we as designers will have to create loveable places! This means we may choose to design rich full-person experiences, including a range of aesthetic experiences of the Sustainable Design itself. I believe that it is a universal principle that responsible environmental action flows most freely from affection, which of itself requires an engaged relationship.

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127

The design disciplines are Integral fields by their nature, so I am not saying that design, as an entire discipline, does not cover the four perspectives; it obviously does. There are particular projects (Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, MLTW’s Sea Ranch, the Anton Albert’s NMB Bank), particular architects (James Wines, Charles Correa, Ken Yeang) and particular movements (Peter Calthorpe’s version of New Urbanism, Lake/Flato’s neo-vernacular regionalism) which have made great progress in integrating them. I am saying that, in general, Sustainable Design as we generally think of it suffers and, indeed, is held back from achieving its full potential because of its tendency to ignore human interiors. It is time for a mature Integral Sustainable Design to fully engage: • the human experience of Nature; • the subtleties and richness of human feeling in space and place; • the intelligent and informed ordering of spatial patterns to engender experiential patterns; • the inclusion in subjective aesthetic response of both individual variation and the deep structures of collective response. Finally, it is also time for the cultivation of a highly developed theory and practice of Integral Sustainable Design aesthetics that is developmental and multi-perspectival.

References Alexander, Christopher; Ishikawa, Sara and Silverstein, Murray (1977) A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Oxford University Press, New York Alexander, Christopher (2001) The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, 4 vols, Oxford University Press, New York Coates, Gary J. (1997) Erik Asmussen Architect, Byggförlaget, Stockholm Dowden, Steve; Koehm, Stan; Pierce, Doug and Rantis, Daryl (1987) ‘Homework in the Ozarks: Four architecture students design and build a solar farmhouse’, Fine Homebuilding, vol 37, pp70–75 Housen, Abigail (1983) ‘The eye of the beholder: Measuring aesthetic development’, doctoral dissertation, EdD, Harvard University, University Microfilms, Int., Ann Arbor Jacobson, Max; Silverstein, Murray and Winslow, Barbara (1990) The Good House: Contrast as a Design Tool, Taunton Press, Newtown, CT Jacobson, Max; Silverstein, Murray and Winslow, Barbara (2002) Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design, Taunton Press, Newtown, CT Koh, Jusuck (1988) ‘An ecological aesthetic’, Landscape Journal, vol 7, no 2, pp177–191 Malnar, Joy Monice and Vodvarka, Frank (2004) Sensory Design, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Susanka, Sarah (2004) Home by Design: Transforming Your House into Home, Taunton Press, Newtown, CT

Part I Conclusion

The proposition we have been exploring is that sustainable designers are well served to take an Integral perspective. This Integral Sustainable Design honors the contributions of all the major approaches to Sustainable Design. It asks us to expand beyond – yet not lose – the partial truths of measuring performance and mapping relationships. In this regard, we can each become more than who we think we are. We are not, of course, our positions or perspectives or our thoughts. We are the one who witnesses our position, the one who takes the perspective, the one who watches the thoughts. By calling forth in us new capacities for awareness, Integral Sustainable Design has the potential to develop the designer, and more developed designers can do greater good.

Reducing the world to objective realities only stifles the emergence of the very awareness required to design ecologically.

We are now witnessing the convergence of more than one perspective in many works of contemporary Sustainable Design. This convergence, of high performance with beautiful aesthetics or ecologically sustainable designs with telling the story in a culturally significant way, is indicative of the kind of synthesis that is a first step on the path to of fully Integral awareness in design. Each perspective is characterized and defined by its own distinct, unique methods that cannot be collapsed into any of the methods of the other perspectives. Each of these distinct methods discloses design in a different way. When the designer takes up the methods of unfamiliar perspectives, a transformational view ensues and the designer sees a new world of Nature and of design. The

Part I Conclusion

129

world that shows up by inhabiting the four perspectives simultaneously, and inhabiting them in one human being, is a new and different world which is as different as the shift from Traditional to Modern perception. The ability to use all four lenses at once opens a world heretofore unforeseen to the sustainable designer, a world transformed by a kind of super-sight, if you will. Being able to draw on all these perspectives has the possibility of giving us designs that are radically more effective, more beautiful, more meaningful, more fit to context, more just to all living things, more in alignment with our highest intentions – more Integral Sustainable Design solutions. Sustainable Design has come a long way already. Yet as commonly known and practiced, it remains insufficient to solve most of the problems that it identifies. The real strengths of contemporary Sustainable Design are in its quantitative methods and its recent understanding of how to design with Nature by using ecosystems as a model. Sustainable Design falls short when it ignores human interiors, both individual experiences and cultural meaning. These are domains of design that the sustainable designer can now choose to intentionally address. By paying attention to human interiors as much as ecological exteriors we bring to the forefront the role of the developing awareness of the Integral Sustainable Designer. By engaging others in experiences of Nature through our Sustainable Designs we also engage them in the prerequisite knowledge for having dialogues about Sustainable Design. Emerging from a million conversations about Nature and our place in it, our shared stories and meanings of Sustainable Design come alive. In such a context of meaning, collective action to support Nature can spontaneously manifest. For me, the value of looking at design through an Integral lens has been that it has allowed me to glimpse areas of expertise that others have developed more than I have and to finally be able to honor them and include their valuable perspectives in my own work. As a result, it has also opened my eyes to the fact that the perspective that I have had been steeped in for the last 25 years is also only partially true! Telling the whole story involves listening to and from others’ perspectives: cultural, individual, ecological as well as technical. Then each viewpoint takes its valuable and appropriate place in a wider perspective where nothing is missing – rich human experiences, significant cultural meaning, high technological performance and true ecological sense merge into something much richer, truer and ultimately more aesthetically pleasing. Welcome to the future of design!

Part Two Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design: The Four Contemporary Structures

Introduction to Part II It is the premise of Part II that the world views, values and cognition of individuals – including designers – develop through known stages of increasing complexity as mapped by developmental researchers. I assert that the designs produced by these varying developments of consciousness can be seen in the character of the work. The distinctions offered by human developmental levels can give us access to a new and powerful way of seeing Sustainable Design. The developmental view opens up a world where we can design free from the narrowness of a single point of view on design values that we may have taken to be ‘the truth’ in the past. From an expanded world, we can communicate and collaborate more effectively with other points of view, moving forward our individual and collective contributions to the planet. In Part II you will deepen your understanding of developmental levels in each of the four foundational perspectives and learn more about how looking from different levels impacts our understanding of: • the view of the designer on Sustainable Design (UL); • the empirical world of matter, energy, and life that buildings occupy (UR); • how we create meaning around building in relationship to our view of Nature (LL); • patterns of natural systems and ecological order (LR).

Environmental arguments often fall on deaf ears if the level of the message is not tuned to the level of the listening of the intended audience.

Strictly considered, levels of consciousness are internal to each individual and therefore constitute an aspect of what we have called the perspective ences

of experi -

(UL). We will use this Upper Left perspective to understand more deeply

the levels of the sustainable designer him or herself, their correlated understandings of Nature, and how this understanding impacts the manifestations of Sustainable Design in other quadrants. Sustainable Design, when viewed through the Integral lens, arises from the interplay among levels of self and one’s experiences (UL: I), the level of a culture within which the individual is situated (LL: WE), and the correlated level of complexity of the built and natural environment (UR: IT; LR: ITS). Environmental arguments often fall on deaf ears if the level of the message is not tuned to the level of the listening of the intended audience. Just as individuals and groups can view the world primarily from one of the four

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Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

Figure II.1 (a) Traditional: Saline Royale (Royal Saltworks) at Arc-et-Senans, France, Claude-Nicolas, architect, 1775

(b) Modern: Farnsworth House. Plano, Illinois, Mies van der Rohe, architect 1951

(c) Postmodern: Ghery Residence, Santa Monica, CA, Frank Ghery, architect, 1975

(d) Integral: Markia-Alderton House, Northern Territory, Australia, Glenn Murcutt, architect,1994

Introduction [UL] EXPERIENCES

135

BEHAVIOURS [UR]

L4

L4 L3

L3 L2

L2 L1

L1

L1 L2

L1 L2

L3 L4 [LL] CULTURES

L3 L4 SYSTEMS [LR]

Figure II.2 Sustainable Design as the interplay of levels in each quadrant

foundational perspectives, the same individuals and groups may themselves operate from a primary level of development. Identifying and working with this new understanding of levels gives us a powerful tool for improving communication and creating alignment on important Sustainable Design solutions. Misunderstanding – or missing entirely – the nature of developmental levels has limited the environmental conversation forwarded by environmentalists as much as ignoring the left-hand perspectives of experiences and cultures has done. By considering development in the left-hand quadrant perspectives (see Figure II.3 for a reminder of the SD quadrants), Sustainable Design gains: • tools for enhancing occupant understanding of the natural systems in which the building participates; • a way to design consciously from or for a given level of development; • methods for creating an environment that facilitates human development; • a clear language of concepts for communicating the cultural significance of Nature or celebrating its engagement via the built environment. Simultaneously, there is a significant gap between what we know about how to design, build and operate sustainable buildings and what we actually do as a profession. That abyss is even larger for the contemporary vernacular building culture, that majority of buildings not designed by professionals. Each designer already knows 10, 50 or 100 things that she could do to green her practice. Our

136

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

problem (and I say this as someone who creates right-side empirically based green design tools) is not how to make buildings or even cities more sustainable. We already, within the design professions, know 80–90 per cent of how to ‘design with Nature’. And yet – despite dozens of energy modelling programs, hundreds of books, thousands of journal articles, a cornucopia of codes, EPA regulations, and ASHRAE and ASTM standards, incentive programmes, sustainability indicators, green rating systems, etc. – we are worse off as a planet and as a society on almost every major indicator of environmental quality than 30 years ago. And buildings still constitute about 30–50 per cent of most environmental problems. (See Figure II.4.) Each level as it emerges begins to ‘carve a groove’ in our cultural landscape. The longer a level of design awareness is in existence, the deeper, more defined, and more predictable that pattern becomes. If we know how to do Sustainable Design, why is there a gap between that knowledge and the collective will to apply it? The answer lies in Sustainable Design’s tendency to reject the domain of individual interiors and, therefore, the absence of an understanding of human consciousness as a hierarchical, developmental process (UL quadrant). As good politically correct plural relativists, most academics and a significant fraction of progressive designers dislike all rankings of values, ethics and intelligence. We especially are averse to rankings

Subjective

Objective

PERSPECTIVE OF EXPERIENCES

PERSPECTIVE OF BEHAVIOURS

Shape Form to

Shape Form to M A X I M I Z E PERFORMANCE

Individual

[UL]

[UR]

ENGENDER EXPERIENCE Environmental phenomenology Experience of natural cycles, processes, forces Green design aesthetics

I

Energy, water, materials efficiency Zero energy & emissions bldgs LEED rating system High performance buildings

IT

Collective

WE ITS

Figure II.3 The four Sustainable Design perspectives

PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURES

PERSPECTIVE OF SYSTEMS

Shape Form to MANIFEST MEANING

Shape Form to

Relationships to nature Green design ethics Green building cultures Myths & rituals [LL]

G U I D E FLOW Fitness to site & context Ecoeffective functionalism Bldgs as ecosystems Living buildings [LR]

Introduction

137

of people; progressive design thinking does not commonly differentiate between degrees of development in adults. Green thinkers are often grounded in the

systems perspective

and assume that better choices flow directly from

better information. Using a developmental view, however, we assume that better choices arise from the ongoing transformation of human beings capable of wider awareness and deeper levels of care. The mental tool of levels is a lens through which to examine our own development as designers, and to perceive the contributions of all the other stakeholders in Sustainable Design. Understanding levels gives us access to the values and orientations, skills, language and motivations of others and ourselves.

Building Operations 75% (30.2 QBtu)

Building Construction and Building Materials 8% (3.3 QBtu)

Figure II.4 US electricity consumption by sector Source: Architecture 2030

Industry 16% (6.5 QBtu)

Transportation < 1 % (0.1 QBtu)

6

Temperature in degrees centigrade (compared with 1960-1990 baseline) Atmospheric carbon dioxide (C02 in parts per million)

4

2

C02 (ppm)

300 0

-2 250 -4

-6

200

Temperature (difference)

350

-8

-10

150

450000

400000

350000

300000

250000

200000

150000

Years Before Present

100000

50000

0

Figure II.5 Contributing almost half of the world’s CO2 emissions, and, noting the interconnected relationship between temperature and CO2 levels, buildings are a major driver of global climate changes currently taking place Source: Architecture 2030

6

Levels and Lines: The Development of Sustainable Design

The designing mind is also a developmental mind

We will look at some aspects of Sustainable Design as a level of development, while other aspects constitute lines of development. Lines are understood in developmental psychology as different innate potentials and capacities for human performance or intelligence, such as cognitive, mathematical or kinesthetic lines. One of the most familiar frameworks for lines is Howard Gardner’s work with multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1993). Levels, or stages are sequentially increasing degrees of achievement in the capacities of a line. Specifically, each stage or level is an increasing order of complexity. Tiger Woods functions at a very high level on the kinesthetic line at the game of golf as compared to a child on a miniature golf course. A 5-star chef has mastered a high level of complexity on a line of cooking as compared to my low-level steaming and grilling skills. As a tongue-in-cheek Illustration, consider Table 6.1. Table 6.1 Hypothetical levels on the ‘Line of bouncing ball games’

Level 5

Michael Jordan

Level 4

NCAA College Final Four

Level 3

YMCA League basketball

Level 2

Playground four-square

Level 1

Toddler bouncy-ball

Levels and Lines

139

Each major content area is actually a line of development in building the mind of a sustainable designer.

The design disciplines have often treated learning Sustainable Design knowledge as additive, building complexity by the addition of new categories of issues. This approach is not thoroughly successful because sustainability is not achieved by tacking on more technology to a building. Sustainable Design is integral to all phases of a design process, from the most basic to the most complex. Additive approaches see Sustainable Design as a speciality, a luxury, an elective option or as an advanced level only. This type of approach ignores the important fact that each major content area is actually a line of development in building the mind of a sustainable designer. I am suggesting nothing less than the developing of a type of intelligence and skill that must be built from beginner to intermediate to advanced. This developmental process continues into mature adulthood and is a good explanation for the often-heard expression that the architect does his/her best work after the age of 50!

A Framework for Developmental Levels The designing mind is a developmental mind. Effective lifelong design education demands continuing development along multiple lines of awareness. What are the levels along the developmental spiral, upward toward the achievement of mastery in a design career? Before considering levels of complexity in designs, let’s look at how developmental research offers us a framework. Empirical developmental research in many fields of human knowledge shows that humans develop though predictable linear stages in dozens of human capacities: values, morals, cognition, mathematics, kinesthetics, music, sense of self and so on (see Figure 6.1). Some example developmental sequences from different fields are given in Table 6.2. Findings from a wide range of developmental researchers consistently reveal that developmental levels in humans have certain invariable characteristics, including the following:1 • Complexity increases with successive stages. • Lower levels are fundamental to higher levels. Stages cannot be skipped. • Each progressive level transcends and includes its predecessor. • Stages are like overlapping waves (or probability clouds), not like discrete levels in a building.

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

l so

io

te

rp

er

ot

In

Em

se ho

na

na l

al xu

al or yc Ps

Co

Figure 6.1 Psychograph Source: Integral Institute

M

gn

iti ve

First Stage

Second Stage

Third Stage

140

Table 6.2 Example sequences of developmental complexity

Charles Darwin, etc.

Theories of biological evolution

James Miller

Biological systems complexity

Abraham Maslow

Hierarchy of needs

Jean Piaget

Cognitive developmental stages

Jane Lovinger

Ego development

Lawrence Kolberg

Moral reasoning

Jean Gebser

Epochs of cultural evolution/worldviews

Robert Kegan

Five orders of consciousness

Don Beck

Values

Sri Aurobindo

Spiritual development and the mind

St. Theresa

Interior life stages

Alistair Taylor

Stages of social organization

Gerhard Lenski

Development of the techno-economic base

Jurgen Habermas

Levels of communication/sociocultural epochs

Levels and Lines

141

Figure 6.2 Robert Kegan

We can say that real developmental learning is the evolution of consciousness, a stage-wise progression from less complex to more complex ideas, knowledge, intelligence, wisdom, discernment and capacities. The cognitive line is necessary to the development of values and many other lines. In addition, the values line is important to framing human experience and perception. Two of the most powerful developmental frameworks are that of Robert Kegan, Harvard psychologist, on the Cognitive line (mind in the broad sense, including cognition and sense of self) and those of Don Beck on the Values line (Kegan, 1982; Beck and Cowan, 1996). These have been researched extensively and shown to emerge in stage-wise fashion without exception. For example, no human is born operating at Kegan’s Fourth Order Consciousness, able to think in complex abstract systems (Table 6.3). We all begin as very concrete thinkers. Similarly, no human is ever born at the pluralistic (Beck’s Green meme) values level caring about all people regardless of race, class, gender, or sexual orientation (Table 6.4). We are all egocentric first, then ethnocentric, then worldcentric in our values. Some individuals make it farther up the developmental spiral than others, and we all make it farther on some lines than others. We are all more developed at some things than others.

The development of consciousness The capacity to think and design ecologically begins with fourth order consciousness of systems and flourishes in the fifth order consciousness of complexes of multiple systems.

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Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

The development of values is connected to and dependent on the development of consciousness. Kegan’s ‘orders of consciousness’ is one of the most respected and validated in developmental psychology. It describes the increasing ability of an individual to be objective about (with some distance on) that which one previously could only experience subjectively (without self-awareness). One’s horizon expands like a hiker climbing the walls of a terraced canyon to see ever-widening perspectives, see Figure 6.3. Kegan outlines the five orders of consciousness in increasing mental complexity. Table 6.3 Kegan’s five orders of the development of consciousness

First order:

impulse, single point of view, immediate

Magical/mythic thinking Second order:

role-concept mind, concretions, social

Traditional thinking

perceptions, durable category

Third order:

socialized mind, abstractions, mutual

Modern thinking

reciprocity, trans-categorical

Fourth order:

self-authoring mind, abstract/complex systems,

Postmodern thinking

multiple roles

Fifth order:

self-transforming mind, dialectical,

Integral thinking

trans-ideological, trans-system/complex

Source: based on Kegan, 1982

Kegan’s book, In over Our Heads, investigates the question of whether people in contemporary society have the development in consciousness to handle the cognitive tasks demanded by a fourth order Postmodern society (Kegan, 1994). According to Kegan, the most common three worldviews operating simultaneously today are the Traditional, the Modern and the Postmodern (second, third and fourth order consciousness respectively), with half of society centred at second or third order. Hence, we are in ‘over our heads’. The capacity to think and design ecologically begins with the fourth order consciousness of systems and flourishes in the fifth order consciousness of complexes of multiple systems. Cognitive development is necessary for values to emerge at a given level. One must be able to understand something before caring about it. Now we can begin see why the interior development of designers is so critical to our times.

Levels and Lines

143

Figure 6.3 Horizons expand with each new level. What can be seen, known and cared about expands with development. The awareness at each level is limited. Some things never appear on the horizon.

The development of values Let us examine a recent map of human development based on decades of extensive research from across cultures. Don Beck and Christopher Cowan, have developed a model of human values transformation called Spiral Dynamics (Beck and Cowan, 1996), based largely on the psychological research of Clare Graves (Graves and Lee, 2002; Graves et al, 2005). These core values establish and guide our worldview, structure our thinking, set the kind of structures we create and determine the social processes we use. Taking an overview of this model, we can see in Table 6.4 that everyone is born into BEIGE (Survivalist) and ascends or develops through the spiral stages (or at least some of them) from PURPLE (Magical), to RED (Mythic), to BLUE (Authoritarian), to ORANGE (Rational) by the end of high school for most students, to GREEN (Pluralistic) by the end of college for many students, to YELLOW (Integrative), to TURQUOISE (Holistic) and beyond to new emerging value levels. Colours are used as a nonjudgemental reference system.

Figure 6.4 Spiral Dynamics model Source: Graphic facilitation by Brandy Agerbeck, Loosetooth.com

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Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

Table 6.4 Values and their drives

Values

Popular name

Basic motives

TURQUOISE

GlobalView (Holistic)

Attention to whole-Earth dynamics and macro-level actions.

YELLOW

FlexFlow (Integral)

Flexible adaptation to change through connected, big-picture views.

GREEN

HumanBond (Pluralistic)

Well-being of people and building consensus get highest priority.

ORANGE

StriveDrive (Rational)

Possibility thinking focused on making things better for self.

BLUE

TruthForce (Authoritarian)

Absolute belief in one right way and obedience to authority.

RED

PowerGods (Mythic)

Enforce power over self, others, and Nature through exploitive independence.

PURPLE

KinSpirits (Magical)

Blood relationships and mysticism in a magical and scary world.

BEIGE

SurvivalSense (Archaic)

Staying alive through innate sensory equipment.

Second tier

First tier Source: Adapted from Beck and Cowan (1996) p41

The Four Contemporary Levels Transcend and include. All human development is sequential and stage-like. Each line of design knowledge or intelligence can be framed as a developmental line following levels or stages. Generically, design awareness line ‘A’, when studied by a designer moves from

level 1

to

level 2

to

level 3 ,

and so on. See Figure 6.5. Each level is also

an increase in complexity. Each level transcends and includes its predecessor. Thus, A4 includes A3, A2, and A1, but is more than their sum. A3 includes the knowledge, awareness and skills of A2, and so on.

Traditional, Modern, Postmodern, Integral In Table 6.5, the work of Kegan and Beck is shown aligned on a framework from Ken Wilber’s update of Jean Gebser. In Gebser’s famous, The Ever-Present

Levels and Lines

145

A: Level 4

A: Level 3 A: Level 2 A: Level 1 Figure 6.5 Four nested levels of line ‘A’ of design awareness Table 6.5 Levels of complexity in the four contemporary structures

Basic structures (Gebser/Wilber) with worldview

Value memes (Beck) with drives

Orders of consciousness (Kegan) with cognition and self-sense

INTEGRAL

Yellow (FlexFlow)

Fifth order

Holistic Integralism

• Flexible adaptation to • Self-transforming change via connected, mind: dialectics big-picture views • Interindividual self

LEVEL 4

Second tier Pathological Postmodern

Mean Green Meme

4.5 order Deconstruction

POSTMODERN

Green (HumanBond)

Fourth order

Pluralistic Relativism

•

• Self-Authoring Mind: abstract systems • Institutional Self

LEVEL 3 Well-being of all people and building consensus gets highest priority

LEVEL 2 MODERN

Orange (StriveDrive)

Third order

Rational Formalism

• Possibility thinking and making things better for self

• Socialized Mind: abstractions • Interpersonal self

TRADITIONAL

Blue (TruthForce)

Second order

Mythic Membership

•

• Role–concept mind: concretions • Imperial self

LEVEL 1

First tier

Belief in one right way, obedience to authority, tradition, culture

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Origin, he chronicles major epochs of human evolution in five waves of unfolding cultural worldviews (Gebser, 1949). These five stages he termed: archaic, magic, mythic, mental and integral.2 Wilber has expanded the basic framework to even higher levels, based on recent developmental research and synthesis from multiple wisdom traditions (Wilber, 2000d, 2007).3 For our purposes, we will significantly simplify the early stages to pre-Modern Traditional and ignore in this book the higher Transpersonal levels (not because they are unimportant, but because they are more speculative and beyond our scope), leaving a simple four-stage sequence: Traditional, Modern, Postmodern and Integral. Although each developmental line has early levels, they are mostly pre-rational, pre-adult levels of development. For our purposes, within professional practice, we can assume that designers as a group operate at some mix of lines at a range of levels (different levels for different lines) in these four basic structures. Following Beck and others, Table 6.5 designates a ‘first tier’ and ‘second tier’ of levels. While each level requires significant effort to achieve, the jump from first to second tier levels has been called a ‘momentous leap’ because of its rarity and the discipline involved. Note that deconstructionism is considered by Kegan as a temporary, transitional, unstable (Kegan’s order 4.5) state on the way to a higher level, and is not a stage in itself. Beck agrees with this view of deconstructionism as a radical, ‘dark’ direction for Postmodernism, a direction that expresses what Wilber terms a ‘mean green meme’ of political correctness, and self-righteous strains within feminism, socialism and environmentalism, for example. In this framework, the numbering of levels on the left column, which I have added, will be used as a reference point.

Levels in the Design Professions We can then reframe these four basic structures in design terms as the four basic contemporary structures of design awareness present today in practice.



Table 6.6 The four contemporary structures in design

Worldview

Design structures

Level 4

Integral

>

Transformative Networking

Level 3

Postmodern >

Pluralistic Practices

Level 2

Modern

>

Independent Professionalism

Level 1

Traditional

>

Guild Traditions

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In a healthy expression, each higher level transcends and includes its predecessor. Ideally, the Modern transcends and includes the Traditional. The Postmodern transcends and includes the Modern, and the Integral transcends and includes the Postmodern. Higher levels become more significant/deeper. Lower levels remain more fundamental. Higher levels are more complex, but depend absolutely on lower levels. The transcendence consists of taking the wholeness of a lower level and expanding it into a wider, deeper inquiry.

Levels of unfolding in design How does design operate from a developmental perspective? Let’s put the basiclevel structures in design terms by looking at how certain aspects of design can be associated with different levels along the values line. Collective values can be understood as ‘worldviews’. These kinds of value distinctions are valid only in very general orienting terms. Individual designers and whole movements, styles and schools of thought within the field all can develop along both levels and lines. Strictly speaking, this kind of development applies to individuals, each of whom can be good at some things and not others. An individual designer might have a developmental centre of gravity at level 4

level 3

but be highly developed to

in interpersonal terms, and thus be a fantastic team leader, while mani-

festing at level 2 in the area of project delivery, which requires one to have access to being efficient. Furthermore, individual designed artefacts, which are often the product or expression of complex teams of people and organizations, are presumably even more difficult to assess in these developmental terms. Even so, it seems quite useful to ask, ‘What type of individual and collective consciousness is necessary to produce the kind of design that we aspire to create?’ And, similarly, ‘What kind of design is produced by a certain level of consciousness?’ Higher levels are more significant/deeper. Lower levels are more fundamental.

The distinctions and historic progression from the Traditional/pre-Modern era to the Modern era to the Postmodern era are familiar to most designers. Architecture was among the first of the disciplines to begin using the language of Postmodernism. What is less clear to many is that these external formal and stylistic expressions of movements are correlated with developing collective worldviews. I urge the reader to set aside for the moment any preconceptions about external stylistic expressions of design history and instead look at the underlying internal shifts in consciousness observable in the design disciplines

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within the last century. Look beneath Postmodern forms to find the Postmodern thinking and awareness. Similarly, do the same for Traditional and Modern styles.

Examples and issues in the four design worldviews Table 6.7 sketches the major levels of designers’ worldviews at four levels along with examples and common issues that emerge at each level. A defining characteristic of the development of worldviews is that in general, each level tends to reject the values of its predecessor. Modernists focused on the new, rejecting history, and emphasized the individual, rejecting conservative communal values. Postmodernism rejected the singularity and determinism of Modernists, championing pluralism and reclaiming the validity of an historical precedent. In contrast, the

integral level ,

or what Clare Graves called second-tier values,

can see the whole developmental process and find the successes of each wave and filter out its partial truths without rejecting its predecessors’ contributions entirely. The integral

level

is the first worldview to become conscious of how it

transcends and includes previous levels.

In design, exterior expressions can mirror human interior developmental stages.

As individuals and groups develop through stages their issues of concern change and their designs change too. Exterior expressions of design can mirror human interior developmental stages. Consider moral development, which proceeds predictably from, in psychological terms, egocentric (pre-conventional) to ethnocentric, or sociocentric (conventional), to worldcentric (post-conventional). Each development is an expansion of care and concern for others. We are all born egocentric infants. Worldcentric awareness never comes first. Similarly, as masses of individuals develop, the collective developmental centre of societies emerges through the levels, and widespread expressions of the moral stages manifest in design artefacts. Pre-conventional development is exhibited in very primitive societies and young children. Traditional buildings and towns reflect a moral conventional stage conception of a relatively fixed order reinforced by strong cultural norms and centred on providing for a particular clan, group, or ethnic society, an architecture of ‘us’. Modernism co-emerged with democracy, and its post-conventional expression can be seen in the democratic space–time grid and concerns for public health, an architecture for ‘all of us’, albeit an abstracted ‘us’. Postmodernism can be understood in part as the full flowering

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Table 6.7 Major levels of designer’s worldviews, exemplars and common issues

Worldview

Design example

Emergent issues/movements

Transpersonal (Level 5 +)

Integral (Level 4)

Postmodern (Level 3)

• Steiner Seminary, Jarna, Sweden, Eric Asmussen • Nature of Order, C. Alexander • R. Steiner’s Anthroposophical approach to architecture

• Design to facilitate developmental evolution • Conscious unity of art, science and morals • Enlightenment, selfrealization • Silence and light

• Smart Code 8, Duany/Plater-Zyberk • Center for Regenerative Studies, John Lyle • Marika-Alderton House, Australia, G. Marcutt • BedZed, Surrey, Bill Dunster • Eishen Campus, Japan, C. Alexander • Curitiba, Brazil, city planning • Eco-industrial parks

• Whole systems design, human ecosystems • Pattern languages • Form follows flow (follows form) • Relations between form and process • Integration of valuable aspects of Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern • Design for multiple developmental levels • Reconstruction: reintegration of art, science, and morals

• Portland Building, Michael Graves • Moore House, Orinda, CA, C. Moore • Seaside, Duany/Plater-Zyberk • Charter of New Urbanism • Collage City, Colin Rowe • Getty Center Garden, Robert Irwin • Habitat for humanity • Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, James Stirling • San Francisco MOMA, Mario Botta • Vanna Venturi House, Robert Venturi • AIA COTE, ADPSR, RUDAT, ADA

• Contextualism • Environmentalism • Civil rights, Social responsibility community/ stakeholder processes • Design for disabilities, gender issues • Historicism and precedents • Livable communities, New Urbanism electronic communications • Deconstruction of Modernist ideas • Dissociation of art, science and morals

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Worldview

Design example

Emergent issues/movements

Modern (Level 2)

Traditional (Level 1)

• The Bauhaus School, Walter Gropius • Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier • Yale British Art Museum, Louis Kahn • Pruit Igoe public housing, St. Louis • 1960s Urban renewal and master planning • Skyline Park, Denver, L. Halprin • Concordia Seminary landscape, Columbus, IN, Dan Kiley • High Tech buildings

• Individualism, personal expression • Functionalism, expression of Modern age, industrial technology, • Design science, environmental behaviorism, cost-benefit analysis • High speed/autonomous transportation • Nuclear families • Novelty, avant garde • Differentiation of art, science and morals

• Classical temples, pyramids, feudal castles • Cathedrals, neoclassicism • the Ecole des Beaux-Arts • English gardens • Vernacular buildings and towns • Historic restoration • Central Park, New York • US Capitol Mall, Washington

• Belonging to clan, tribe, nation • Expression of divine order • Alignment with church and government authority • Following compositional, stylistic, vernacular rule systems • Fusion of art, science, and morals

Note: ADA = Americans with Disabilities Act, which legislates provisions for access to buildings by disabled persons; ADPSR = Architects Designers and Planners for Social Responsibility; AIA COTE = American Institute of Architects Committee On The Environment; MOMA = Museum of Modern Art; R/UDAT = Regional/Urban Design Assistance Teams, a project of the AIA

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of worldcentric moral consciousness, expanding principles of care and concern to people of all colours, races, physical abilities, genders and so on, and to other species and ecosystems – an architecture, as Bill McDonough puts it, for ‘all the children of all species for all time’. It is telling then, that ideas of feminist space, green architecture and design for universal access were never, and according to Integral theory could not be, issues on the conceptual horizon for the Modern masters, not at Gropius’ Harvard or Wright’s Taliesin or Mies’ Illinois Institute of Technology.

Notes 1 For examples of over 100 systems for developmental levels, see Wilber, 2000d, p197– 217. For general characteristics of levels and waves, see Chapter 1. 2 For a shorter, accessible introduction to Gebser, see Combs, 2002. 3 For a short overview, see Wilber, 2007, pp112–113. For more detail, see Wilber, 2000c.

References Beck, Don Edward and Cowan, Christopher C. (1996) Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change: Exploring the New Science of Memetics, Blackwell, Cambridge Combs, Alan (2002) The Radiance of Being: Understanding the Grand Integral Vision: Living the Integral Life, Paragon, St. Paul Gardner, Howard (1993) Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Basic Books, New York Gebser, Jean (1949) The Ever-Present Origin (Ursprung und Gegenwart), Ohio University Press, Athens, OH Graves, Clare and Lee, William R. (2002) ‘Levels of human existence: Transcription of a seminar at the Washington School of Psychiatry’, 16 October 1971, ECLET, Santa Barbara, CA Graves, Clare; Cowan, Christopher C. and Todorovic, Natasha (2005) The Never Ending Quest: A Treatise on an Emergent Cyclical Conception of Adult Behavioral Systems and Their Development, ECLET, Santa Barbara, CA Kegan, Robert (1982) The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Kegan, Robert (1994) In over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Harvard University Press, Cambridge

7

A Developmental View of Design History

The Dignity and Disaster of Partial Approaches to Design Let us look at one possible view of design history that covers three broad and orienting levels that will be more or less familiar to most in the building community: the worldview levels of the Traditional, Modern and Postmodern. I will use architecture as our example, but the developments apply equally to other design disciplines. In this view, we can see that periods are indistinct and they overlap. A new level of values does not displace the old dominant value set entirely, nor does it begin and end at a specific date.

Each of these major levels exists in the awareness of the building community today in some form and in some people. Each development has both its dignities and its disasters.

We have so far identified four basic contemporary levels (or structures) of design awareness:

traditional , modern , postmodern

and

integral levels .

Each

structure as it emerges begins to ‘carve a groove’ in our cultural landscape. The longer a level of design awareness is in existence, the deeper, more defined and more predictable that pattern becomes. A typical architect of the 18th or 19th century could clearly define the nature of good design in a way we cannot imagine today. To our view in the early 21st century, patterns that constitute an architecture of Modernity and its relationship to Nature are also well known, but still less fixed than their pre-Modern predecessors. Patterns defining a Postmodern architecture, which is itself marked by pluralism, are

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even less clear and stable. The cultural grooves are discernable yet shallower. Sustainable Design itself emerged within Postmodern thought. Each stage or level of design awareness has a leading edge or edges. I assert that the leading edge today is Integralism. As such, its outlines lie on the horizons of our awareness; its grooves are very shallow and multifarious, open to definition and redirection. Successful Sustainable Design will require mastering this emerging Integral thought. This is our opportunity!

Levels as a point of view While this view is simplified and broadly orienting in its generalization, it nevertheless is useful. Each level might be said to have multiple variations, schools and branches. Indeed, like any system of levels, it is only a framework, but a better map of the territory than no map at all. In any given developmental sequence, we could subdivide into any number of levels. Like the temperature scales of fahrenheit and centigrade, which describe the same phenomena in a range, we could choose more or fewer subdivisions. We could have twenty stages to design history or two or none. Each might reveal something different. I will readily agree, for example, that the ‘Traditional’ is oversimplified and clearly contains within it other developmental levels, which if articulated, would bring a deeper understanding of Sustainable Design. But for the sake of argument, and because it relates closely to a dominant cultural conversation about the development of Western culture, let’s proceed with our investigation using this simple four-level model for the development of design thinking.1 Each of these major levels exists in the awareness of the Sustainable Design community today in some form and in some people. What is really important is to see that each level has both its dignities and its disasters. Each gain has created improvements and simultaneously, created new problems. We could say that each level has its workability and its unworkability.

The Dignities and Disasters of Three Levels of Design Level 1: Traditionalist (pre-Modern) design The dignity of Traditional design Traditional design, which includes, in this simplified model, the vernacular, classical, romantic, revivalist and neoclassical traditions can be lauded for: • diverse form and expression, manifesting regional patterns of climate, materials and culture (e.g. lime-plastered, high-mass courtyard homes along the Mediterranean);

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Figure 7.1 Halawa House, Agamy, Egypt, 1975, Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil, architect Traditional dignity: The Halawa House, a recipient of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1980, uses the vernacular of rural Egypt in a contemporary building, exemplifying climatic utility, and providing for delight in the patterns of sun, shade and breeze. Design ideas borne out of a regional pattern language (courtyard, fountain, loggia, wind-catcher, alcoves, masonry benches, belvedere, compressive masonry forms) give a cultural solution rooted in place. Traditional disaster: From a Modern viewpoint, anchored in a Traditional regional aesthetic, the Halawa House does not accurately express its time, opting instead for the timeless alone. Could not architecture address both what does not change and what does?

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• vernacular forms grown out of tacit pattern languages embedded in the professional and non-professional building culture (builders, craftsmen, designers), often encouraging direct user participation; • buildings and towns that feel alive and whole by employing satisfying formal solutions expressing archetypal human psychology and archetypes of Nature; • residential buildings built out of love for future generations and institutional buildings dedicated to sacred powers embodying the consciousness of their makers and yielding experiences of transcendence and beauty; • designs rooted in experiential and ecological aspects of place, with associated experiences of grounded connection; • solutions to recurrent, long-lived, or widespread functional and environmental problems, refined over centuries to yield timelessly successful design.

The disaster of Traditional design Pre-Modern design was criticized by Modernists (most rightly perhaps when applied to neoclassicism or the Beaux Arts school) for, among others: • its use of neoclassical styles as disconnected from the functional needs of users, especially as it failed to address new and complex uses emerging in a culture; • a lack of progressive response to incorporating new materials and technologies; • a stifling of individual creativity subjugated to the limits of restrictive cultural aesthetics and values; • a lack of authenticity in communicating meaning for its own time and place when used in non-traditional cultural contexts; • low levels of sanitation and low human comfort in terms of temperature, humidity and light.

Level 2: Modern design The dignity of Modern design Modernist design offered the world many gifts and improvements over earlier approaches, which should not be overlooked in the light of contemporary Postmodern critiques, including: • the empowering of individual expression and creativity to solve ever more complex problems and embrace the unknown and novel;

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Figure 7.2 Fredensborg Housing, Fredensborg, Denmark, 1962, Jørn Utzon, architect Modern dignity: Utzon’s landmark housing development for retired Danish foreign service workers created a new Modern housing type that transcended and included the tile roof and courtyard type to also accommodate a model for suburban living, adaptation to topography, and the automobile Modern disaster: From the Postmodern view, in pursuing a Modern architecture accessible to all and relevant to a universal civilization, the project abstracts the house to a replicable unitary type without variation, disconnects ecologically from its site (the vast lawns), and promotes an unsustainable anti-urban life

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• higher efficiency of materials and energy use and improved structural safety in winds, fires and earthquakes though the employment of science and engineering knowledge; • the invention of, design with, and expression of new industrial materials and building systems; • expression of the new industrial and Modern-era culture; • evolution of new forms and building types (skyscrapers, mass housing, etc.); • better success (sometimes) at solving new, never-encountered problems (larger cities, cars, airports, communications systems, new mixed uses, large assembly spaces); • greater indoor levels of comfort, better sanitation and improvements in building envelope performance; • rationalizing design responses to natural forces; • inventing the science of solar architecture and climatic design; • reducing the expressive complexity of architecture to reveal its essential forms, language and power.

The disaster of Modern design Modernist design has been criticized by Postmodernists (most rightly when applied to International Style Modernism) for its: • reductionism to abstractions that no longer responded to human emotional or archetypal needs; • creating an avant-garde aesthetic unappreciated by the vast majority of users; • ignoring the proven lessons of history (throwing out the baby with the bathwater), including successful solutions to environmental problems; • over-consumptiveness and ecological unconsciousness, made possible by modern materials, industrialization, mechanical and electrical systems, and energy sources – and the increased expectation for the standard of living that came with them; • being noncontextual by dissociating the objects of design from their constituent contexts (the object building as an island), formally, socially and ecologically; • disconnecting people from Nature with isolating envelope and mechanical technologies.

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Level 3: Postmodern design The dignity of Postmodern design Postmodern design, much to the chagrin of unrepentant Modernists, has progressed in many significant ways over its forbearers, with a consciousness of design that: • becomes situated by caring about and being more sensitive to ecological and social contexts and issues; • includes a diversity of styles, methods and theories to address shortcomings of a more singular Modernism (the disasters above) or any other singular approach; • often includes a wider diversity of participants in the design process and a more pluralistic, multicultural approach to design stakeholders, such as women, the disabled, children, the poor and people of all races, classes, religions, cultures and sexual orientations, along with advocates for the environment; • rediscovers historical lessons of both high design and vernacular forms, including environmental solutions; • expands the scope of design skills and thinking to applications beyond the traditional professions, including digital media, design of institutions and organizations and urbanism; • inventing green materials and life-cycle design methods.

The disaster of Postmodern design Postmodern design, though splintered into multiple schools and movements (and therefore harder to characterize), can be generally criticized (particularly in its extreme forms) for: • making Sustainable Design an optional value alongside many other optional and competing values; • rejecting functionalism, thus often creating poorly functioning, spatially inefficient organizations that turn a blind eye to user needs and resource performance; • appropriating historic forms replicated in inauthentic ways with new technology (i.e. classical masonry-derived forms built in light-frame gypsum board construction); • self-referential validation and ‘anything goes’ relativistic values (my design is OK, your design is OK); • a lack of a redeeming or collective vision, creating works that amplify the psychic dissonance of Postmodern life, and fragment the wholeness of our life-world;

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Figure 7.3 Quartier Schutzenstrasse, Berlin, Germany, 1998, Aldo Rossi, architect Postmodern dignity: Concealing the fact that this is actually one office block, Rossi broke up the facade into multiple-coloured narrow segments to fit the urban precedent and suggest buildings on independent plots. Urbanistically successful, the project uses normative underpinnings of neoclassicism in several facade compositions. Postmodern disaster: Critics have cited the overall appearance of inauthenticity, such as the imitation of stone detailing, often in veneer, like the detail shown with a slight gap between column and ground. The total number of facades exceeds the separations of independent structures behind them. The result is historic reference for effect colliding with contemporary use types.

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• a rejection of hierarchy outright, resulting in the inability to distinguish the relative importance of Sustainable Design criteria.

Reinterpreting Distributions of Depth Progressive but coexisting

At any one time, all three of these worldviews on Sustainable Design exist simultaneously in varying proportions.

Since Integral design is, as we recently discussed, just emerging, we will return later to its potential dignities and disasters after delving deeper into its nature. For now, even if you don’t agree with every point as I have laid out these dignities and disasters, notice that it is possible to have positive contributions at each level and that each level brings forward new problems that did not exist before. Again, remember that we are generalizing about the products of broad cultural processes, the ‘centre of gravity’ of design culture as it moves through time.2 At any one time, all three of these worldviews on Sustainable Design exist simultaneously in varying proportions. For example, in the mid 19th century, we might estimate that in the US perhaps 65 per cent of the population was centred in Traditional values, 30 per cent in Modern and 5 per cent in Postmodern. In the mid 20th century, the proportions might have been more like 40 per cent Traditional, 60 per cent Modern, 10 per cent Postmodern and less than 1 per cent Integral. Today, studied estimates are that the US population is about 25 per cent Traditional, 40 per cent Modern, 30 per cent Postmodern, and 3–5 per cent Integral or beyond. The point is not that the figures are exactly accurate, but that changes in cultural values which arise from the collective interchanges of many individuals ­­– each ‘centred’ at their own level of values – is a long process in which the population is unevenly developed. Large segments of the population actually live in different worlds created by their disparate worldviews. Even within an individual, to say that an individual is ‘centred’ at a particular value level is to say that that person may act out of a dominant value set most of the time. Some developmental researchers suggest that, for example, a person operating from Modern values will make decisions and take actions from that perspective about 50 per cent of the time. About 25 per cent of the time she will act from Traditional values and about 25 per cent of the time

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from Postmodern values. This is why sometimes levels are referred to as waves, which gives the image of an overlapping pattern. Another metaphor for these structural changes is a ‘probability cloud‘.

‘What’s so’ not ‘what’s right’ If we see developmental levels as just the way things are, as simply the system under which humans operate, then we can release moral judgements about the environmental disasters of each level. Returning to our example of design history and theory, notice how from your perspective today, which if you are reading this, is probably integral cognitive line, you can see how the

traditional level

most of the concerns of Modernism and that the

level

on the

could not have foreseen

modern level

could not have

foreseen the importance of Postmodernism’s concerns. These broader concerns simply did not generally exist on the horizon for the previous level of awareness. If we see developmental levels as just the way things are, as simply the system under which humans operate, then we can release moral judgements about the disasters (including the environmental disasters) of each level. No level is right or wrong and no level is better than another. Each level is appropriate to some stage in the development of each person, and each lower level has to be embraced and tasted, if not mastered, before moving on to the next higher level. This phenomenon has direct applications to Sustainable Design.

The workability and unworkability of transcendence Each level transcends and includes its predecessor. That is, its dignities are retained and its disasters transcended. We can distinguish that higher levels are deeper, more embracing of more perspectives of Sustainable Design. There is more compassion and care, along with a potential capacity to organize the built environment at greater complexity. We can also notice the workability and unworkability at each level. One of the unworkabilities at each of the three levels mentioned is that the values of a higher level tend to reject the values of the lower level. That is, its dignities as successful Sustainable Design solutions may be rejected along with its disasters and ecological impacts. In the workable version, each level transcends and

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includes it predecessor. That is, its dignities are retained and its disasters transcended. This is so important because it offers a direct way of communicating the values of a higher level of Sustainable Design to practitioners or stakeholders centred at another level, a way less threatening than telling them that they are wrong, outdated and are being replaced by a new set of greener values. What developmental researchers say about the

integral level

is that when one

occupies an Integral ‘altitude,’ the ‘spiral of development’ can be seen for the first time. Instead of rejecting outright the previous developmental levels as environmentally wrong, one can then embrace each level for its contribution to building our current understanding of Sustainable Design. Returning to design history and theory, the Integral designer can see the dignity and value of a design that includes: 1 inclusion of diverse stakeholders, including Nature, ecosystems, and other species, in the design process (Postmodern); 2 expression of contemporary culture(s)’ ideas about Nature, using contemporary resource-efficient technological means (Modern); 3 the historical, psychologically satisfying formal design archetypes that solve persistent functional and experiential environmental problems of inhabitation (Traditional). In the following chapters we will look deeper at how levels and lines manifest in Sustainable Design and in the sustainable designer.

Experiencing Levels in Your Own Awareness You can experience multiple levels in your own awareness right now. The opportunity to inhabit different levels is always available to us. Let’s do a short exercise with your own interior. 1 Take a moment to focus your attention and get in touch with the part of you that cares for family members, your close friends, and your inner circle of community. Notice how there is a part of you that wants to do right in the world and strives to keep harmony and stability. Look though the eye of your mind that can see Nature as a grand design that needs our help to be managed properly now so that in the future it will still hold its bounty. Notice where sometimes you are happy to follow the rules and regulations either to avoid punishment or just to respect the authority of law. 2 Now shift your awareness to times when you rise above guilt, impulsivity, mythology, or ethnocentrism. Experience in yourself being an independent thinker, acting on a purpose, employing rationality and abstraction,

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and moving in the world with courage. Feel how you can care about others, even those you do not know well or know at all. Be attentive to Nature as something that can be understood and even predicted through observation and science. Get how understanding Nature can help humanity and make things better for your life. 3 Now once again, shift your awareness to notice how you can be noncompetitive, act from altruism without a care for personal gain, how you can be tolerant of others different, even foreign to you in their ways and beliefs. Experience your own capacity for compassion and empathy. Remember times when you have been this way toward others. Reflect on how you can actually be self-reflective. Feel how you inherently have a desire for community and connecting with others and how the feelings and experiences of others matters to you. Think of a way that you take personal environmental responsibility in your lifestyle and how you choose at times to personally participate with Nature. You intuit how your life and the health of Nature are interconnected. 4 And finally, shift your awareness to your deepest core. Glimpse that maybe everything actually is connected to everything else, how the world is in some sense one big organism or mind. Notice how you can begin to perceive everything around you, the building you are in, your neighborhood, and your city as a living system. Notice how you can choose to accept others exactly as they are. In your professional life, think of the time when you have struggled to map out in your mind a structure that would fit as many pieces of design together as possible, and how great you felt when you found a way to integrate more pieces into your map. Embrace the part of you that can handle paradoxes and conflicting truths. See how you can actually allow Nature to be more complex than you can understand and yet still see it as dynamic and integrated in multiple processes. Congratulations! You have just tasted the experience of, in order, the awareness of the traditional , modern , postmodern and integral

levels .

Notice if they are all

equally familiar or if some seem easier to get in touch with than others. Each is a capacity latent or expressed in you right now – and we move back and forth between them frequently.

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Notes 1 Though unpopular among academic historians, when addressing architectural theory I do not separate meaning and utility; nor do I privilege ideas above application. My view is that the point and purpose of theory in the professions is precisely to have knowledge and understanding in service to utility and application. Since professions, like design, take action, the understanding provided by theoretical inquiry informs action. 2 This orienting generalization is very different from the approach taken by many historians who often look for early origins and examples of those ‘ahead of their time’ as an argument to deconstruct and disempower a dominant narrative and frequently to deny any developmental process of consciousness or the artefacts it produces whatsoever. The methods used here exhibit too much structure and too much generalization for the radical Postmodernist, who tends to deny all development, evolution and orienting narratives, except their own ‘critical theoretical‘ meta-narrative. Nevertheless, at the Integral stage, development and hierarchy undeniably return. As a part of the deconstruction of Modernism, Postmodern architectural historians decry the ‘myth of progress‘ choosing to focus on the development of new disasters while conveniently sweeping away the dignities. ‘All progress‘ and ‘all light‘ are certainly incomplete. ‘No progress’ is equally incomplete.

8

Design Awareness: The Six Essential Lines

Lines of Development Every aspect of an individual’s life cannot be tied to a single level. We all develop unevenly, advancing more rapidly in some areas of life, or what in Wilber’s Integral model is called lines of development, than in others. So, for instance, an athlete may have a high level of kinesthetic development, a violinist, a high musical development and so forth. Similarly, a mad scientist or an evil dictator may be highly developed intellectually but much less developed on the moral or values line. We can ask then, ‘What lines of human development are especially important to practicing designers or more specifically, to Integral Sustainable Designers?’ Each major content area of Sustainable Design is actually a line of development in building the mind of a designer.

Cognition is usually taken to be a prerequisite for many other developmental lines. Development in cognition means that the brain hardware is in place and its root ‘operating system’ is capable of a certain complexity of thought. For example, without the capacity to perceive and think at a higher level of complexity, it is impossible to care about and value the world as it is revealed at that level. One must have some cognitive understanding of ecosystems before developing an ethic toward ecosystems. To my knowledge, existing research focuses on capacities developed in all human beings to one level or another; the specific development of architects or landscape architects has not been studied. One might speculate that architects are highly developed along lines of spatial and

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aesthetic perception, moderately developed along scientific, mathematic and cognitive lines, and along lines of system and environmental consciousness; they may be very unevenly distributed along ethical, emotional and interpersonal lines of development. Of course, there are many exceptions to these generalized speculations. Another way to think about lines of development in design is that the discipline of design, or a specific design discipline (architecture or landscape architecture), is a line of development itself. Within that complex line of awareness and ability, there can be several critical lines of ability and awareness that we can observe to be typically developed in a sequence of levels from less to more complex. I am using lines here in an informal way. Substantial research would be required to confirm these hyphotheses.1 As mentioned in Chapter 6, both the design professions and design education have often treated design knowledge domains as additive, building complexity by addition of new categories of issues. This approach is likely to continue to fail at mastering Sustainable Design complexity because it ignores the basic process and reality of human development itself through levels over time! I have already asserted that each major content area in Sustainable Design is actually a line of development in building the mind of a designer. Each line is a type of intelligence and skill that is built from beginner to intermediate to advanced.2 The most significant lines of development for the design consciousness require time and the structure to develop. In some lines, this takes decades. Learning to sketch from observing life can be taught in a few weeks, but learning to sketch one’s own design ideas with equal sophistication takes years. The implication regarding this is direct and unquestionable: Several lines of designer

Complexity Level

L4 A+B+C+D+E+F at each level

L3

L2

L1 Space & Form

Place & Context

A

B

Use& Program C

Building Human Ideas & Systems Experiences Meanings D

E

F

Content Area (Lines)

Figure 8.1 Complexity built by unfolding in multiple lines of design awareness. L4 = required for complex ecological design. Instead of adding a new content area at each higher level, an Integral design education develops several lines simultaneously, from simple to complex.

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awareness must be engaged by students and by practitioners (who themselves continue to develop) over time and at successively more complex levels. All lines need not be equally developed: some designers develop business, technical, or formal abilities more than others. The Sustainable Design team requires them all.

The Six Essential Lines: Irreducible Fundamentals of Design So what are these essential lines of designer awareness? Since I write primarily from the perspective of architecture, we will take buildings as the example. I propose, after years of discussion with my peers, that the irreducible lines of design awareness, and concomitantly, the capabilities that must be developed in an architect, are: • form and space (configuration and order); • place and context (natural, social, and cultural systems); • building systems (structure, construction, materials, conditioning, and service systems); • use (individual/social needs, activities, purpose, functions, and aspirations); • experience (aesthetics, phenomenology, individual intentions, mind states, and consciousness); • ideas (collective intentions, concepts, theories, meanings). Architecture lacking any of these ceases to be architecture. These are then the lines of awareness about making architecture. They are the progenitors of form. They exist and persist despite changes in fashion, ideology, style, or technology. If something is alive, we can only remove so many parts before it dies. Its emergent pattern of life ceases to be. The emergent pattern we call architecture (or landscape architecture, etc.) cannot exist without each of its essential subpatterns. These apply to the knowledge of building. More lines of development are required to practice architecture, such as interpersonal communication, graphic skills, and the other interior (UL) lines (worldview, values, cognition, morals, etc.). One way to think of these six essential lines is that they are a bundle of related developmental awarenesses that make up the

design line .

The injunction

for each design task, no matter how simple or complex, is that each building as an informed work of art, has: 1 an order of form and space that is informed by: 2 a place (context line); 3 a material (building systems line); 4 a purpose (use line);

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5 people with senses (experiences line); 6 an idea (ideas line). The further implication is that designers, especially sustainable designers, are required to master the relationships between form/space and the other knowledge lines that inform form and space. For Sustainable Design today, these must be both integrated with each other and taken to

level 4 integral .

Space can be understood as a visible external artefact arising from the unfolding in individuals and cultures of cognition, awareness, and values.

Each line of design awareness can be thought of as unfolding in a series of levels of increasing complexity. The space line, for example, unfolds within the history of design from Traditional space to Modern space to Postmodern space, from discreet rooms to free plan and overlapping space to the pluralism of collaged, fragmented and ambiguous space. In general terms, this phenomenon happened in historical sequence. Spatial order can be understood as a characteristic expression arising from the unfolding of consciousness. While it is possible for a person to enter the stream of spatial awareness at, for instance, the level 2 modern

complexity, there is also value in understanding the Traditional

bounded room or the nine-square central hall plan. Modernist spatial theory, in large part, rejects ideas of Traditional space, proportion, order and so on. Postmodern approaches to space allow for the reintroduction of a Traditional or more timeless language of space. In building the consciousness of the contemporary sustainable designer, multiple languages of form and space are necessary in crafting sophisticated solutions.

The Traditional level across six lines of design awareness For

level 1

design thinking it is useful to honour and experience the values of

tradition, the timeless language of architecture, the archetypal experience of space, the foundational root experience of phenomena though the senses of a human body with emotional responses: space ‘inside the box’ before ‘breaking out of the box’. For example, Table 8.1 sketches what might be considered level 1 traditional

content for the six essential lines of design awareness.

Sustainable Design for context: An example of levels Ted Shelton at the University of Tennessee has been exploring green design principles in architectural curricula (Shelton, 2009). Using Shelton’s framework

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Table 8.1 Level 1 Traditional content in the six essential lines of design awareness

L1

Form and space

L1

Place and context

This particular place and site, design-here-now.

L1

Building systems

Open frame and closed shell, basic energy/form relations,

L1

Use

Typology, standards, basic proxemics, solutions that work.

L1

Experience

Sensoriomotor, visual and phenomenal aesthetics, felt

Discreet, bounded, Traditional, pre-Modern space, the room.

local materials.

force, what it feels like. L1

Ideas

Mythic nature, embedded stories, shared practices, the codified, following the rules/styles, orders.

and expanding on its insights to the

integral level ,

I have postulated a four-

level line of designer awareness for place and context, based on the four levels as defined earlier: •

level 1 traditional :

•

level 2 modern :

•

level 3 postmodern :

•

level 4 integral :

guild traditions;

independent professionalism; pluralistic practices;

responsive networks.

Each level, in its content and methods, as outlined in table 8.2, corresponds to increasing complexity and capacities. Such a framework may also be expanded to the full range of Sustainable Design issues, as we will explore soon.

Interrelationships between lines: Developing the integration intelligence The lines of

space , use

or

technology

are opportunities for patterns of associa-

tion in the thinking of designers. Each developmental line of design intelligence can be a life-long practice. Each is part of a kind of ‘web of thought’, interrelated with other lines. These thought-webs weave together in a complex network to form the intellectual landscape of Sustainable Design. For example, consider building systems ,

where structures, environmental control systems and build-

ing assembly systems are all interrelated in complex ways in buildings. These systems also shape and are shaped by other lines, such as use , Integration itself seems to be a developmental capacity, a kind of intelligence.

space

and idea .

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Table 8.2 Levels of the place and context line

L4

Responsive networks

Bioregionally Adaptable

Designing within a comprehensive theory of place, engaging local, regional, global, universal (Integral) forces. Expanding to changing regional forces (cultural shifts, climate change, urbanization) and reflexive building systems with potential for portability and adaptation.

L3

Pluralistic Practices (Postmodern)

Bioregionally There

Designing on a particular site within a different (other) biological and cultural region, responding to unfamiliar forces from site to region. Expanding to regional variations (prototypes for multiple regions and multiple cultural patterns within a region).

L2

Independent professionalism (Modern)

Bioregionally Here

Designing on a particular site within a home biological and cultural region, responding to forces from site to region, uniquely. Expanding to site variations (prototypes for multiple sites).

L1

Guild traditions (Traditional)

This Site

Designing here now on a particular site, responding to local site/latitude forces. Traditional site typologies for familiar site/use types.

Therefore, ideally, the sustainable designer would develop along several lines simultaneously. Capacities in several design knowledge domains are best developed through the levels of complexity over a period of years. Not only could separate lines develop in parallel, but the interconnections between lines could increase in complexity as well. Integration itself seems to be a developmental capacity, a kind of intelligence. Integration intelligence is not a single level. Integration is often imagined late in the design student’s curriculum, late in the design process and a building, or late in the career of an architect. Instead, integration can be viewed as a growing, unfolding ability in sustainable designers to: 1 incorporate more kinds of Sustainable Design knowledge; 2 respond to more complex sites and ecological contexts; 3 generate propositions that fit social, cultural, and natural patterns at a wider range of scales;

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4 support more and deeper ways of being human and experiencing Nature and the world. The design injunction that follows from this logic is to:

Presence integration at every developmental level and in every career stage.

Notes 1 In a more rigorous sense, a line of development is confirmed by a structuralist look at many individuals over time. 2 These lines, again using the term liberally, are analogous to skill-based or talent lines, such as musical ability. In the future we may find connections or contingencies among these ‘fine’ lines as proposed, or between design lines and other lines.

References Shelton, Ted (2009) ‘You are here: Green design principles in foundational architectural curricula’, unpublished manuscript, University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design

9

The 16 Prospects of Sustainable Design

Development in Each Quadrant Development in one quadrant is correlated in the other quadrants. It cannot be said that one quadratic perspective follows from another. Integral Theory recognizes that all four quadrants – (UR),

cultures

(LL) and

experiences

behaviours

(UL),

systems

(LR) – show growth, development, or evo-

lution, exhibiting stages or levels as unfolding waves (see Figure 9.1). Each quadrant, each foundational perspective, has levels of complexity and depth. The perspectives in each quadrant co-arise (and co-evolve), describing multiple views of the same object or event. Development in one quadrant is correlated in the other quadrants. Strictly, it cannot be said that one quadratic perspective follows from another. Figure 9.1 suggests that we can have this common framework across all quadrants. If this diagram outlines an Integral approach to any knowledge field, then we can say that:

Integral design is the theory and practice of design informed by the four perspectives at all levels of complexity. 1 In addition, Integral design recognizes that different approaches to interior design, architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning focus on different aspects of the four quadrants and therefore form a spectrum of perspectives on design explored via a variety of design methods. In the next section, we will explore the outlines of these levels of design in each of the four perspectives.

The 16 Prospects of Sustainable Design

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Figure 9.1 A common framework for levels across quadrants

Prospects: Intersecting perspectives and levels The Idea of Prospects: Perspectives + Levels = Prospects A more comprehensive map of design emerges if we intersect the four perspectives with a system of developmental levels. Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman term these intersections ‘niches’, a reference to niches in ecology, where a specialized species lives in a rather unique habitat condition (Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman, 2009). In our case, a more relevant metaphor would be to think of these intersections as prospects. From a particular perspective taken at a certain level, one has a viewpoint or prospect that cannot be taken from a different level or perspective. From this prospect (vantage point), the view looks different. As a second meaning, the prospect for design’s future shows up differently. The origin of the word ‘prospect’ is from the Latin, prospectus, meaning ‘view’, which gave rise to the Middle English prospect, meaning the view toward a distant object. In its early use it referred to the view of a landscape, which is still sometimes used – and that is the closest sense in which I use prospect here, as both the place of view and the view taken in from that place. With four perspectives plus a four-level developmental system, we then have 16 prospects. At a given level, there are four prospects, one in each perspective. The four prospects at each level arise simultaneously, because each perspective of a level is a different aspect of the same phenomenon. As Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman explain (using niches where I use prospects):

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One aspect does not occur before or after the others. These niches co-arise. A change in one creates a change in the others. These niches are not separate phenomena. This is not to minimize the unique qualities of each niche but to highlight the interconnection between all aspects within a given level.  (Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman, 2009)

The 16 prospects of Integral Sustainable Design Integral Theory is still developing, and our understanding of it is also evolving rapidly. Applications of the basic theoretical approach to design are evidenced in the complexity of practice, but are relatively unexplored by design theoreticians. To illuminate the development of the four perspectives of Sustainable Design, consider the following matrix of ways that Integral Sustainable Design manifests (Table 9.1). Using the four levels of complexity, each of the perspectives unfolds in waves of increasing complexity, transcending and including the preceding level.

Table 9.1 The 16 prospects of Integral Sustainable Design

Interior Perspectives Complexity level

Level 4 INTEGRAL Transformative Networking

Experiences (UL) self, intentions and consciousness Self- Mediation

Level 3 POSTMODERN Contextual Pluralistic Mediation Practices Level 2 MODERN Intellectual Independent Mediation Professionalism Sensory Level 1 TRADITIONAL Mediation Guild Traditions

Cultures (LL) worldview and meaning

Exterior Perpectives Behaviors (UR) parts and performance

Nature United Responsive Structures

Nature Saved

Cyclic Analogues

Systems (LR) social and environmental

Living Systems

Complex Systems

Natured Used Building Science

Logical Systems

Nature Managed

Tacit Systems

Embedded Practices

Self-Mediation

Level 4

Intellectual Mediation

Level 2

•  Felt force aesthetics •  Care for stewarding Creation • Experience natural phenomena and contrast

TRADITIONAL

Guild Traditions

Nature Managed

Sensory Mediation

Level 1

• Culture and Nature are oppositional and/or merged •  Self-sufficiency/off-the-grid/ back-to-the-land •  Culture and Nature collapsed (The Garden, Neo-romantic)

• Nature as a resource for/in service to culture • Objective views (i.e., picture window) • Buildings as green machines

Nature Used

• Visual and conceptual aesthetics Independent • Care for future resource Professionalism supplies and experiences • Experience natural change

MODERN

Pluralistic Practices

• Guild based techniques • Visible force logics •  Trial and error design improvements

Embedded Practices

• Resource efficiency (energy, materials, water, etc.) • Climatic design • Green rating systems (LEED, Green Globes)

Building Science

• Classical and vernacular •  History as context • Pre-industrial form responses/ types

Tacit Systems

• Organic architecture • Green prefabrication/ industrialization • Site as context

Logical Systems

• Solar/Eco-tech buildings • Green historic precedents • Landscape as context

Complex Systems

Cyclic Analogues

• Protecting Nature from culture (i.e., Habitat protection) • Green design ethics • Green eclecticism and Neo-Regionalism

• Healthy buildings • Ecological impacts of buildings and cities • Renewable energy design and production

• Process aesthetics • Care for sharing resources and interconnecting with Nature • Experience natural process (cycles)

Nature Saved

Contextual Mediation

POSTMODERN

Living Systems

Systems (LR) social and environmental

Level 3

Responsive Structures

Behaviours (UR) parts and performance

• Mutli-level technology options • Living buildings/Ecomimicry • Cradle to cradle materials cycles • Regenerative design • Biomimicry • Holarchic contexts: bioregion and ecosystems

Nature United

Cultures (LL) worldview and meaning

Exterior Perspectives

• Evolutionary and ecological • Holarchy: Nature embedded in aesthetics culture Transformative • Care for whole systems, • Shared pattern languages Networking including people and Nature • Sustainable Developmen • Experience ecological awareness

INTEGRAL

Experiences (UL) self, intentions, and consciousness

Complexity level

Interior Perspectives

Table 9.2 The 16 prospects with their examples and concerns

The 16 Prospects of Sustainable Design 175

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Unlike study of the developmental levels in the general population along the lines of values, worldview, cognition, morals, and even spirituality, there is little current empirical study (to this author’s knowledge) that has been done on levels of interior development in the architect, designer or artist. Therefore, the 16 prospects can be taken as an hypothesis that flows with some logic from other correlated, empirically verified lines of human development. That is to say that developmental levels have been researched in each quadrant, from each of the four perspectives, yet the developmental eye of the structuralist has not been turned on the unfolding complexity of the designer. The examples given in Table 9.2 follow from a correlation between a dominant worldview, the facts disclosed by that worldview, the cultural interpretations common to it, the social organization it expresses and the concerns of individuals presenced by those operating from the values of that worldview.

Notes 1 Wilber’s later work on Integral Methodological Pluralism distinguishes an inside and an outside methodology in each quadrant, yielding eight major classes of methods. We will keep to the simple four here.

References Esbjörn-Hargens, Sean and Michael Zimmerman (2009) Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World, Integral Books, Shambhala, Boston, MA

10 Unfolding Prospects of the Interior Perspectives

Unfolding Prospects in the Experiences Perspective

L2 MODERN

Intellectual

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Meditation [LL] CULTURES

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Figure 10.1 Unfolding prospects in the experiences perspective

The prospects from the (UL) experiences

perspective

(individual subjective), which

address the individual self of the sustainable designer, along with his/her design intentions and consciousness, unfold when the designer considers the user’s experiences (see Figure10.1): 1 from a sensory mediation of experiencing the designed artefact or environment through the bodily senses (level

1 traditional );

2 to an intellectual mediation by the mind, where concepts frame experience (level

2 modern );

3 to contextual mediation, in which an individual’s experiences are framed and interpreted via their situation in place, culture, etc. (level

3

postmodern );

4 to a self-aware mediation of experience, where the self-actualized designer, aware of all the other levels, chooses the appropriate experiences for which to design and addresses the range of levels of experience available to users (level

4 integral ).

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Figure 10.2 Halawa House, Agamy, Egypt, 1975, Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil, architect

Level 1 Sensory mediation: The Halawa House, in Egypt, creates an aesthetic experience of Nature as the contrast of felt forces. The design is revealed through the senses. One’s body as located in space – indoors or out, in the shade or sun, near or far from a window based on the conditions of climate. By day, one can lounge by the window in shade with the glare and intensity of light reduced by screening. By night, the cool sky is available in the court.

Unfolding Prospects of the Interior Perspectives

179

Note that this development of experiences in Sustainable Design applies both to the designer’s intention about designed experiences, and to the user of space, the one who experiences, who brings a certain level of experiential awareness to the designed place. The sustainable designer can design for one level or another and the audience can inhabit the design and experience it from one level or another. Unconsciousness on the designer’s part about her/his own level of developmental consciousness in the various lines of the upper left quadrant, or a lack of awareness that the public inhabits a variety of different levels, is fraught with potential disasters of miscommunication and misinterpretation. One can be designing for one level of experiencing Sustainable Design and have another experienced by the user. An example is designing for a user to experience the ecological contextual fit of a design when the user has no awareness of ecology. As we introduced in Chapter 5, Sustainable Design aesthetics can also be framed in terms of levels. Human observation discloses new facts as each new level makes available increased perceptual complexity. Therefore, the experiences for which one can design also unfold in stages. The aesthetic of Sustainable Design develops in its prospects like this:1 • Level 1: Felt forces aesthetic experience of the environment as users interact directly with form experienced via the body’s five senses – such as the animated patterns of light, contrasts of temperature, and the beauty of the setting sun. • Level 2: Visual and intellectual aesthetic experience, where the eye takes dominance over the other senses while the mind creates an intellectual construct through which all ideas of beauty are filtered and compared against, sometimes independent of the actual sense experience and felt aesthetic response – such as an appreciation of the order of space, independent of its feeling, or the aesthetic satisfaction with structural clarity. • Level 3: Process aesthetic experience, in which the way design fits to cycles and transformations of sun, water, energy, seasons, and so on can be perceived and appreciated – such as appreciating the change in sunrise and sunset pattern over the course of the seasons. • Level 4: Ecological and evolutionary aesthetic experience, the

integral level

aesthetic perception, in which the ‘patterns that connect,’ and the ‘order of process’ constitute a more expanded aesthetic perception of living systems – such as when a user can appreciate the way a design fits to or becomes a part of its local ecosystem flows.

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Each level unfolds in sequence. In my experience, Modern aesthetics never precede Traditional. Education is required to appreciate design from the Modern perspective. A child never begins with an Integral ecological aesthetic. Each level of Sustainable Design aesthetic experience transcends and includes its predecessor. No level is better or worse, but we can distinguish that level

traditional

aesthetic experience is the most fundamental: take away the appreciation

of sense perception and all the other levels are impossible. We can also say that integral level

aesthetic experience is deeper and more inclusive, and therefore

the most significant in our four-level system, while also the least fundamental.

Figure 10.3 Bartholomeusz House, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1963, Geoffrey Bawa, architect

Level 1 Sensory mediation: With extensive courtyards, loggias and verandas, the Bartholomeusz House creates a pleasant environment, obviating air conditioning and creating spaces that allow inhabitants to feel a direct connection to their surroundings, thermally and spatially. The materials are ‘honest’, never covered in layers, wood felt as wood, stone as stone. Structure is direct, ordered, and visible. Rain on barrel tiles falls to pools or stone trenches revealing its path.

Unfolding Prospects of the Interior Perspectives

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Figure 10.4 Low Country Residence, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, 2005, Frank Harmon, architect

Level 2 Intellectual mediation: giving each room in the house views of the creek to the west as well as providing protection from the harsh summer sun and hurricane winds, the Low Country Residence immerses the occupant in the site as ‘objective view’. The view is the experience, and is orchestrated from every room across porch, pool, and vegetation to water. It employs large pivoting metal screens, which, when horizontal, provide shade and when vertical, protection from the debris in this hurricane-prone area. The layers and overhead screen provide a perfect framing for experiencing natural change across the days and seasons and the radical change of a storm. Beauty, as beheld in the ‘eye of the mind’ is ordered and structured by an architecture of the mind, while the mind’s inventiveness is turned to mediate experience and natural force (sun, heat and wind) and therefore care for resources.

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Figure 10.5 Marie Short House, Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia, 1975, Glenn Murcutt, architect

Level 3 Contextual mediation: Through extensive design for natural ventilation, the Marie Short House creates the experience of the process of ventilative cooling. Adjustable steel louvers in the walls control the flow of wind-driven crossventilation, while fixed wood louvers allow airflow beneath gables and above open porches. Wide eaves protect from the sun; open plans align space and moving air. ‘Think of the building as an instrument that’s picking up all these sounds. So it’s addressing the hydrology, it’s addressing the geomorphology. It’s addressing the topography, the wind patterns, light patterns, altitude, latitude, the environment around you, the sun movements. It’s addressing the summer, the winter and the seasons in between. It’s addressing where the trees are, and where the trees are will tell you about the water table, the soil depth, climatic conditions.’ (Glenn Murcutt in Drew, 1999). And the building communicates the relationship of form to these processes. In its passivity is the occupant’s experience of connection to process and place.

Unfolding Prospects of the Interior Perspectives

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Figure 10.6 Pierce County Environmental Services Building, Chambers Creek, Washington, Miller Hull, architect

Level 3 Contextual mediation: Occupants experience a range of revealed processes through the sectional design of cooling chimney and lightwell adjacent to office pods: light, ventilation, plant life, the daily cycle of night flush cooling ‘Space planning was designed according to the European office model, where no desk is more than 30 feet from an exterior window. Proximity of all work stations to windows and views outdoors, introduction of interior plantings, abundant natural light, fresh air in all work areas.’ (architect’s statement) Space and structure organize natural and mechanical processes based in climatic and social contexts that are revealed and experienced directly and over time as merged beauty and utility

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Figure 10.7 Treescaper, project for Fortune Magazine’s ‘Tower of Tomorrow’, William McDonough + Partners, architects

Level 4 Self-mediation: ‘We have configured a structure that is not just kind to nature; it actually imitates nature. Imagine a building that makes oxygen, distills water, produces energy, changes with the seasons – and is beautiful. In effect, that building is like a tree, standing in a city that is like a forest.’ (architect’s statement) These relationships are manifested visibly in the moss–integrated facade, three-storey gardens, waste treatment greenhouses, and green roof, giving occupants the experience of being interconnected with a Nature ‘in here’, and serving to raise their ecological awareness

Unfolding Prospects of the Interior Perspectives

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Figure 10.8 Point House, Mangawhai Heads, Northland, New Zealand, Strachan Group, architects Level 4 Self-mediation: inhabitants of the Point House experience Nature and living as interwoven and inseparable. Large sliding doors, bridges and decks reach out into the surrounding bush reinforcing the connection between landscape and the living environments. A central glass roofed breezeway covers flexible living spaces that can be indoors or out. Sliding shutters in the breezeway act as a ventilation flap. The building calls for interaction with itself in response to the rhythms of the place, a dynamic and participatory form of ecological awareness that places user in and a part of the process (thus transcending and including the experience of process)

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Unfolding Prospects in the Cultures Perspective (LL) In the lower left quadrant, the levels of the

cultures perspective

unfold as the

values of each worldview give rise to successive ideas about the relationship between culture and Nature. In the cultures

perspective ,

Sustainable Design works

to place people into significant relationships with Nature. How this cultural intention manifests is a product of the idea of what Nature is, as viewed from a particular prospect. After Esbjörn-Hargens’ arguments, the prospects of Nature unfold from: 1 the view of Nature managed (level 2 to Nature used (level

1 traditional );

2 modern );

3 to Nature saved (level

3 postmodern );

4 to the Integral view of Nature shared (level

4 integral ).

In each case, there is a dominant mythos, a conversation we have about Nature that gives us our situated being and relates us to Nature and Nature to us. Design situates itself in that cultural conversation about Nature and, in more or less conscious ways, tells us that same story through the order and form it takes on in relationship to the designer’s understanding. Interior COMPLEXITY

EXPERIENCES [UL]

Exterior

CULTURES [LL] Nature United

L3 POSTMODERN

Nature Saved

|UL] EXPERIENCES

B E H A V I O U R S [UR]

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Figure 10.9 Unfolding prospects in the cultures perspective

Level 1 Traditional prospect: Nature managed In the traditional

level

view of Nature managed, culture and Nature are often

in opposition and Nature must be subdued. Humans must protect themselves from the untamed wilderness, establishing a clearing within it to survive. At the same time, God gives man dominion and stewardship over Nature. Nature is to be managed and husbanded as a sacred trust – so that its bounty will return next season and in following years to provide for us: the clan, tribe, feudal estate, city, or nation. This prospect’s view also transcends and includes the preceding

Unfolding Prospects of the Interior Perspectives

187

levels’ mythic views of Nature as ‘the garden’, the ideal provider of our needs, from which we have been banished and which, in some deep sense, we attempt to recreate in our surroundings and are drawn to return. Sustainable Design shows both of these attitudes at times. Manifestations of the

traditional level cultures perspective

on Sustainable

Design can be seen in the impetus to get ‘back to the land,’ to create self-sufficiency, to be off-the-grid, existing in one place with all of one’s needs provided, even at a contemporary standard of living, from available on-site, renewable resources provided by an abundant and generous Gaia. The belief manifested is that, if only we align and follow Nature’s laws and rules, then we will be taken care of in ‘the garden’. Similarly, Sustainable Design is often associated with ideal agriculturally based communities, which gave rise to many early experiments and ecological design solutions. The Farm in Tennessee, Findhorn in Scotland, the eco-village movement in Scandinavia, Village Homes in Davis, California and the co-housing movement in Denmark and in the US all attempt in a contemporary context to recreate a more Traditional, more richly connected set of community relationships. Most are based in rural or suburban settings where individuals can garden organically and communities can create an agrarian or pseudo-agrarian life related to the productivity of the land.

Level 2 The Modern prospect: Nature used In the modern

prospect

of Nature used, Nature is a resource of water, materials,

genetic information, crop productivity, raw materials and so on, to be used for culture and in service to people. Economically, the modern industrial production system is extractive: forests are clear-cut to harvest timber resources; mountain tops are removed to harvest coal resources; crops are monocultured in factory farms; fossil fuels are extracted as fast as they can be sold; metals are purified from the earth’s crust. Meanwhile, the system is linear: extraction, consumption, waste disposal. These are objective right-hand quadrant perspectives, but they reveal a

modern level

cultural view of Nature as resource, without sacred con-

tract to be stewarded and without direct existential relationship to local food and local resources with visible cycles, such as existed in Traditional societies. In the Modern worldview, only the farmer knows when to plant and only the waste-hauling company knows where the trash goes. Nature to the Modern is objectified. It is a pleasing resource to be viewed from buildings or to be preserved, as in the National Parks, for the enjoyment of ourselves now and for future generations. Just as Modern architecture tended toward abstraction of site and objectification of the building as a viewed and

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Figure 10.10 Rosie Joe House, Bluff, Utah, Design Build BLUFF 2004

Level 1 Nature managed: off-the-grid, self-sufficient, creating its own energy, the Rosie Joe House maintains both an oppositional attitude of protection from its immediate site, and a merging or collapse of culture and Nature in its back-to-the-land vision. An outpost in the hostile wilderness, sun and rain are tamed and managed through human effort and guile.

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Figure 10.11 Top: Findhorn Ecovillage, Scotland; bottom: Village Homes, Davis, California, Michael and Judy Corbett, developers, 1970s Level 1 Nature managed: Findhorn (top) is an ecovillage in Scotland. Village Homes (bottom) is a suburban development in Northern California. Both are utopian in their agrarian idealism. Nature here is not the threat to be managed, as in the wilderness, but a benign force to be stewarded, worked with, and managed as a responsibility. They both incorporate a kind of neoromantic notion of returning to ‘the garden’, where, if residents align sufficiently, all is provided. At the same time, they are organized around husbanding Nature as a trust to humans.

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Figure 10.12 Tropical House, Sao Paolo, Brazil, 2008, Andrade Morettin, architect

Level 2 Nature used: using a prefabricated system of simple materials (mosquito netting, PVC frames, wood structure) Morettin uses industrial technology and operability in an elegantly simple Modern composition to minimize resources of material and energy while maximizing use of on-site breezes for cooling. A conservation ethic ‘machine’ for capturing (or allowing) wind and resisting the sun.

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distinct object, often set apart from its background, it also created a view of Nature as objectified.2 In conventional Modern design, landform can be reshaped at will, stormwater is an engineering problem, and plants are materials to be employed in visually dominated compositions. Nature is a site amenity. As the house was a ‘machine for living’, in Modern Sustainable Design buildings become ‘green machines’ and landscapes, ‘green infrastructure’. The Modern view is not all dark, consumerist, consumptive and unconscious; however, even if Nature is a resource for culture, we can recognize the distinction, as revealed by modern science, between renewable and non-renewable resources. Our consumption of renewable resources has to be limited to the rate of its supply. Our production of waste has to be limited to the absorptive capacity of the rivers, atmosphere and soils. And the non-renewable, finite resources have to be conserved and recycled, so that they will last indefinitely for us. Fluorescent lighting was an efficiency upgrade to incandescent lighting, which was an efficiency upgrade from gas and oil lamps, which was an efficiency upgrade from candles and wood fires. This is progress in the Modern story. Sustainable Modern architecture then manifests this meaning of Nature as resource by using human reason and intellect to provide for humans the highest quality of life with the most efficient means – and most importantly to express our effective employment of natural force and resources for our purposes though design. This manifests as a conservation ethic: the environmental problem is a resource problem, therefore, reduce, reuse and recycle. LEED and other green building rating systems are a direct and positive result of this worldview, the Modern myth of Nature. Remember however, that a healthy transcends and includes the traditional

prospect ,

modern prospect

so it is entirely possible to see

in some Modern design, the embedded ethics and relationships to Nature of the Traditional.

Level 3 The Postmodern prospect: Nature saved Nature itself has value, not merely as instrumental to humans, but also for its own sake. In the Postmodern view of Nature saved, Sustainable Design picks up on the cultural expansion of the circle of rights that now include Nature. In the Modern, rights to life and liberty were extended eventually to all people. In the pluralistic ethics of the postmodern

level ,

all species have rights, ecosystems are begin-

ning to have rights and Nature itself has value, not merely as instrumental to humans, but also for its own sake. This gives rise to the shift from a conservation

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ethic (use Nature more efficiently) to a preservation ethic (keep Nature intact so it can keep being Nature). As we have come to know, the Modern use of Nature has had a dramatic effect on ecosystem health, extinction of species, and changes to fundamental balances of Nature, such as the composition of the atmosphere and its impact on climate. Healthy

postmodern level

Sustainable Design

is therefore concerned both with the efficiency of materials, energy use and land use, and with the impacts of design on biological and ecological health. The Sustainable Design shift is from ‘measure and weigh’ to a wider consideration of multiple factors (analogous to a medical-health model). Postmodern Sustainable Design also shifts to perceiving and caring about natural cycles and the fitness of design to those cycles. This expanded healthy Postmodern ethic takes place within a cultural conversation about Nature that sometimes has a more pathological expression. Since, in the radical Postmodern view, all truth and knowledge is interpretation, and all things natural and built can be intellectually deconstructed and therefore seen as constructed in language and by culture – then in this view Nature itself is culturally constructed. In the healthy version of this, we see that there are many Natures arising from many cultures operating at many levels: the one Nature is viewed from many angles. In the more radical and pathological view, Nature does not exist; it is simply a figment of our culturally constructed and agreed-upon fantasy. And even if it did exist, it would be plural, not singular. Choose your nature or your Nature, or no nature at all and your view of Nature is as good as mine or that of the Aztecs, Thoreau, the Shakers or Monsanto Corporation. According to the extreme Postmodern view, objective science is deluded because objectivity is impossible and therefore, saving Nature or having any relationship to it at all is optional at best. This is the kind of Postmodern deconstructionist thinking that Kegan sees as potentially pathological and ultimately as a transitional stage in the development of human consciousness. If we apply this extreme view to itself, however, it immediately falls apart. If all truths are relative and constructed, and no meta-narratives are any longer allowed, then by their own standards the extreme Postmodern view is simply one of many equally untrue positions. As a grand narrative to end all narratives it is disallowed by its own principle. So, in my view, let us dispense with such tiny views and instead honour the Postmodern ‘dignities of Green‘. Returning to the more workable side of Postmodernism, the widespread consciousness of this level began to penetrate culture in the west in the 1960s, giving rise to further expansion of rights: women’s rights, gay rights, the rights of the disabled and incredibly important environmental legislation. For the first time we became aware of our option, our choice, to take responsibility for our actions and their impacts on other species and on the planetary support system.

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Figure 10.13 Jubilee Campus, University of Nottingham, UK, 1999, Michael Hopkins and Partners, architects

Level 2 Nature used: as an example of humane high-tech Sustainable Design, the project converted a brownfield site, and incorporating low-energy heating and cooling systems, the Jubilee Campus reduced building emissions by 75 per cent, while providing a cultural centre for the larger campus ‘A low-pressure drop ventilation system uses corridors and stair towers as air plenums, reducing the energy needed to circulate air. Under normal conditions specially designed cowls (top photo) create adequate wind effect. During hot weather, photo-voltaic cells on the atrium roofs generate supplementary power for the fan driven ventilation.’ (Arup Engineers). These ‘green machines’ use science integrated with architecture to solve the environmental problems defined by engineering and then marry this with the provision of spatial amenity for human purpose by architecture yielding an economy of resources and a reduced cost to Nature

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Figure 10.14 North Eagle House, Los Angeles, California, 2009, Jeremy Levine Design

Level 3 Nature saved: building this residence/addition around three trees, the project presents an architecture of Sustainable Design ethics at a small scale. Rather than cutting vegetation to suit a predefined solution, the designer organizes the entire project around protecting the existing trees. Multiple courtyards help the owners appreciate the trees’ beauty and make an alliance with them for shade. The micro-habitat protection and care is completed with a green roof and landscaping is fed via greywater recycling and rainwater harvesting. Contrast this to ‘clear[cut] and grub’ practices common at Levels 1 and 2.

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Figure 10.15 Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center, Orange, Texas, 2004, Lake Flato, architects

Level 3 Nature saved: serving as a place to educate visitors on native ecosystems, the Botanical Gardens use the surrounding site as part of its regionalist architecture. This LEED Platinum project serves primarily as an interpretive centre for the site’s native ecosystems – cypress and tupelo swamp, wooded uplands, and prairie lowlands – as well as a facility for study and research. ‘The project team took an ecological inventory to define distinct ecological zones and their ecotones (areas of overlapping zones). The goals of the site plan were to: • • •

minimize disruption and fragmentation of ecological zones; maximize use of previously disturbed areas to protect native zones; and minimize site infrastructure intrusions, while emphasizing access to ecotones.’

Nature centres are some of the clearest American expressions of a postmodern Sustainable Design.

level 3 cultures perspective

on

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In Sustainable Design, this can manifest as habitat protection, as ecological planning, not in terms of rational analysis, such as the tools of McHarg’s Design with Nature (1969), but as care and concern for the spatial integrity of ecological process. It shows up as a lighter, smaller footprint for design and as ideas for compact cities. Because the healthy Postmodern transcends and includes the Traditional and the Modern, it can also use their best qualities, and therefore appears often as a green eclecticism. This context sensitivity is a hallmark of mature Postmodern thought in design.

Postmodern Sustainable Design also manifests as sustainable neo-regionalism. As Postmodern pluralism values multiplicity and diversity, and ideally allows each culture its right to exist as a culture (the inverse of imperialism and colonialism), regional solutions that fit the context of particular cultures and subcultures are given priority. Contextualism to this postmodern

prospect

is both ecological and

cultural contextualism. Miller-Hull in the Pacific Northwest, Lake-Flato in Texas, Frank Harmon in the Carolinas, Rick Joy in the southwest all show forms, solutions, strategies and expressions that are, in part, local and situational rather than portable or universal. Many designers might not see the work of these designers as Postmodern, as it reflects neither the mannerist classicism of the work of Michael Graves nor the deconstructive expressionism of Frank Ghery. These designers do, however, take a considered response to site and region that shows up in the work’s organization, materials and expression. This context sensitivity is a hallmark of mature Postmodern thought in design. Though one may find Modernist era exceptions (Paul Rudolph’s Florida buildings and the ‘Sarasota School’ architects, for example) Postmodern contextualism is of a fundamentally different order of concern. The

cultures perspective

addresses our collective myths, stories and beliefs

as they apply to and are manifested in the products of design. The story we tell ourselves is our explaining theory. The dominant Modern story of design is that design expresses and responds to: • its time (the Modern age, the democracy of industrial design); • its particular site within a universal sense of place (the portability of rational thought and the International Style); • its technology as that of its era (glass and steel, cantilever, span, expanse and tower). This Modern story has been transformed into a dominant Postmodern story of design, which is that design expresses and responds to:

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Unfolding Prospects of the Interior Perspectives

• its time as situated in a continuity of time (a leading edge with an anchor in the roots of history); • its particular site within a regional place (located in biological and cultural region); • its technology as that of its current and previous times in its region or other regions (modern or traditional level as needed, regional materials and construction logics plus portable, typically higher technology).

Level 4 The Integral prospect: Nature united From the view at the

integral prospect

along the

cultures perspective ,

Nature,

culture and the design again show up differently. The ethos is holistic and inclusive, the intent is to unify and celebrate Nature.

For the Integralist, Nature is embedded in culture in a holarchic relationship.

How we see culture and Nature defined is what changes at each level. For the Traditionalist, culture is embedded in Nature, and Nature is to be stewarded as a sacred trust and managed as an act of love for future members of one’s group. For the Modernist, Nature and culture are differentiated; Nature is a resource to be used and therefore (after limits to growth on a finite planet have entered consciousness) carefully accounted for by efficient means. For the Postmodernist, Nature and culture are either dissociated and separate (the radical deconstructivist view) or culture is again embedded in Nature (the web of life systems view);3 in either case, Nature needs the protection from culture. As we have discussed previously, for the Integralist, Nature is embedded in culture in a holarchic relationship. Nature is a complex living system fundamental to (more holarchic span) but less significant (less holarchic depth) than culture. To review an insight from Chapter 4, an ethics of Integral design is one that honors the holarchic insights of the great chain of being, actually the great holarchy of being. It posits that human culture depends on mind, which depends on living Nature, which depends on matter (Lovejoy, 1964; Wilber, 2000a). The value of the living world, above its inherent right to being, is that all higher holons depend on it. Destroy Nature and culture tumbles, which makes Nature more fundamental even if it is less significant than culture. The ethical perspective that Nature has extrinsic value (value in its partness), intrinsic value (value in its wholeness), and ground value (value in its beingness) is an view and a conversation from the

integral prospect

integral level

of the cultures

perspective .4

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Figure 10.16 Top: Entangled Bank, Re:Vision Dallas Competition, Dallas, Texas, 2009 (unbuilt), Diversified Architectural Consulting; Bottom: Forwarding Dallas, Re:Vision Dallas Competition, Dallas, Texas, 2009 (unbuilt), Alelier Data+MOOV

Level 4 Nature united: each of these projects is driven by the idea of a culture that transcends and includes Nature. Both exemplify a cultural attitude of sustainable development, where humans and Nature serve each other in a both/and world. Both use extensive technology to do so (photovoltaics, wind turbines and vertical and community gardens, rainwater catchment and irrigation, passive solar and solar thermal, etc.), but are driven by the goal of uniting culture and Nature and celebrating this complex relationship. They seek to construct and sustain patterns of the whole. Not only that, but these and several other projects from the competition clearly communicate a new cultural story of a more Integral sustainable life. Unlike many LEED Platinum projects, one cannot miss the intent here of a visible sustainable development that places people into significant relationship with Nature, both biotic and abiotic.

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199

Figure 10.17 Walled City of Masdar, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 2007 (unbuilt), Foster + Partners, architects

Level 4 Nature united: building on the idea of a Traditional walled city, and the high density, pedestrian-friendly concepts embedded therein, the Walled City of Masdar seeks to be the first zero-carbon, zero-waste city in the world. Masdar plans to use the surrounding land for wind and photovoltaic farms as well as research fields to keep the city entirely self-sustaining. Billed as a ‘sustainable urban blueprint for the future’, the car-free city engages both the oldest and newest of technologies to both anchor the project in its Arab desert culture and simultaneously create a new vision of sustainable development for a post-oil United Arab Emirates. Narrow streets, dense shaded development, multitudinous courtyards, covered circulation, and inner garden paradises combine with high-level technology, intelligent water systems and sophisticated mass transit.

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The designer at the

integral prospect

sees Nature and culture interacting

in local and global networks. Designers operating here can see and care about entire living systems. They seek to construct and sustain patterns of the whole. They recognize development in every quadrant. From the

integral prospect

one can take responsibility for the larger systems, which are the interest of the Integral designer. Capable of multidimensional awareness and cognition, Nature and culture reveal themselves to the designer as systems of systems of systems. The Integral Sustainable Designer integrates multiple processes in Nature with multiple processes in culture.

The emerging Integral story of design (and every level has its story) is that design expresses and responds to: • its time as both the current stage of evolution (another stage passed and more to come) and as a present that is an open field in which all possibilities exist (creative choice and responsibility start today); • its particular site within nested, holarchic contexts (neighborhood, quarter, city, landscape, region, global systems, etc.); • its technology as that of all of human history of all cultures applied to the situation as required in its region (modern or

traditional level

as needed,

regional or imported materials and construction logics); and that biology and ecology constitute technological options (alliances with natural systems, constructed sewage treatment wetlands, living walls and roofs, etc.). The Integral Sustainable Designer integrates multiple processes in Nature with multiple processes in culture. Nature from this prospect has the possibility of being united, reintegrated and reconstructed with culture in function, perception and meaning.

Smart growth and sustainable development Sustainable development is a senseless idea to the pre-Integral levels. ‘Smart growth’, on the other hand, is a political term of the EPA (United States Environment Protection Agency) that does not question the ideology of modern level

economics: we must grow exponentially to be healthy. It does not recog-

nize even the Modern science of the topic: that a finite planet, nor any finite subdomain of the planet, cannot indefinitely sustain (in any scenario) exponential and unlimited growth. Smart growth suggests that a great expansion of the built environment (Modern worldview) can happen while protecting the

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201

environment (Postmodern worldview). It thus attempts to resolve these two conflicting value sets. Postmodern environmentalists are happy with the compromise because they get to save more Nature with compact development located near transit. Modern developers are happy because they get to keep making money building more dense development on less land with lower infrastructure costs. Smart growth is an Integral transitional view for this reason. It takes into account two levels. It is however, decidedly not sustainable development. The smartness of smart growth is modern efficiency and at best, and only rarely, a postmodern

level

response to natural cycles and multiple factors.

Truly, sustainable development recognizes that growth and development are categorically different. To develop is to grow in quality, to change by increase in complexity, to become more sophisticated, to become more advanced or refined and especially to become a new level or stage in a life process. To learn is to develop the mind. After reaching adulthood, the human brain does not get bigger, it gets more interconnected, more developed as the complexity of concepts it can consider also increases. From the

integral prospect ,

the sustainable designer can view the world of

‘Nature in culture’ as a continual opportunity for sustainable development. In sustainable development, humans get their needs met within the context of the biophysical laws of ecology regulating all life on the planet. Humans have rights to exist and to alter their environment for inhabitation, to create a habitat where they can thrive. The

postmodern level

cannot really ever come to terms

with this because it is read as the arrogance of man at the expense of a defenseless Nature. Preservation battles are waged, but it is always a losing battle for the environmentalist. So long as humans are the dominators of ‘Nature as victim’, there is no hope but to slow the ultimate destruction of a creeping, if slower smart growth. Integral sustainable development utterly transforms this view of Nature to see Nature as a constituent holonic part of culture, as ultimately and absolutely required by culture for its existence, and as a spatial domain co-inhabited in all places on the planet, in differing proportions by both Nature and culture. This co-inhabitation of a congruent space maps Nature and culture as interrelated overlays, rather than as separate zones on the map. Nature is not out there, or outside the city, or in the country. It is ever-present in all places – and so is culture. So, the design questions become:

How do we configure the artefacts of culture in the context of a world in which the artefacts of Nature coexist in the same time and space? How do we design to live on a living planet?

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Notes 1 In this propositional sequence of complexity in aesthetic perception, I distinguish between aesthetics as the theoretical/philosophical explanation of beauty and the esthetic experience of individuals in response to conditions of beauty. 2 Yes, dear critics, there are exceptions to these generalizations in the realm we generally term Modern design. I only ask that you identify the consciousness that produced the exceptional solutions rather than applying the label of ‘Modern’ to all things from an era or all production from one individual. 3 See Chapter 4 for further discussion of culture embedded in Nature and vice-versa. 4 See Chapter 4 for further discussion of Integral Sustainable Design ethics and the Integral view of the holarchic relationship of Nature and culture.

References Drew, Philip (1999) Touch This Earth Lightly: Glen Murcutt in His Own Words, Duffy & Snellgrove, Sydney Lovejoy, Arthur O. (1964) The Great Chain of Being, Harvard University Press, Cambridge McHarg, Ian L. (1969) Design with Nature, Doubleday/Natural History Press, Garden City, NY Wilber, Ken. (2000a) A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality, Shambhala, Boston

11 Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

Unfolding Prospects in the Behaviours Perspective Interior COMPLEXITY

CULTURES [LL]

Exterior BEHAVIOURS [UR]

[UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [UR]

SYSTEMS [LR]

In

o

rn

e

de

Cyclic Analogues

di

t

o

ti

L3 POSTMODERN

Tr a

rn

Responsive Structures

d

L4 INTEGRAL

o

l

tm

s

Po M

ra eg

EXPERIENCES [UL]

L1 TRADITIONAL

n al

L2 MODERN

Building Science

Embedded

Practices

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

Figure 11.1 Unfolding prospects in the behaviours perspective

Level 1 Traditional prospect: Embedded practices Most of our understanding of technology comes from the Modern mind. It is often difficult for us to even imagine the prospect of Traditional perception in the behaviours quadrant. The behaviours of things, people, and energy in the empirical world that science examines are embedded in the practices of a Traditional culture. For example, the structural behaviour of a masonry arch is, for the Traditional mind, embedded in the building practices of particular building cultures that over hundreds or thousands of years developed conventions that worked. An eighteenth-century mason did not calculate the structural loads and forces to determine the allowable span or depth or curvature of an arch. The behaviours of the arch were embedded in the shared and common practices of the allowable forms and stylistic conventions within a particular

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Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

local building culture. Everyone who was initiated into the guild knew the limits and the correct way to build in masonry, the method of stacking and bonding and making of joints with workability and those without. In general, this slow evolution of form by trial and error, embedding cultural knowledge into shared patterns of the building guilds, or often in the shared practices of an entire culture, created forms where the behaviours were visibly expressed. Despite the traditional

level ’ s

lack of the mathematical tools of

engineering, solutions to stresses of gravity, bending, joinery, shear, deflection, cantilever, lateral bracing and so on were intuitively developed. The vernacular solutions were often very direct expressions of tension and compression and the forms required for resolution. The timber framing of an Appalachian cantilever barn, the buttresses of a Gothic cathedral, and the mass and small opening of a southwestern pueblo all reveal the forces at work in them in ways that can be felt and sensed directly. Compare these to the speculative Modern office building with its structure hidden above a suspended acoustical ceiling, or the open corner window and concealed support of Modern houses made possible via the intellectual force calculation of the engineered cantilever. For Sustainable Design, the Traditional approach to behaviours in design offers the promise of dependable conventions. Building codes today are one example of a Traditional strategy (making rules), even if based on Modern science. A Traditional understanding of the way the world ‘works’ is direct, sensory and has generated some of the most profound experiences of architecture in the history of humankind. In the traditional

level

of the experiences perspective design

is appreciated as the aesthetic experiences of felt forces of the environment as they interact with form and as experienced via the five senses. The question for Sustainable Design is:

How can we know Nature and natural forces in a ( traditional level ) way that leads to the deep fulfilment of experiencing form where the forces can be read in the design response? Note the interrelationship between prospects at the same level. A traditional view on utility and the workings of the world (L1, UR) correlates with: • a form response (L1, LR) • a personal experience (L1, UL) • a meaning (L1, LL). The value of the

traditional prospect

on behaviours is also that, to the extent

that patterns of life and Nature are fixed laws – day follows night, season follows season, stone is a compressive material, gravity is equally relevant across the planet, people are less than eight feet tall, parents and children form a social unit – then codified, successful, timeless, authentic, fulfilling patterns of

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

205

Figure 11.2 Cantilevered Barn, Cade’s Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, c1870–1915

Level 1 Embedded practices: the cantilevered barn reveals its structure through visible force logics, developed and improved over the course of generations of trial and error. There was no one designer; the craft was passed orally through the generations and from one farmer to another. One can read in the order of its form response, the patterns of rain, gravity, shade and sun, animals, and human labor. These forces are embedded in the forms. The technology is not separate from its spatial expression. Neither is it distinct from the knowledge of place and farming.

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Figure 11.3 Zachary House, Zachary, Louisiana, 1999; Stephen Atkinson, architect

Level 1 Embedded practices: Atkinson’s Zachary House employs in a contemporary structure the essence of its rural Louisiana vernacular ‘dog trot’ (breezeway). The simple two-room house type, separated by an open-air room between and spanned by a single gable provides shaded outdoor space and increases breezes via the Venturi effect. With steeply pitched roof and overhangs, the scheme related directly to deep archetypes of shelter and home. Although constructed of corrugated modern metal and light frame wood, unavailable to the progenitors of the type, it nevertheless, carries a Traditional beauty similar to the cantilever barn in what Atkinson calls, ‘modesty, timelessness, and direct expression of purpose’, a good summary of the level 1 behaviours prospect .

207

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives [UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [UR]

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l

Tr a d

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Figure 11.4 Correlates of the behaviours, prospects in all quadrants

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[LL] CULTURES

Figure 11.5 The traditional

SYSTEMS [LR]

level

in all quadrants

form are both possible and desirable. If the sun path and its seasonal cycles in a culture are known, and this is one of the core knowable phenomena of all cultures, then significant cultural patterns can be derived, shared and embedded into types: the courtyard house in a hot-arid climate, the protected entry in a cold climate, the south-facing outdoor room in a temperate climate and so on.

Level 2 Modern prospect: Building Science The prospects are interrelated: new science, new form, new experience of form, and a new meaning of Nature. Modern science and its partner, industrialization, made possible new forms and ultimately new levels of design performance. These rational and empirical methods and the consciousness of objectivity they express have also given rise to new experiences and meanings of Nature. Mathematical engineering methods gave rise to columns with unprecedented slenderness, to walls that, relative to Traditional methods and materials, disappeared – where the glazed opening was maximized and the envelope dematerialized. Le Corbusier proclaimed the roof garden, made possible by modern flat-roofed structure and waterproofing systems (we are still working the kinks out of that one), to be a new relationship to Nature. The technology of steel faming ‘freed’ the envelope from its structural role, and we created the curtain wall allowing windows to become horizontal, rather than the vertical orientation dictated by the structural role

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A10

Wood Structure Clerestory Windows

Straw Bale Walls

Under Floor Air System

Figure 11.6 Santa Clarita transit maintenance facility, Santa Clarita, California, 2008; HOK, architects

Level 2 Building science: the first LEED Gold straw bale building, this super-insulated building utilizes multi-level technology (photovoltaic cells provide half of the energy needed for operation) and reacts automatically to changing climatic conditions of the extreme high/low temperatures indicative of its desert climate. It uses underfloor air distribution and high-performance glazing. The combination of high- and low-tech solutions helps this building to exceed stringent California energy efficiency standards by 40 per cent.

of masonry and the limited span of lintels carrying the mass above. This in Le Corbusier’s view created a new, horizontal, head-pivoting relationship between man and landscape. Clearly the application of Modern thinking and of science to building created building systems that altered our relationship to the outside, to enclosure, to light and to heat sources. Again, we can see that the prospects are interrelated: new science, new form, new experience of form and a new meaning of Nature. The gifts are many of this Modern understanding of the way the world works as predictable and quantifiable, and as a machine to be manipulated. Comfort expanded dramatically. Work could happen at night. New territories of hot and cold climates could be settled by large populations. Public health and hygiene could improve. Indoor air could be always fresh. Less fuel was needed to do the same work. Despite the psychological allure of Traditional space, few Moderns want to return to the age of oil lamps, bed-warmers or fireplace cooking as a way of life. For Sustainable Design the dignities of the modern

level

offer more

ways to relate to Nature and more efficient ways to use resources. A

level 2 modern prospect

on sustainable technology yields performance

criteria and eventually the idea of high-performance and zero-energy buildings and even net energy export buildings. It produces the thinking of reducing,

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

209

Figure 11.7 World Headquarters for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), Yarmouth, Massachusetts, 2008; DesignLAB, architects

Level 2 Building science: an AIA Top Ten Green Project, it utilizes low-tech, low-cost materials and considers climatic design tenets such as siting, orientation, natural daylighting and ventilation and high-efficiency mechanical systems. The IFAW earned a LEED Gold rating. Rational participatory planning reduced workspace per person by 50 per cent. Conservation practices reduced water consumption by 46 per cent compared to a building meeting the current federal standards. Rain gardens and bioswales filter and recharge 100 per cent of rainwater on the site, and an advanced septic system treats 100 per cent of wastewater to tertiary standards. Energy consumption is 32 per cent less than conventional offices. In short, its (level 2 ) claims to sustainability arise from logics of measurement (or simulated predictions) compared to quantitative standards (energy and water targets) and comparative multivariate metrics (LEED)

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reusing, and recycling in building design, operation and decommissioning. It is concerned with using less material, water and energy to do what is required. This prospect gives rise to green building rating systems that measure and weigh dozens of aspects of building performance, from recycled content, to energy consumption, to the production of off-gassing products to the stormwater flows of water on the site. Green building science is the heart of contemporary Sustainable Design.

The

level 2 modern prospect

examines the phenomenon of buildings as

empirically knowable objects in the world and how they interact with other empirically understood patterns of Nature. This manifests as life-cycle analysis, as environmental impact analysis, and as climatic design. For example, climatologists have measured, recorded and analysed patterns of climate in most settled places on the planet for a century or more. Combined with predictive models of climate, we can generate hourly annual profiles for wind, rain, temperature, sky cover, illuminance, radiation and humidity. Based on these patterns and research into quantifying patterns of human comfort, we can assess which strategies are appropriate in which climates and to what magnitude. Designers can select from hundreds of generalized climatic response strategies, mixed in appropriate bundles for different types of climates, and then size the important architectural features. These include window sizing for daylight, apertures for cross-ventilation, stack heights for buoyancy driven ventilation, southerly apertures for solar heating, mass for thermal storage and so on. Sophisticated models for calculation have been developed, along with value engineering and optimization techniques that allow computer simulation of performance. This is so rapid now that multiple cycles of design and evaluation are practical, changing both the design process and the formal outcomes. level 2

green building science is the heart of contemporary Sustainable

Design as currently practiced and as expressed via organizations like the US Green Building Council and the LEED system.

Level 3 Postmodern prospect: Cyclic analogues level 3 postmodern

science can in one sense be thought of as a shift from be-

haviours to systems, from reductionism to holism, from hierarchical categories to networks and so forth. But we can also see a development in the behaviours perspective

itself in terms of:

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• a shift from linear to cyclic perception and phenomena; • examining the behaviours of one phenomena or category on another; • a multiplicitous ‘report card’ of factors held in simultaneous comparison. In Sustainable Design this can be seen in concerns for healthy buildings which, using an organismic metaphor, require the monitoring of multiple vital signs and in which health is more than the absence of disease. The environment we create for people is seen as potentially healthful or as disturbance and disease causing. Some buildings are said to be sick with mold, mildew and other diseases carried in their mechanical systems and construction. These potential conditions of indoor environments are prevented by source reduction of pollutants, carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and pathogens as typically found in Modern era industrialized building materials (volatile organic compounds in paints, sealants, adhesives, carpets, etc.). Healthy ventilation rates are established and air quality factors monitored using ern level

modern level

methods, but driven by

postmod -

values and awareness of time-based processes.

level 3 postmodern values

(UL) are characterized by an expansion of care

and concern and by a reduction in egotism. The tools of empiricism are then turned to find and measure the impacts of buildings and cities on other species, on factors that impact Nature and on the health of ecosystems. A development in cultural values has driven the development of methods in the perspective .

behaviours

In doing so, the recognition of an increased complexity of natural

phenomena has led to more complex tools, methods and explaining theories, accounting for many more variables. As such, the quantitative or statistical description of patterns, probabilities and ‘chaotic’ systems was required, leaving behind much of the certainty and elegant simplicity of ‘classical’ Modern science. For Sustainable Design this offers the boon of an understanding of renewable energy and resources and of seeing the natural world in terms of its cycles. Modern consciousness found linear patterns.

modern level

Sustainable

Design was about reducing resource use and reducing the wastes of building construction and operation.

postmodern level

Sustainable Design can not only

detail an envelope to reduce heat flow, it can look at Traditional patterns of spatial organization for their contributions to performance (the southern dogtrot type or urban row house types, for example). It can fit design solutions to renewable resource availability, via both passive design and renewable power production. We can look at patterns of wind distribution and velocity and select places where wind generators are feasible. We can fit solar heating strategies to patterns of daily cloud cover and seasonal variation. We can design solutions that fit the diurnal cycles of sun, heat loss, heat gain, occupancy patterns and storage.

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Figure 11.8 Leura House, Sydney, Australia, 2008; James Stockwell, architect

Level 3 Cyclic analogues: this project is designed for passive solar performance, while organized as an analogue and completion of a landscape spatial sequence and as a participant in the climatic cycles of its place Not coincidentally, it uses a level 3 spatial order of ‘incompleteness’ of space with layers and transitions and the elimination of literal thresholds It addresses ‘warmth/cooling, ventilation and acoustics with simple passive methods backed up by hydronic heating/cooling’. The house produces its own power and water. A hierarchical logic of passive renewable power built on efficient machines built on smart passive systems is indicative of this level 3 prospect .

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213

Figure 11.9 5.4.7 Arts Center, Greensburg, Kansas, 2008, Dan Rockhill, architect

Level 3 Cyclic analogues: designed and built by graduate students at the University of Kansas, the Art Center utilizes multiple active and passive energy systems: photovoltaic cells, wind turbines, geothermal heating and cooling, thermal massing, cross-ventilation and stack ventilation, and a green roof, among other features. The first LEED Platinum building in Kansas, it harvests rainwater to irrigate buffalo grass and uses recycled insulation, siding, and countertops. As a level 3 prospect project, it not only saves resources (level 2 ) but links multiple energy water and material systems in ways that begin to make the building an analogue of an ecosystem

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Postmodern science cannot be seen merely as the correlate to Postmodern experiences and Postmodern cultural insights, although we can do that also. Postmodern science and engineering is an order of complexity higher; it transcends and includes the methods of a more linear, less complex, less systemic level 2 modern

science. Erich Jantsch in Design for Evolution termed this a shift

from rational to evolutionary logics, which was his way saying a shift from linear to cyclic thinking as an upgrade in complexity (Jantsch, 1975). We can see the objective singular prospects in the upper right

behaviours quadrant

as

developing: • from level

1

collapsed and embedded;

• to level

2

linear (change);

• to level

3

cyclic (processes as the order of change);

• to level

4

systemic (multiple interactive processes at multiple holarchic

levels) and evolutionary (the order of change of systemic process). Note that a solar heated building, while a sophisticated mapping of energy processes and cycles (cyclic), is not the same as a building conceived of as an ecosystem or integrated with its contextual ecosystems (systemic). It is simpler, less complex, less alive. While we have been discussing here the behaviours of the natural world and the relationship of design to it, the same patterns of increasing complexity can be noted for the behaviours of people and groups of people, and for the corresponding responses of form to these patterns of human activity and biomechanics.

Level 4 Integral prospect: Responsive structures As with all second-tier prospects, individuals at

level 4

consider all previous

prospects as potentially useful and valuable depending on circumstances. Sensory input of individual observers is valid in its domain; objective, controlled measurement and scientific method is valid in its domain; the epistemology of other cultures at all levels is valid in some regard depending on the situation. Traditional, Modern and Postmodern insights into how the world works can all be taken into account. The views of one level on another, particularly the views of higher levels on lower, are valid, such as the Modern tools of documentation and (neo-rational) analysis applied to discovering and applying the essential formal types embedded in Traditional cities and buildings. Many tools and methods, indeed many ways of being, may all be useful in revealing the full truth to the full extent it can be known objectively. Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman were all empirical in individual ways that revealed truths not particular to individuals and not limited to detached scientific method. They were nevertheless, profound observers of the natural world.

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Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

For Sustainable Design, the

level 4 integral prospect

on science and engi-

neering opens up a new level of complexity and new levels of unanswered questions. Materials can now be seen not just as a linear path of cradle-to-grave, but as a cyclic path of cradle-to-cradle – and not just from the view of individual cycles (water, materials, energy, etc.) but from the view of ecology where they are all interrelated in complex ways. From this view, there is more complexity of systemic form and process in one human cell than in an entire office building or perhaps even a city of 1 million. At the tems perspectives

integral level ,

the

behaviours

and

sys -

are inextricably linked: objective methods are driven by their

systemic contexts and systems are also understood in part by the performance of their parts. The

level 4 integral prospect

on behaviours can be seen in the concept of

biomimicry, ‘a new discipline that studies Nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems’ (Biomimicry Institute, 2010). Biomimicry is a new spin on a definition for biotechnology that is quite different from the more conventional (level

2 modern )

idea of technology ap-

plied to influence biology.

Energy efficient buildings inspired by passive cooling in termite mounds and non-toxic fabric finishes inspired by water repellant lotus plants are examples of biomimicry changing our world today. While humans have a long way to go towards living sustainably on this planet, millions of species – each with nearly 4 billion years of field testing – contain technological ideas to help us succeed in our all-important quest to become a sustainable species on a biodiverse planet.  (Biomimicry Institute, 2010) Of course, the integral designer might more likely look toward a broader concept of ecomimicry, that is, looking to natural systems, organisms-in-environment and the principles of ecosystem organization for inspiration and models. integral level

Sustainable Design will increasingly make use of smart and

responsive technology. To complete our earlier sequence, as Louis Sullivan proclaimed, and functional-reductionist-Modernists distorted, ‘Form follows function.’; Sim van der Ryn (2003) in his updating in Ecological Design writer, ‘Form follows flow follows form’; Edgar Stach now declares, ‘Form follows evolution’ (Stach, 2002).1 There is a great lack of clarity in this emerging language of design and technology that responds to the dynamics of processes and cycles (L3 prospect) and to ecosystems (L4 prospect) and evolution (maybe even L5 prospect). A sketch of how the prospects unfold in the upper right quadrant, relative to sustainable technology looks something like this:

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Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

Figure 11.10 Sliding House, Suffolk, England, 2008; dRMM, architects

Level 4 Responsive structures: a moveable roof/wall shell structure slides over the three-part dwelling (main house, guest house, and greenhouse) to create unique environments and accommodate the desires of the occupants, depending on the time of day as well as season. ‘As it moves, the sliding element creates shifting outdoor living areas between the static elements as well as altering views, lighting conditions and the sense of enclosure inside the house.’ At the same time, the degree of shelter, sunlight and insulation also vary as a dynamic response to lively and chaotic climate conditions. Although this is a simple and large-scale response, it does suggest the kind of prospect that can be taken at level 4 , where buildings and sites respond dynamically as if living.

• Level 1 Traditional Sustainable Technology is mostly unconscious and tacit knowledge. It is embedded in the practices of Traditional building cultures. It has evolved with the culture in place and is constituted by the history of successful vernacular adaptations to place. • Level 2 Modern Sustainable Technology maximizes efficiency via low-flow water fixtures, reused, recycled and recyclable materials, highly insulated construction, air barriers and ventilation heat recovery, high-efficiency heating and cooling systems, lightweight structures, efficient electric lighting, radiant barriers, etc. It does a better job (more efficient, less

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

217

polluting) within a Modern paradigm that seeks to manipulate Nature with technology. • Level 3 Postmodern Sustainable Technology places performance efficiency into the context of cyclic natural flows of heat, carbon, light, wind, water, etc. via ‘passive’, site-based-resource design solutions: combinations of Traditional organizational and planning solutions (thin plans, tall windows, buffer zones, daylighting zones, etc.) with a more complex scientific logic of Nature in time (monthly rainfall probabilities, sky cover patterns, statistical climatic analysis, etc.) to generate strategies for ‘natural’ daylighting, passive, hybrid, and active solar heating and cooling, renewable energy production (wind generators, photovoltaics), ‘smart’ double-envelope facades, etc. • Level 4 Integral Sustainable Technology places ‘building with Nature’ into an ecological context at multiple scales (element, building, site, and on up to the global atmosphere). It can see the order of ecosystems and can design to fit that order (living landscapes as a context). It can also see the design patterns embedded in ecosystems and use these as models for human ecosystem design (living landscape as an analogue). Emerging manifestations include, among others: • biological sewage treatment in constructed wetlands (inside and outside of buildings); • carbon balance and carbon cycling methods and technologies that integrate energy use and renewable production, carbon sequestration on site and in materials, etc.; • water balance and water cycling methods and techniques that integrate rainfall regimes, water harvesting, consumption, recycling and reuse, treatment, infiltration, runoff, downstream aquatic habitat, etc.; • metaphoric and analogic approaches to ‘building as an ecosystem’; • landscape planning that integrates spatial pattern and habitat process, as found in landscape (scale) ecology; • some types of ‘intelligent’ building systems using building monitoring and response to fit multiple constantly changing variables; • lighting systems that integrate daylight, electric light, occupancy patterns, and envelope variables of shading, ventilation, and reflection. At the

level 4 integral prospect ,

each of these design approaches requires an

objective study of discreet phenomena disclosed via the tools and thinking of science and engineering and set in a systemic context that gives design thinking its tasks from the

behaviours perspective .

The discreet phenomena are under-

stood as linked in systems, as players (parts) in larger systems and as systems in themselves (wholes).

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Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

RAIN

RAIN

PLAY AREA NATIVE LANDSCAPING

GREY WATER STORAGE LIVING MACHINE

COMMUNITY GARDENS RECLAIMED WATER FOR SUBSURFACE IRRIGATION

Figure 11.11 Cradle to Cradle Home, Roanoke, Virginia (unbuilt), 2006; Coates Design

Level 4 Responsive structures: this is the winner of the C2C Cradle to Cradle International Design Competition. From its photosynthetic and phototropic ‘skin’ that moves with the sun to its soy foam wall panels and vegetated roof system, the Cradle to Cradle Home incorporates multi-level technology that addresses the full life cycle of building and materials to create a sustainable, ‘living building’ beyond anything considered in current green building rating systems. The level 4 behaviours prospect often exhibits biomimicry and ecomimicry. ‘… this living skin is photosynthetic and phototropic. It grows and follows the path of the sun, generating electricity in excess of single family needs.’. ‘This design suggests that community interdependence is the necessary foundation for future growth. One home shelters one family, but creates a resource that benefits many.’ (www.cradletocradlehome.com)

Unfolding Prospects in the Systems Perspective To complete our brief exposition of the 16 prospects of Sustainable Design, let’s look at developmental levels from the systems

perspective .

Level 1 Traditional prospect: Tacit systems At level 1 , systems as we understand them today do not exist. The complexity of how things work in the world is a mystery but not necessarily in need of explanation. The workings of Nature, the human body, and the order of societies are given. Cities grow organically, piecemeal, without rational planning. There are systems present in the Traditional world; organisms and environments still made ecosystem relationships in ancient Egypt. Evolution was working in Medieval Europe. Societies were networks of individuals in relationships for generations untold. The Gaian planetary atmosphere was hard at work over the millennia. Yet, no one, save the rare visionary, was even aware of the complexity of the systemic world.

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

[UL] EXPERIENCES

Interior COMPLEXITY

EXPERIENCES [UL]

CULTURES [LL]

219

B E H A V I O U R S [UR]

Exterior BEHAVIOURS [UR]

SYSTEMS [LR]

L4 INTEGRAL

Living Systems

L3 POSTMODERN

Complex Systems

L2 MODERN

Logical Systems

L1 TRADITIONAL

Systems

Tacit [LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

Figure 11.12 Unfolding prospects in the systems perspective

At

level 1 ,

systems are embedded in the taken-for-granted practices, injunc-

tions, customs, styles, forms and guilds of the culture. Did the Anasazi at Mesa Verde or the Acoma in their pre-Columbian pueblo superstructures understand the mechanics of heat flow, mass and solar geometry as an abstraction in the mind? Probably not. More likely, formal solutions were developed over time in an incremental evolutionary way, along with the myths and social practices that the forms supported. Systems as social and ecological contexts are present in the types and traditions of a building culture, whether vernacular or classical. We can analyse how the solutions of Traditional designers and builders fit their contexts or did not, based on our current understanding of contexts, but a consciousness of systemic context and the ability to act in response to it is decidedly post-Traditional. Traditional building, as more than one observer has noted, often addresses a ‘micro context’ of piecemeal organic incremental fit of one increment of growth to another over time. Additionally, the context that Traditional worldviews do share is a context of history, a lineage given by the ancestors, a tradition to be honoured, the ‘old ways’ that define who we are. History is not ‘back then’, or in the past, but living as an ever-present now. The order of things, whether given by the authority of the ancients, God or the Emperor, is the fixed timeless order. We trust that it fits together in the plan of those who are beyond us and to whom we look for structure in life.

Tradition and Sustainable Design level 1

Traditional ‘systems’ are ethnocentric in Nature, accessed via shared prac-

tices, and almost entirely below consciousness. Does this mean the Traditional view of lower right contexts is not applicable to Sustainable Design? Absolutely not! Our advantage today is the ability to distinguish as successful or unsuccessful patterns that the Traditional worldview could often not even see or articulate for itself. For Integral Sustainable Design, we want to know what

220

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

Figure 11.13 Hill Country Jacal (weekend retreat), Pipe Creek, Texas, 1999, Lake-Flato, architects

Level 1 Tacit systems: using a vernacular lean-to structure, the Hill Country Jacal (a Mexican term referring to a lean-to structure) utilizes pre-industrial strategies. Its design is a contemporary conscious use of building systems, practices, and patterns that emerged over centuries. ‘The simple screened cedar pole structure is oriented towards the prevailing summer breeze and creek while its stone wall shelters the living space from the northwest winter winds. The thick limestone wall houses an outdoor shower, bunk beds and composting toilet. The screened living space and adjacent open porch step down the hill under the simple shed roof.’

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

221

worked and what did not work about the solutions of Traditional societies to environmental problems, in the context of local energy and material resources. Instead of regressing from the disasters of Modern design (remember there were dignities, too) to an idealized or romanticized era of ‘noble savages’ living in harmony with the Earth or to a classical golden age of perfect balance, we look at the dignities and the disasters of the

traditional level .

S ome indigenous

societies died as they hunted their food supplies to extinction, or deforested their landscapes or over-irrigated and salinized the land. All had slavery in one form or another. And forget all of the gifts of pluralistic Postmodernism to expand rights to the disabled, women, all races and sexual orientations. For many, the pre-Modern world was no fun place to live. Still, evolution and human innovation marched on. Solutions fit to place and culture emerged and were refined over centuries: thin plans, atria, gallerias, and clerestories; double skins, ice-house roofs, reflective surfaces and a thousand versions of shading design; rooms facing the sun and wind, evaporative cooling towers and wind catchers; earth building techniques, sustainable yield bio-material harvesting and a hundred ways to lay stone; saltboxes, longhouses, wrap-around porches and igloos; windbreaks, wing-walls, Venturi breezeways and windmills; solaria, greenhouses, winter gardens and south-facing outdoor rooms – all these and hundreds more successful, contextually fit precedents. Perhaps the Traditional worldview could articulate the social and environmental reasons and contexts of these, or perhaps not. Nevertheless, we have the luxury of their long history of developing solutions exhibiting workability in multiple cultures and natural contexts.

Level 2 Modern prospect: Logical systems level 2 modern prospect

systems can be defined as linear, abstracted and ra-

tional on one hand and on the other hand as organic, in the sense of organic architecture. The Modern mind used the new tools of scientific observation to extend our understanding of phenomena and of the dimensions of context. It also developed over time the industrial economy as a context. Systems, to

level 2

thought, means how things fit

together like the parts of a machine fit together.

Each system has a function and each part is to be optimized for its specific role in that function. Each layer of the wall becomes differentiated: exterior skin, insulation, structure, waterproofing, air barrier, vapour barrier, exterior shading

222

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

device, interior shading device, interior finish, etc. Systems to the Modern are about differentiation and specialization, about replication and standardization, about industrial production and prefabrication, about creating kits-of-parts and portable prototypes and about the microcosmic unit assembled in ever-larger additive hierarchical combinations of modules from doorway to metropolis. Some of these same ideas show up in today’s attempts as portable, modular, pre-manufactured, panelized and otherwise industrially systematized green buildings. Is that bad? Is an industrial approach to building bad? Not necessarily and certainly not always. Yes, it is impossible in such an approach to get the local piecemeal fitness of one piece to what came before, and the loose beauty of Traditional handcrafted construction. It is however on a functional level entirely possible and actually more likely that an industrially designed and manufactured part, panel, module or building will perform better in terms of resources. It is likely that a systemized approach could be designed, within limits, to adapt to local variations of climate. What about applications for disaster relief, temporary structures, refugee housing and mass housing when culture and economy has broken down locally? From an Integral view, green prefabrication is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not.

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

223

Figure 11.14 Cellophane House (a) completed, rendering (facing page), (b) assembly sequence (this page); installation, Kieran Timberlake

Level 2 Logical systems: the Cellophane House is an offsite fabricated dwelling for the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition ‘Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling’. Relying heavily on modular prefabrication, it possesses immense building efficiencies, and the flexible system allows for configurations to suit a variety of sites. It is a mechanically fastened, demountable system logically reconfigurable, replaceable, and recyclable. The architects tell the story from the level 2 logical systems prospect : ‘A building is, at root, nothing more than an assemblage of materials forming an enclosure.’ ‘The actual materials are, in a sense, irrelevant: it is the manner in which they are joined together that defines the essence of a structure.’ ‘It begins with the system as its basis, allowing architecture to grow out of its opportunities and constraints.’

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Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

Level 2 design seeks pattern that improves performance and pattern that connects site and building, building part and building part, person and site.

Designers at the level

2 modern prospect

typically take as their context the local

site, socially and physically, not the larger ecosystem or social system as context. This view is useful, true, and again, partial. For the sustainable designer, this level of fitness to site is of critical concern. It has the most direct effect on the local environment and on the user’s experience. Concerns include the way designed form and space respond to solar orientation, wind directions, topographic patterns, slope and aspect, stormwater flows, shade and sun patterns, access, pedestrian movement, entry sequence, parking, views to and from the site, human use and activity on the site, the nature of localized social groupings, relationships to adjacent sites at each edge, service access, the spatial order of the site itself and so on. These are familiar issues to designers. The sustainable designer looks for the environmental content in each of these and particularly from this

level 2 prospect ,

for how a configuration of design elements, as a

locally related system, could improve measurable environmental performance. The designer in this prospect seeks pattern that improves performance and pattern that connects site and building, connects building part and building part, person and site and so on. It is a first step in building a consciousness of interrelatedness on the way up the spiral of prospects toward Integral ecological thinking. A clear example of a level

2

view of site is given by Canadian Government

guidance on Sustainable Design (note the discreet, ‘site and Nature as resource’ orientation of the advice):

When selecting a new building site, the developer assesses natural patterns of wind and water flows on the site, sun exposure in all seasons, and special landscape features (e.g. rock outcroppings, mature trees). Careful site assessment and planning allow the building to fully utilize natural advantages, such as daylight and windbreaks, and minimize environmental impacts such as storm water run-off. When an existing site is being redeveloped, assessment of the positive and negative attributes of the current structures and other site development can be factored into the plans. Consideration can also be given to reusing structures and materials.  (Sustainable Buildings Canada, 2010) This interrelatedness was expressed early in Modernism as organic architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright (Fallingwater/Kaufman House, Bear Run, PA), Bruce Goff (Bavinger House, Norman, OK), Imre Makovecz (Lutheran Church in Siófok, Hungary), Bart Prince (Gradow Residence, Aspen, CO), Fay Jones (Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, AR), etc.

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

225

Wright understood the twin ideas of the organic as: 1) all the elements integrated into a unified whole composition, relating the multiple scales of the design unity from material to site; and 2) design form creating a harmony between humans and Nature by an intimate connection to the site:

… I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no ‘traditions’ essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but – instead – exalting the simple laws of common sense – or of super-sense if you prefer – determining form by way of the nature of materials ...  (Wright, 1939) In some ways, Wright’s idea of unity manifests an Integral view (‘form and function are one’) and makes him at least a precursor to Integral thought. The above quote however, places him as a Modernist thinker: breaking from the past, creating newness without preconception and seeking universal design principles while manifesting personal individual expression of the independent, fully individuated, integrated, self-actualized, self-aware ego. At the same time there is in Wright a ‘third tier’ (post-Integral) Nature mystic in evidence (the super-sense) in which a higher mind is aligned ‘organically’ with the great Tradition (the Timeless Way, the Tao of Nature and architecture) – but that is a topic for Part IV.

‘Architecture comes about as a result of the synthesizing by the architect of creative responses to input from the client; data gathered from the site and the climate …’ 

(Bart Prince)

The point is that organic architecture is an expression of

level 2 modernity

turned toward an understanding of Nature as site and knowable principles. The natural imagery of curves and naturalistic, non-linear geometry found in some organic works is not an expression of the complex underlying ecological or biological processes at work in buildings. It was instead an attempt at a metaphorical communication of meaning in the context of a cultural conversation about design (LL). In terms of actually relating to Nature, most organic architecture (of the Modern period), before it became merged with ideas of sustainability in the late 20th century, related to site as an opportunity for visual and spatial composition, for its experiential possibilities and for its material suggestions. The level 2

architect, even the organic

level 2

‘naturalistic’ architect is fitting to a ‘site

system’ conceived as a set of forces, forms, organisms, geology and inferences

226

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

that are specific and local. This site response is almost entirely without reference to a larger culture (LL, level 3) and its values (except perhaps as avoidance or critique) or to the site as a complex social and natural system (LR, level 3). It certainly does not respond to its site as a nested system within an ecosystem and bioregion (LR, level

4 integral ).

Level 3 Postmodern prospect: Complex systems The

level 3 postmodern prospect

on systems has to be distinguished from the

common understanding of Postmodernism as the interpretation of the objective world. Most Postmodern theorists take a (LL) cultures

perspective

and define

the Postmodern view solely from that perspective. In the lower left quadrant at level 3 ,

‘design is what it means in culture’.

‘Whereas modern buildings once tended to be conceived as pure, abstract objects, independent of what was beside them, there is now much more attention paid to the notion of fitting a building into its architectural context – trying in other words, to make certain that the building echoes many of the architectural themes of its neighbors. ‘ 

(Goldberger, 1981)

In contrast, we are talking here about a new level of the systems

perspective

that

emerges with Postmodern awareness. In the lower right quadrant, the view from the

level 3 systems prospect

sees systems as cyclical, as abstract models

placed into the context of larger models, as super-rational. That is, the LR level

3

takes rationality to a new level of complexity and sees systems as linear scientific models chained together cybernetically and dynamically. An example of lower right progression in science is the sequence of understanding the relationships among species in Nature, which developed in stages: • from food pyramids (level • to food chains (level • to food webs (level level 3

3

4

2

linear);

cyclic);

networked living systems).

systems, like everything in the LR, are physical, biological and social. The

key to understanding

level 3

systems is the Postmodern insight of contextual-

ism. At level 3 , scientific observations and social interactions all have contexts of function (UR), aesthetic experience (UL) and meaning (LL). In other words, the other three quadrants also form a context for the systems

perspective .

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

227

Figure 11.15 Oak Lodge, Our Lady of the Oaks Retreat Center, Applegate, California, Siegal + Stain (2007)

Level 3 Complex systems: set in a remote location, the Oak Lodge uses the surrounding landscape as context to inform its design. Angles of the building follow contours of the earth and undulate to accommodate mature trees. In keeping with the Jesuit’s mission of environmental stewardship, the complex also features low-cost, low-tech sustainability ideas such as straw bale construction and ventilation chimneys. The dormitory wing is joined to the meeting rooms by a breezeway and screened porch. While the project is relatively low-tech, its designers read the landscape as a complex context in its structure, climate, and ecological dimensions. To see the landscape as a complex system is a level 3 prospect .

228

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

Figure 11.16 Chesapeake Bay Foundation Philip Merrill Center, Annapolis, Maryland, 2000, Smith Group, Inc., architects

Level 3 Complex systems: utilizing multiple active and passive sustainability systems, from solar power to cisterns for water capture, the Philip Merrill Center serves as an educational tool for environmental advocacy. The first LEED Platinum building, it treats both building and landscape as complex systems made of multiple processes. As an example, water is the central theme of the project and also of the organization itself, incorporating rainwater harvesting and reuse, composting toilets, cisterns, bioretention filters and more than 90 per cent reduction in water use over a comparable conventional office building. Combined with ecosystem restoration, native landscaping, etc., the project takes a whole-systems ecotechnic view of design for water.

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

229

Socially, designers at this prospect can see stakeholder concerns outside the actual paying client, particularly in non-residential projects. Users and those inhabiting the contexts of the projects are brought into the design process, for example the works of Christopher Alexander (University of Oregon Plan, The Oregon Experiment), Stroud Watson (Downtown Chattanooga), and the AIA (American Institute of Architects) in their R/UDAT (Regional/Urban Design Assistance Teams) work. Public design workshops become common. Formally, historical and architectural traditions and contexts become something to respond, relate and fit to, as enriched in the works of James Stirling (Rice Architecture School, Houston, Texas), Stephen Halprin, William Turnbull, Charles Moore, etc. (Sea Ranch); Rafael Moneo (Town Hall, Murcia, Spain). The Modern ‘object building’ (a derogatory Postmodern term) was not an issue to level

2 modernity .

It was simply an expression of what was true and relevant in the situation of the systems as they occurred to Modernists in their expression of their worldview. Only to the Postmodern value of contextual fitness, where context is defined as an encompassing system, does ‘object building’ become a problem. To the Modern individualist, objectness is expression, uniqueness, and even a virtue as having taken into account all the specifics of the situation: cost, client, climate, site, etc. Values shifted from Modern of-this-time to Postmodern of-this-place, from ideal to relative.

This ethos originated with a set of ideas that were startlingly right for their time when first advanced: Jane Jacobs’s insistence on urban diversity; Ada Louise Huxtable’s militant advocacy for the preservation of architectural landmarks; William H. Whyte’s efforts to reclaim streets from cars for people; and the dissatisfaction, even among modern architects, with the violence imposed on the cityscape by modern planning and urban renewal concepts. 

(Muschamp, 2001)

Architectural contextualism has started to enter common usage, as this dictionary definition of contextualism reveals:

[as used in] Architecture . The aesthetic position that a building or the like should be designed for harmony or a meaningful relationship with other such elements already existing in its vicinity.  (Dictionary.com)

Sustainable Design for cycles and processes While design moved toward physical and social contextualism, and toward interpreting stylistic and aesthetic expression in context also, Sustainable Design increased the complexity of its empirical constructs to create a science of energy, water and material cycles. High tech became eco-tech, which was loosely metaphorically ecological. Solar architecture is an embodiment of the daily and

230

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

seasonal processes of energy. It employs architectural elements and configurations to accomplish collection, storage and distribution of solar heat, balancing the dynamics over a daily cycle of gains from the sun and losses from the building envelope. Direct gain, sunspace, thermal storage wall and air collector systems are examples of ‘building as a heat exchanger’ in systemic relationship with the climate. Passive cooling systems – cross ventilation, stack ventilation, downdraft evaporative cooling towers, wind catchers, roof ponds and more are all similar cyclic ordering systems for buildings in the overheated seasons, designed to fit the context of the climate. The same complexity of response to cyclic patterns was also developed in daylighting systems (Mazria, 1979; Watson and Labs, 1983; Brown and DeKay, 2001).

Landscape process as context If Sustainable Design at level designers at level

3

2

took local site as its natural context, sustainable

take landscape and climate as their natural context, for ex-

ample Jersey Devil (Hill House). level

3

site design strategies include those such

as native plants and native landscaping, drought-tolerant xeriscaping, rainwater collection and recycling, water cycle design in general, minimizing building footprints, permeable surfacing, preserving on-site vegetation and landscapebased ‘natural’ stormwater management. All of these see actions on site as part of some larger process or cycle. The site is not yet understood as a complex ecosystem, but rather as a set of cycles of relatively independent types: water, materials, plants, climate, etc. The responses at

level 3

seek to create an effec-

tive on-site series of cyclic systems or to minimize the impact of design on those systems. The cycles are not yet complex networks. Only at the prospect

level 4 integral

does the game become about designing human ecosystems and restor-

ing natural ecosystems.

Level 4 Integral prospect: Living systems Design solves for ecological pattern. From the

integral prospect

on systems, everything is connected to everything

else in unending nested contexts of systems within systems. Nature is composed of living systems, and human systems are also living systems. Human systems are not super-organisms, but are living in the sense that a forest is considered a living system. The task of design is not merely to minimize our impact on Nature (Modern) or to create artefacts that act like a natural cycle or even fit within the context of natural cycles (Postmodern), but to create dynamic, flexible,

231

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

GREENHOUSE

BUILDING

CH4 > CO2 biomass

residue manure

COFERMENTATION PLANT

biomass warmth

gas

green electricity

CHP

Figure 11.17 The Zuidkas Project, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (unbuilt), 2009; Paul de Ruiter, architect

Level 4 Living systems: through combining multiple programs in one complex (residential, commercial, educational and parks) as well as numerous systems to generate and store energy (greenhouse, fermentation plant and CHP power installation), The Zuidkas Project serves as an example of the building-ecosystems of tomorrow. Commissioned by the Government Building Agency, ‘The main objective of the Zuidkas project is to achieve the highest possible score with regard to the fulfillment of environmental objectives.’ ‘The concept of the urban greenhouse or “Zonneterp” establishes connections between a greenhouse with a cofermentation plant on the one hand and the built-up environment on the other. This concept involves five recycling streams: waste, water, heat, CO2 and energy.’ The proposal is similar on a smaller scale to Paolo Soleri’s visions of dense, three dimensional, eco-functional cities

232

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

Energy

Biofuel

Hogdalen's combined heot ond power plont

\

Bio so I ids

H a m m a r b y heat plant

Environmentally friendly electricity

S j o s t a d e n ' s a n d Henriksdal's w a s t e w a t e r treatment plants

Equalizer

Lake H a m m a r b y Sjo

Lake M a l a r e n / d r i n k i n g w a t e r p l a n t

Sedimentation

water

Figure 11.18 Hammarby Sjostad, Stockholm, Sweden, 2007–2009.

Level 4 Living systems: the people who live in Hammarby Sjostad are considered part of an eco-cycle known as the Hammerby Model (diagram). Their energy, waste, sewage and water are managed in a sustainable way, and in so doing promote the reality of living systems as a way of life. Designed for 25,000, all homes are built to sustainable standards, families live in apartments, prefabrication is the norm, and the project reinhabits an industrial site. It suggests what is possible at the city scale in terms of eco-cycling. It demonstrates ecological restoration, sustainable development, brownfield reclamation, and social regeneration. Sustainability in this prospect takes bioregion as its context and seeks to construct a society organized functionally like Nature (ecomimicry).

233

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

networked human ecosystems where Nature and society are, at the holarchic level of life integrated as one web (remember the sequence of matter–life– mind). Said more rigorously, the artefacts of culture interact with the artefacts of Nature in a web of relationships governed by the laws and tenets present at the level of those interactions (either physical or biological). Simplified: design solves for ecological pattern. In Sustainable Design, this

level 4 prospect

takes into account the full hol-

archic view of dynamic systems theory and the complex sciences, such as ecology. It has generated various versions of new, more expansive design agendas: ecomimicry, ecological design, living buildings, regenerative design, ecological restoration, bioregionalism, landscape ecological design, permaculture design, eco-industrial parks and so on. The principles articulated for the systems tive

in Chapter 1 are all expressions of this level

4 prospect

perspec -

on systems:

• Design at three levels of holarchy: to build a larger whole, to create a whole, and to organize smaller wholes. Ecological designers think at multiple scales of nested networks. • Design living systems using ecology as the model: fit flows to local renewable systems while also supporting techno-industrial ecosystems. Nature’s patterns of organization mean that waste equals food; recycling is endemic; resources are localized; and solar energy fuels all. • Design solutions fit to particular places: considered as local site, larger neighborhood, and region. Patterns of structure and function in natural systems are always grounded in patterns of location, which form the context of social patterns. An example of the interrelated thinking at this level is expressed in this description of Art Ludwig’s design work at the Huehuecoyotl community in Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico:

This home in the Huehuecoyotl eco-village is made largely from natural materials, much of them from on-site. Harvested rainwater supplies a cistern, which supplies super-efficient fixtures with water pre-heated by the sun, which drain through a greywater system, which waters fruit trees that shade the house in summer, reflect sun onto the house in winter, block cold wind, and supply fruit. (Oasis Design, 2010)

The developmental trajectory towards regeneration Integral awareness can see the spiral of development. From the level propsect ,

4 integral

and not at any level before, and only when inhabiting this perspec-

tive (LR) is the following trajectory of environmentally conscious design, as expressed by Bill Reed, revealed (Reed, 2006):

234

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

The Trajectory of Environmental Design 1 High Performance Design (slower degenerating). Design that realizes high efficiency and reduced impact in the building structure, operations, and site activities. This term can imply a more technical efficiency approach to design and may limit an embrace of the larger natural system benefits. 2 Green Design. A general term implying a direction of improvement in design, i.e., continual improvement towards a whole and healthy integration of human activities with natural systems. Some people believe this is more applicable to buildings and technology. 3 Sustainable Design. Sees ‘Green Design’ with an emphasis on reaching a point of being able to sustain the health of the planet’s organisms and systems over time. Sustainability is an inflection point from degenerating to regenerating health. 4 Restorative Design. This approach thinks about design in terms of using the activities of design and building to restore the capability of local natural systems to a healthy state of self-organization (e.g. a local wetlands, woods, riparian system, etc.).

Regenerating System

Regenerative Humans PARTICIPATING AS Nature - Co-evolution of the Whole System

Living Systems Understanding

Restorative

Whole System

Humans DOING THINGS TO Nature - assisting the self-evolution of Sub-Systems

Sustainable More Energy Required

Less Energy Required

Technologies / Techniques Fragmented

Neutral "1 00% less bad" (McDOnough)

Green Relative Improvement (LEED, CBTool, Green Globe, etc.)

Conventional Practice "One step better than breaking the law" (Croxton) Degenerating System

Figure 11.19 Reed’s trajectory of environmentally responsible design

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

235

5 Regenerative Design. This is a design process that engages the whole of the system of which we are part. This is place-based design. By engaging all the key stakeholders and processes of the place – humans, other biotic systems, earth systems, and the consciousness that connects and energizes them – the design process builds the capability of the people to engage in continuous and health-creating relationship. There is continuous learning and feedback so that all aspects of the system are an integral part of the process of life in that place – co-evolution. In our simple four-level developmental system, Reed’s trajectory includes nothing at the ern ;

traditional level .

Green Design is

level 4 integral .

of the level

His description of High-Performance is

level 3 postmodern

level 2 mod -

and his Sustainable Design begins our

His definition of Regenerative Design is clearly an expression

4 integral prospect

of the

systems perspective .

If you read carefully,

you will note that embedded in each of these is an increasing level of performance, that begins with efficiency and ends with net productivity. These are upper right behaviours

perspective

measures, which are roughly correlated with

the approach to systems (LR) that is required to produce them: linear, cyclic, ecosystemic and ultimately (for level 4 ) networked social and ecological systems in coevolution. According to John Lyle Regenerative Design means:

… replacing the present linear system of throughput flows with cyclical flows at sources, consumption centers and sinks. A regenerative system provides for continuous replacement, through its own functional processes, of the energy and materials used in its operation. Regeneration has to do with rebirth of life itself, thus with hope for the future.  (Lyle, 1994, pp10–11)

Living buildings Examples of integral

prospect

projects operating from the systems

perspective

in-

clude the work of: Michael and Judy Corbett (Village Homes, Davis, California), John T. Lyle (Center for Regenerative Studies, Cal Poly Pamona), projects and criteria from the Living Building Challenge sponsored by the Cascadia Green Building Council, Sim van der Ryn (Real Goods Solar Living Center Store, Hopland, California), LivingFuture (Teal Farm, Huntington, Vermont), BNIM Architects (EpiCenter, Bozeman, MT), John Todd (New Alchemy Institute Bioshelter, Falmouth, Massachusetts), Pliny Fisk (Loredo Texas Demonstration Farm) and others. Bob Berkebile and Jason McLennan (2003) define the living building as a building that will:

236

Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

• harvest all its own water and energy needs on site; • be adapted specifically to site, and climate and built primarily with local materials; • operate pollution free and generate no wastes that aren’t useful for some other process in the building or immediate environment; • promote the health and well-being of all inhabitants – consistent with being an ecosystem; • be comprised of integrated systems that maximize efficiency and comfort; • be beautiful and inspire us to dream.

Social relationships and design knowledge While systems thinkers are sometimes guilty of collapsing all quadrants and perspectives to the lower right quadrant, and also guilty of collapsing culture into the web of life (and as we have seen, culture is a higher holon than Nature), the integral level systems perspective

is useful to design in two additional ways that

are not at all the same as the living building or regenerative design concepts of ‘ecosystems as a model’: 1 A systemic and holarchic view of social relationships and organization, such as found in Space Syntax (Hiller 1984, 1996)2 and in Pattern Languages (Alexander et al, 1977). 2 A systemic and holarchic view of design knowledge and solutions such as found in Pattern Languages (Alexander et al, 1977); Levels of Environmental Structure (Habraken, 1998, 2002) and Ekistics (Doxiades, 1969). Hillier’s Space Syntax, for example, explores the relationship between the form of urban street networks and the process of how cities are formed by human activity. Alexander’s idea of patterns always connects a pattern of space to a pattern of social or natural events, and these events are linked and interrelated in nested, hierarchical networks. Habraken summarizes the kind of shared thematic knowledge that emerges only from this prospect:

A system makes us share knowledge and method in a social body. Patterns allow us to find common ground with clients and users. Types give us context for interdisciplinary coordination. Levels help us to maintain a hierarchy of intervention among colleagues. These connections are the threads with which the fabric of professionalism is woven, a source of knowledge, and an inspiration for the making of form. (Habraken, 1996) Design thinking from this prospect is the most complex of any so far imagined by a body of design professionals – although, as I suggested earlier, third-tier,

Unfolding Prosects of the Exterior Perspectives

237

potentially more complex (not necessarily more complicated), transpersonal levels follow beyond the edge of

integral prospects .

The

integral prospects

are

just emerging, and are therefore the least developed of the four contemporary levels. Landscape architecture is much farther along than architecture in this regard. The best

level 4

landscape architects can restore ecosystems and create

structures for new living ecosystems, although success with these approaches is still less than fully certain. level

4

systems will surely require new expertise, new

team players, a new educational system, and new ways of sharing and accessing design knowledge.

Notes 1 Edgar Stach is Professor of Architecture at the University of Tennessee and heads the UT Zero Energy House Project, Director of Institute for Smart Structures, UTK. 2 Space Syntax is best known through The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge University Press, 1984) by Professor Bill Hillier and Dr Julienne Hanson and Space is the Machine (Cambridge University Press, 1996) by Professor Bill Hillier, available at www.spacesyntax.org.

References Alexander, Christopher; Ishikawa, Sara; Silverstein, Murray; Jacobson, Max; Fiksdahl-King, Ingrid and Angel, Shlomo (1977) A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Oxford University Press, New York Benyus, Janine. (1998) Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, Harper Collins, New York Berkebile, Bob and McLennan, Jason (2003) ‘The living building: Biomimicry in architecture, integrating technology with nature’, available at http://elements.bnim.com/ resources/livingbuildingright.html Biomimicry Institute (2010) www.biomimicryinstitute.org Brown, G.Z. and DeKay, Mark (2001) Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, see also www.ecodesignresources.net Doxiadis, Constantinos A. (1969) Ekistics: An Introduction to the Science of Human Settlements, Hutchinson, London Goldberger, Paul (1981) ‘Architecture: Buildings in context’, New York Times, 3 December 1981 Habraken, N. John (1996) ‘Tools of the trade: Thematic aspects of designing’, available at www.habraken.com Habraken, N. John (1998) The Structure of the Ordinary, Form and Control in the Built Environment, MIT Press, Cambridge and London

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Levels of Complexity in Sustainable Design

Habraken, N. John (2002) ‘The use of levels’, Open House International, vol 27 no 2 Hillier, Bill and Hanson, Julienne (1984) The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge University Press, New York Hillier, Bill (1996) Space is the Machine, Cambridge University Press, New York Jantsch, Erich (1975) Design for Evolution, George Brazillier Inc, New York Lyle, John Tillman (1994) Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York Mazria, Ed (1979) The Passive Solar Energy Book, Rodale Press, Emmaus Muschamp, Herbert (2001) ‘Measuring buildings without a yardstick’, New York Times, 22 July Oasis Design (2010) www.oasisdesign.net/design/index.htm Reed, Bill (2006) ‘The trajectory of environmentally responsible design’, Integrative Design Collaborative, Inc., Arlington, Massachusetts Regenesis, Inc., www.regenesisgroup.com Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team (R/UDAT) Program of the American Institute of Architects. www.aia.org/about/initiatives/AIAS075372 Stach, Edgar (2002) ‘Form follows evolution: Synthesis of form, structure, and material new tendencies in lightweight structures’, Lecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, March 2002. See also Smart Structures, available at http://160.36.48.42:1028/main1. html Sustainable Buildings Canada (2010) available at www.sustainablebuildings.gc.ca Van der Ryn, Sim. (2003) About the Ecological Design Institute, www.ecodesign.org Watson, Donald and Labs, Kenneth (1983) Climatic Design, McGraw-Hill, New York Wright, Frank Lloyd (1939) An Organic Architecture: The Architecture of Democracy, Lund Humphries, London

12 Expanding the Design Self: Transforming the Sustainable Designer

Levels and Integral Sustainable Design Sim Van der Ryn, in Design for Life, also uses a developmental model, drawing on Gebser and other proponents of the perennial philosophy (Van der Ryn, .

2005). He portrays Gebser’s phases as the ‘spiral of cultural evolution’. Van der Ryn equates Integral stage consciousness with the age of ‘eco-logic’. A more accurate label would be Integral, because, while level

4 integral

consciousness

is necessary to design ecologically, ecology is a LR

systems perspective .

words, ecological thinking is LR

integral level

level 4 ,

while the

In other

also covers all

the other quadrants. However he also believes in the Integral consciousness as reconnecting Nature and culture and reconnecting body, mind and spirit. These are well-known contemporary splits culminating in the pathological version of Postmodernism that he sees an Integral awareness capable of reintegrating. Van der Ryn finds that in Integral awareness, we can ‘experience both the impermanence of the material world and our interconnectedness to it and the flow of the universe’. As such, humans would move ‘towards an ecological intelligence and compassion for everything that is alive and changing’. In all these ways, Van der Ryn is an Integral thinker and expresses well the integral

level

of

Sustainable Design. Sustainable Design is not a new level of design. It works at each of the contemporary levels from which design is practiced and through which users and owners frame their understanding of design. In the contemporary professional landscape, there are a few designers who practice a more Traditional worldview, many who practice with a centre of awareness based in Modernism and others who practice from a Postmodern worldview and a small but growing group of Integral practitioners. Sustainable Design needs elements, solutions

240

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Figure 12.1 Spiral of consciousness/ culture Source: Van der Ryn, 2005

and thinking from each of these levels. Sustainable designers are challenged to create places that are satisfying to each worldview. Users, occupants and clients come in the same range of worldviews and values as does the spectrum of our multi-levelled society. Effective Sustainable Design creates value and opportunities for comprehension and appreciation for people operating at all levels. To recapitulate the developmental sequence of Sustainable Design viewed through the four contemporary structures, consider the following summary framework. Sean Hargens used Spiral Dynamics as the framework for eight levels of the ecological self. The following proposition uses a similar approach applied to the sustainable designer using only the four most common contemporary levels that we have already been exploring. Consider this proposition as a potentially useful hypothesis. It is an application of the general theory of developmental levels to the values and goals of the sustainable designer. Remember that each has its virtues and appropriateness in sequence and that higher levels can include lower ones.

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241

Four Levels of the Integral Sustainable Designer Let’s now take a deeper look at who the designer is being when living out of each of these levels. Remember that each of us tends to have a primary orientation to a worldview that is where we operate from most of the time. However, we can at any time shift to an earlier level worldview or a later level worldview. We do so quite frequently, often without realizing it. Perhaps as much as 50 per cent of the time we operate from values other than our dominant worldview. Consider this: that since none of the worldviews is inherently bad or good and all are appropriate in their sequence, then the Integral designer can choose to inhabit and work from any worldview required at the moment or by the situation.

Traditional worldview: Eco-manager designer (Level 1) • Successful solutions to stable problems improved over time. • Gratifying solutions to pre-Modern levels of needs (shelter, safety, prospect and refuge). • Codified building cultures generate whole and satisfying places: historic typological, craft and precedent solutions. Traditional Values User: Absolute belief in one right way or authority. Looks for meaning in conforming to rules. Sense of self as embedded in church, country, etc. Ethnocentric. Sacrifice now to obtain later. The timeless is good. Environmental Goals and Values: Keep harmony and stability; manage Nature properly now so the future will hold Nature’s bounty; follow higher authority and comply with rules and regulations to avoid punishment. Examples: Earth as the Garden of Eden; Puritan ethos; Boy and Girl Scouts; environmental legislation; Endangered Species Act; Environmental Protection Agency, regional vernacular architecture, historic preservation, national park structures, wilderness area designations.

Modern worldview: Eco-strategist designer (Level 2) • Design for energy and resource efficiency and behavioural prediction, concerns for public health and safety. • Development of democratic space and universal rule structures; • Individual creativity unleashed. • Responsive to new social and technical contexts: new solutions for new problems. Solution optimization.

242

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Modern Values User: Individual self and freedom; I/me/mine. Possibility thinking and making things better for self. Creating the good life now. Faith in science and technology, democracy, and capitalism. New is good. Environmental Goals and Values: Progress; autonomy and independence; winning the game of life; achieving financial success; make things better through competition; science and universal rights; ‘market forces’. Examples: Natural Capitalism; conservationism; ecological science; utilitarian perspectives; environmental psychology; behavioral approaches; LEED, GreenGlobes rating systems; life-cycle costing; environmental accounting, native plant gardens; xeriscape, solar architecture.

Postmodern worldview: Eco-pluralist designer (Level 3) • Contextualism: artefacts designed to help build/heal larger wholes. • Environmentalism: designs to increase ecological health. • Pluralism: recognition of the value of many diverse approaches, including historical precedents and pre-Modern language. Postmodernist Values User: Well-being of everyone, including other species, building consensus, pluralism, multiculturalism. We/us/ours. Humanistic concerns, anti-hierarchy. Recovering soul, fixing the problems of Traditional and Modern. Environmental Goals and Values: Promote community and unity; share resources across social divisions; explore the interiority of others; environmental responsibility and lifestyle. Personally participate with Nature. Examples: Deep ecology; ecofeminism; social ecology; animal rights; biocentrism; ecocentrism; ecopsychology; environmental justice; green politics; social construction of Nature; eco-contextualism.

Integral worldview: Eco-Integralist designer (Level 4) • Ability to design in whole systems. • Can see the spiral of development and access the dignities of all levels of Sustainable Design when necessary. • Can map Sustainable Design knowledge base & use multiple perspectives. Integral Values User: All basic needs are met, so now reaching for highest human capacities. Flexible adaptation to change, using interconnected, bigpicture approaches. Environmental Goals and Values: Embrace paradoxes and conflicting truths; allow the full range of reality to express itself through open systems; integrate multiple processes in Nature; existentially emphasize being and personal

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243

responsibility; value all perspectives and meet people where they are; non-linear capacities; transparency; chaos and complexity. Examples: Sustainable development; systems ecology, the Gaia Hypothesis; Guattari’s Three Ecologies; Chardin’s Noosphere; Bateson’s Ecology of Mind; Hierarchy Theory; Elgin’s Awakening Earth, cradle-to-cradle analysis, Lyle’s regenerative design; whole-systems ecological network thinking, carbon-balance methods, design for landscape ecology (habitat pattern). Each level, when healthy, transcends and includes its predecessor by including its dignities and transcending its disasters. The higher-level thinking includes the lower in a larger whole and transcends its claims to wholeness. For Integral Sustainable Design the question becomes

Can an Integral approach to design transcend Traditional, Modern and Postmodern design, yet include the best, enduring truths of each? It is a transition from ‘this not that’ to ‘both/and, selectively’.

An Integral Transformative Practice: Unfolding the Integral Designer If we indeed desire to create an Integral architecture, we need an Integral path to get there. Chapter 6 identifies that

integral level

consciousness (moral, cognitive, values,

self) is the lowest level for complex ecological systems thinking and intrinsic ecological behavior. Only at the

integral level

do we get the opportunity for

sophisticated ecological systems design (LR) and only from the pects

integral pros -

do we get real ecological awareness (UL) and therefore the possibility of

authentic cultural agreement on building with Nature (LL). The question then arises:

How do we transform ourselves, and how do we create a building culture supportive of transformation up the developmental spiral? As a profession we are adrift, lost on answering this question. When one looks around within architecture, one finds that such an Integral practice, school, or educational system simply does not exist. If we indeed desire to create an Integral Sustainable Design discipline of conscious Integral Sustainable Designers then we need an Integral path to get there. As we have seen, the path is not purely the path of more knowledge; it is the path of achieving higher levels of our human potential. Holistic Sustainable Design concepts are useless to wounded, dis-integrated, unconscious egos.

244

The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Developing one’s potentials What we designers need is a set of Integral Sustainable Design practices, a Designer’s Integral Yoga. Yoga is used here in the sense of an organized selfdiscipline: a set of practices. In India, yoga developed as a set of whole-person, self-transformative practices with the goal of discovering the higher reaches of human potential by continually transcending one’s limited view of the self. Such a set of practices that meets this description in general terms is exactly what is needed in the design disciplines. Such an Integral transformative practice develops body, mind, soul and spirit (the Integral self in all its being) as engaged through the criteria of the four perspectives – individual experience, cultural meaning, functional performance and socio-ecological fitness. Developmental practices have to stretch our awareness as individuals, in community and in the natural world. At each prospect of consciousness (UL), in order for one to move up the spiral to the next level, certain characteristics and perceptions need to be developed, while others need to be dissolved or released. Since western K-12 education is relatively good at getting people up to the

traditional level

con-

sciousness (Blue level in Spiral Dynamics) we can start there and see what each level needs to facilitate its further development and moving onward: Table 12.1 Conditions for self-transformation to new levels along the values line source

Level (Value Stage)

1

L4 INTEGRAL (Yellow)

L3 POSTMODERN (Green)

L2 MODERN (Orange)

L1 TRADITIONAL (Blue)

Types of change needed at a level for evolving upwards Developing

holistic vision, spiritual balance, community, understanding of living systems, transrationality, exceptional competencies

Dissolving

isolation, identity attachment

Developing

flexibility, principles, integration, skilful means, systemic thinking, self-discipline, a knowledge ecology

Dissolving

politically correct rigidity, emotional attachment, fear, acceptance needs

Developing

compassion, empathy, cooperation, authenticity, team skills, interdependence, egalitarianism, self-reflection

Dissolving

competition, materialism, self-centredness, reductionism, greed, intolerance

Developing

autonomy, independent thinking, purpose, rationality, option thinking, courage, abstraction

Dissolving

guilt, impulsivity, mythology, ethnocentrism

Source: Adapted from Beck and Cowan (1996)

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If these and related capabilities are necessary for the transformation to new levels of consciousness, then what kinds of practices allow humans to transform in this way?

Characteristics of Integral transformative practices Michael Murphy, the co-founder of Esalen, thoroughly catalogues in his book, The Future of the Body, exceptional and metanormal human functioning. He describes characteristics of Integral transformative practices capable of ‘manysided human growth’. (Murphy, 1992). He concludes, among others, that Integral transformative practices: • draw on the entire organism: body, mind, soul, and spirit, and support their simultaneous development; • develop the virtues and traits necessary for Integral development: honesty, creativity, courage; • balance, stability, calm and resilience; • require the support of a practice community or society; • require several mentors; • must be flexible and suited to each practitioner’s makeup; • are especially facilitated by personal traits that support creativity; • incorporate an impulse toward wholeness and utilize images of unity; • facilitate conscious transitions between different states of consciousness; • depend on developing transcendent awareness beyond the body/mind; • must be practiced over the long term. Murphy repeatedly presents evidence for the close interlinking of body and mind in the design of human functioning. He argues for practices that reintegrate body and mind in the awareness of individuals. He suggests that an Integral practice at any level is likely to include: • practices for bodily aerobic and strength conditioning; • practices for flexibility and mental awareness; • practices for regulation of the diet; • practices of mental focusing and conditioning. Precisely because of our culture's centredness at Levels 2 and 3, which tends to divide and isolate the four perspectives, many designers cannot initially see the relevance for design of diet and exercise (UR practices), or contemplative practices (UL workouts). From the Integral worldview, however, it makes perfect sense. In fact, the body’s condition, the flexibility of mind, and even the development of morals and values can, if arrested in their development, anchor the progress of Sustainable Design creativity.

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

One might notice that moving up the spiral of development is a progression from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric values. This is a progression toward greater inclusion, expanded acceptance, and a wider ethical embrace. One’s circle of value and responsibility to others expands. The cultivation of these qualities through transformative practices has been going on for thousands of years in the highest expressions of the world’s great religions and philosophical traditions. In his book Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind, Roger Walsh, professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, outlines common goals and practices among major religions (Walsh, 1999). His elucidation of these practices might well be, when combined with practices for the physical body, a good outline for an Integral transformative practice for anyone, including designers. From Walsh’s perspective, an Integral practice at any level is likely to also include: • practices to transform and focus desire; • practices for cultivating emotional wisdom; • practices for developing ethical living; • practices of mental concentration and calming; • practices to awaken a vision of the sacred in all; • practices to cultivate higher wisdom; • practices to embrace generosity and service.

The future of the designer If these point us in the direction of an Integral transformative practice, we are still left with the question of how to translate these general precepts into an Integral yoga for designers. We may find some further clarification from the visionary artist, Alex Grey, who, in his book, The Mission of Art, discusses several ways in which art can be used as a transformative developmental practice (Grey, 2001). Grey writes that, ‘In order for art to be transformative, its primary job is to undo the ego.’ This is consistent with the preponderance of developmental views, in which each sequential developmental level is associated with an expanding sense of self-identification. One shifts: • from body identification; • to family identification; • to ethnic identification; • to identification with the individuated free-thinking individual rational self;

Expanding the Design Self

247

• to an expanded world self that includes eventually all other people, then all life; • ultimately, so the great traditions tell us, to identity with everything that is arising and beyond to the unmanifest source. To undo the ego is to dis-identify with the more limited ego-self and progressively enlarge one’s identity as a more encompassing self. Paraphrasing Grey for the design disciplines: • The craft of design itself can become a contemplative method by focused attention and concentration on being totally present to the task. Essentially, the work can become meditation. • The designer can cultivate an attitude of devotion and high intention, offering the work to a greater good. • The designer can become one with the work, merging with the situation of building, immersing in the problem, site, users, client, and the space under creation. ‘None of the levels or lines or quadrants is meant in any sort of rigid, predetermined, judgmental fashion. The point of developmental research is not to pigeonhole people or judge them inferior or superior, but to act as guidelines for possible potentials that are not being utilized.’ 

(Wilber, 2000d)

The development of an Integral transformative practice for designers ideally begins in the process of design education, although we no longer officially educate the whole person, but rather, only a mind dissociated from heart and body, to say nothing of soul or spirit. Development of an Integral design yoga is also the responsibility of practitioners, for the practice of any great discipline is a lifelong activity. It is especially the responsibility of firm principals, who could have the responsibility as ‘wizards’ of the developmental spiral for the health of the entire developmental range within their organizations. Here, Beck and Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change, is highly recommended.

Notes 1 Colours are used as a non-judgemental labelling in Beck and Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics system of developmental levels for the Values line.

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

References Beck, Don Edward and Cowan, Christopher C. (1996) Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change: Exploring the New Science of Memetics, Blackwell, Cambridge Grey, Alex (2001) The Mission of Art, Shambhala, Boston Murphy, Michael (1992) The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Development, J.P. Tarcher, Los Angeles Van der Ryn, Sim (2005) Design for Life: the Architecture of Sim Van der Ryn, Gibbs Smith, Salt Lake City. Walsh, Roger (1999) Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind, John Wiley & Sons, New York Wilber, Ken (2000a) A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality, Shambhala, Boston Wilber, Ken (2000d) The Marriage of Sense and Soul, One Taste, The Collected Works, vol 8, Shambhala, Boston

Part II Conclusion

Summary Part II has explored the implications of Integral Theory’s all quadrant, all level (AQAL) model for Sustainable Design. As a summary of the principles explored, consider the following ideas now familiar to the reader from our discussion. A few of these principles apply in a general way to all forms of developmental levels: • Complexity tends to increase with successive stages. • Each quadratic perspective unfolds in complexity. Researchers working from methods of each perspective find stage-wise development. • Humans develop to sequential levels along many lines of capacity. • Lower levels are fundamental to higher levels. Stages cannot be skipped. • Each progressive level transcends and includes its predecessor. • Stages are like overlapping waves, or probability clouds, not like discrete levels in a building. When considering developmental levels in individuals and in designers, consider the following ideas that were covered in Part II. • Consciousness and cognition are developmental, as described by Robert Kegan’s work. • Ecological thinking appears to require

integral level

cognition.

• Values and worldviews are developmental, as described by Don Beck, Jean Gebser and Ken Wilber’s work. • Because these developments happen in a life-span, user and clients of design exhibit a range of different levels along multiple lines. Taking this into consideration can improve the fitness and relevance of design

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

solutions and the communication effectiveness of designers about their work. • Designers, too, exhibit a range of different levels along multiple lines. The history of architectural forms or style (LR) as physical patterns and characteristics, and the ideas that drive these expressions, along with their meanings to us (LL), can also be seen as developing through a series of levels. • The history of design can in part be seen as an expression of the levels of consciousness of those that created the works. The Traditional, Modern and Postmodern periods all include their dignities and disasters. An Integral view on the development of worldviews can help make sense of the contemporary culture wars and values conflicts that carry over into the design world. • The idea of ’transcend and include’ and the fact that we all move through the levels, starting at birth at square one, allows us to have ‘progress’ without a utopian endgame, and development without judgement. • One’s current level of worldview, and all the previous levels are available to experience and inhabit at any moment. When we investigated perspectives and levels to better understand design, we found that: • Levels along different lines can be correlated and calibrated on a common framework, aligning the levels of the lines for values, cognition, worldview, etc. • These four basic structures can be reframed in design terms as the four basic contemporary structures of design awareness present today in practice:

-----

level 4 integral :

transformative networking

level 3 postmodern : level 2 modern :

pluralistic practices

independent professionalism

level 1 traditional :

guild traditions

• When the four levels of contemporary worldview are intersected with the four perspectives on Sustainable Design, a framework is yielded identifying the 16 prospects of Integral Sustainable Design The prospects from the (UL)

experiences perspective ,

which addresses the indi-

vidual self, unfold when the designer considers the user’s experiences: • from a sensory mediation of experiencing the designed artefact or environment (level

1 traditional );

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Part II Conclusion

• to an intellectual mediation (level • to contextual mediation (level

2 modern );

3 postmodern );

• to a self-aware mediation (level

4 integral ).

In the lower left quadrant, the levels of the

cultures perspective

unfold as the

relationship between culture and Nature (after Hargens’ arguments): • from the view of Nature managed (level • to Nature used (level

1 traditional );

2 modern );

• to Nature saved (level

3 postmodern );

• to the Integral view of Nature united (level

4 integral ).

In the upper right quadrant, the levels of the behaviours • from the view of embedded practices (level • to building science (level

2 modern );

• to cyclic analogues (level

3 postmodern );

perspective

unfold:

1 traditional );

• to the Integral view of responsive structures (level

4 integral ).

In the lower right quadrant, the levels of the systems perspective unfold: • from the view of tacit systems (level • to logical systems (level

1 traditional );

2 modern );

• to complex systems (level

3 postmodern );

• to the Integral view of living systems (level

4 integral ).

Unfolding an Integral Design The potential for integral

level

struction. In taking an integral ing of the

integral prospects

design is to transcend deconstruction in a reconlevel

view, not only do the new results of unfold-

on all the perspectives (self-mediated experience,

Nature shared, responsive structures, living systems) become available, but also all of the values and dignities of other prospects become available to the designer. From the

integral level ,

the progression of development itself comes

into view. One can see the trajectory of Sustainable Design, as Bill Reed identifies for us. Since integral

level

consciousness is the lowest level for complex eco-

logical systems thinking and intrinsic ecological behavior, this developmental reality has profound implications for the design professions and in particular for learning to practice complex, ecological design. Integral Sustainable Design integrates the four foundational perspectives of design though the four contemporary levels of adult human development, but depends for its emergence on an Integral design yoga that changes the designer and pulls the rest of the design, building and development community upward.

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The Four Perspectives of Integral Sustainable Design

Operating at a given level of Sustainable Design complexity depends on the designer’s level of development. Who the designer is being at each level brings forth the artefacts of that consciousness. Chapter 12 proposed four levels of the Integral Sustainable Designer: 1 The eco-manager designer (traditional 2 The eco-strategist designer (modern

level ).

level ).

3 The eco-pluralist designer (postmodern 4 The eco-Integralist designer (integral

level ).

level ).

Each level sees what Nature is in different ways, values Nature differently, has different environmental goals and values, and produces different philosophical and design ideas. The design professions await the integration of Integral transformative practices with the practices of their craft. An Integral design practiced by second-tier Integral designers may be the only way to get Sustainable Design out of the flatland of measuring and weighing and systems mapping. It is likely to be a workable way to get Sustainable Design to be simultaneously true, beautiful and relevant to its cultural context. And, looking forward, it is the gate through which we must pass on the way to a third tier design that is even more transcendent, inclusive and Integral.

Part Three

Ecological Design Thinking: The Six Perceptual Shifts

Introduction to Part III The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all Ridicule and Deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees. As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers.   (William Blake, 1799)

The Six Perceptual Shifts To design ecologically requires one to first think ecologically. However, ecological thinking is new for humans and represents part of a major evolutionary leap in the structure of human consciousness. We are in the midst of this new transition now. For most of us it is hard work because each progressive stage is characterized by an increase in mental organization and complexity. Ken Wilber argues that this upward transformation of consciousness, with its attendant increase in the sphere of caring – from egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric – is precisely what is needed to get people to understand the ecological crisis, agree on a course of action and do something about it:

Gaia’s main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, overpopulation, or resource depletion. Gaia’s main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere about how to proceed with these problems. (Wilber, 2000b) What he implies here is that such mutual agreement depends on many individuals holding an ecological awareness and thinking ecologically. Indeed, while early

level 2 modern

rational consciousness can often cognitively understand

the data that measure the issues, caring about environmental problems emerges only in the level

3 postmodern

stage, while the capability to comprehend and

solve problems using ecological systems thinking is a

level 4 integral

skill. Each

new cognitive level can be correlated with a new values level. As we will see in Part IV, subsequent levels of value bring forth new understandings of Nature and elicit different actions to protect, steward or align with Nature. If this development in consciousness to the Integral stage is needed in order to solve the complexity of environmental problems, what do the world, Nature, ecology, environmental problems and Sustainable Design look like from such a perception? How does ecological thinking call on designers to shift and expand their perspectives? This Part explores deeper into the implications for our (UL)

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Ecological Design Thinking

thinking about and from with the logic of the (LR) systems view of ecology so necessary to the future of Sustainable Design. As Wilber details at length in Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality (Wilber, 2000b), the patterns and insights about the order of the world as dynamic systems, as described by the systems sciences, is presented in ‘the language of objective naturalism (it-language)’ and ‘thus they fail miserably when applied to domains described only in I-language (aesthetics) and we-language (ethics)’. Wilber is concerned with the three primary perspectives of self, culture and Nature, associated with the classic value domains of beauty, goodness and truth. One of Wilber’s fundamental tenets and one of the defining principles of his Integral Theory is that one of the fundamental value domains cannot be reduced to another. To think ecologically is to think in systems, so this discussion represents a shift from

behaviours

(UR) to

systems

(LR). As one expands perception from

upper right conventional scientific thinking (fundamental nature) toward more inclusive lower right ecological systems thinking (complex, living Nature), one can also look for the perceptual shifts that reveal the cultural context and meaning of Nature and Sustainable Design. Ultimately, Sustainable Design thinking expands beyond ecological thinking to all quadrants and all the prospects explored in Part II. Our consideration of perceptual shifts in Part III then naturally also expands from (LR) systems to a more Integral perspective.

Ecological Design’s Rationale for a Living Systems Model According to the ecological view of Sustainable Design, the design profession can look to natural systems as models for design to create an ecologically sustainable way of building and living on the Earth. Here is a quick synopsis, as commonly developed in the last three decades of ecological design’s argument: • Our current technological, economic and social systems have placed us in an ecological crisis with immanent 21st-century collapse of our planetary and local life support systems becoming increasingly likely. • The drivers of this loss of ecological functionality, diversity and habitat area are the rapid increases in population and affluence without great improvements in technology. The product of these three (population, affluence and technology) is the definition that biologist Paul Erlich (Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971) gives for environmental impact (I = P x A x T). • The driver of these (PAT) factors is nothing more than the beliefs, values and decisions arising out of our worldview, which environmentalists tend to believe is too mechanistic, hierarchical, reductionistic, anthropocentric and so on.

257

Introduction

If as level

3 postmodern

environmentalists claim, embedded in a level

2 modern

culture, we have been seeing the world though eyes and minds arising out of a rational order consciousness, which has been expressed in the forms of capitalism, industrial-rationalism, mechanistic utilitarianism and modernist individualism, we might now ask

What different mind, what different eyes might lead us toward different beliefs, values and decisions, both yielding different kinds and rates of population, affluence and technology, as well as different environmental impacts? Continuing with the eco-logic of the systems

perspective :

• Since it is in our interest to survive, it is also in our interest for Nature and natural processes to thrive, ecosystems and the ecological services that they provide get to continue. We live only because life itself flourishes (as the complex web of life).

What mind, what eyes would create systems that help Nature to flourish? What is the mind of the web of life?

Ecological Literacy I assert that, within the systems domain, this argument for natural systems as a model for design is entirely valid in its description of how ecosystems work and how they are in peril. When systems thinking is applied to the domains of other quadrants, however, it does a poor job. These domains require their own methods. But, if we accept this set of ecosystem logics as valid in its own LR domain, how do we begin to use the design of Nature as our model for Sustainable Design? To design sustainably, it appears that we have to become ecologically literate. Ecological literacy means to understand the principles of ecosystem process and organization, which we covered in some depth in Chapter 3. Capra writes that there are three key criteria for living systems, as shown in Table III.1. Table III.1 Key criteria of living systems

Pattern of Organization

Configuration of relationships that determines the system’s essential characteristics

Structure

Physical embodiment of the system’s pattern of organization

Life Processes

Activity involved in maintaining the system’s pattern of organization

Source: Capra, 1996

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Ecological Design Thinking

Capra’s formulation is quite similar and almost analogous to ecological design guru John T. Lyle’s formulation of the three fundamental modes of ecological order in landscapes: structure, function and location (Lyle, 1999). These are important concepts in ecological science, so let’s take them one at a time.

Organization (its patterns of order) Certain relationships must be present for something to be recognized as a member of a particular class, such as a chair, bicycle, tree or a building. The organization of a system is its order. We most often understand order through maps, diagrams and drawings, so the organization of a living system is described by an abstract mapping of the system’s relationships. For instance, as an architectural analogy, design drawings and construction drawings of a building describe two kinds of order, two kinds of organization.

Structure (its object nature) This criterion describes the actual physical components of the living system in terms of their shape, composition, location, distribution and so forth. In an ecosystem, structure includes all of the plants, animals, rocks, soils, air, water and other components of a landscape. In a machine, the parts are fixed, while in a living system, the parts are in continual change and regeneration. In a building, from the ecological perspective, structure refers to the materials, such as concrete, framing lumber and oil paint; the elements, such as windows, wall assemblies and ducts; the building systems, such as structural systems, envelope systems and mechanical systems. Depending on the frame of reference, structure can also refer to parts of larger systems, such as rooms, whole buildings, or groups of buildings. Chapter 3 discussed the basic perception of ecological design as the connection between form and process. We often call this kind of structural order ‘form’.

Process (its relational–functional nature) Processes are all of the life activities that interact with structure. They involve processing, transforming and moving of energy, information and materials. In animals, these are processes such as respiration, digestion, self-renewal and reproduction. In buildings, processes include structure’s interaction with the water and carbon cycles and the flows of heat, lighting, power systems,

Introduction

259

Figure III.1 Glacial river in Alaska: structure and process dancing

finances, trash, human life activities and so forth. The apparently static building is, in fact, constantly interacting through long and short-term processes. For an ecologist, structure and process cannot be separated; they are interdependent and co-defining. The same is true of a physician; it makes no sense to try to understand anatomy by abstracting it from physiology. Yet we do it in design and especially in design education all the time. The basis of most foundation courses in architecture is visually defined ‘basic design’. It tells us that the formal and visual order, the structure, of the built environment is what is essential. In such introductory courses, little mention is usually made of process. Nothing invisible counts. Nothing that moves matters. And that view is the ‘foundation’ that most designers inherit and into which they are initiated. As an example of the relationship between structure and process, the structure of sand dunes is formed by the interaction of two forces, wind and gravity, acting on sand grains of different mass. Lighter sands blow farther while heavier sands fall out, the process repeating to create ripples or waves on dunes and to construct the dunes themselves. The organization of a river system is, likewise, the result of structure and process dancing. Landscape structure guides the flow of water while the process of water draining the land reconfigures its

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Ecological Design Thinking

structure. Old rivers are sinuous, carving the outer banks of their curves and depositing the sediment on the inside of downstream curves, building sandbars and increasing their curvaceousness. From this perspective, the question that should interest designers becomes:

How can we create beneficial organizational patterns of relationships between structure and process? For sustainable designers, the question is:

How can we build into what we design ecologically beneficial organization? These are essential questions if the design professions are to truly design human systems as living systems.

Perceptual Shifts The task of ecological design is to create patterns of organization between structure and process that keep our world healthy and alive. Let us begin to engage these questions by examining a series of perceptual shifts based on ecosystem principles and characteristics of ecosystem organization (see Chapter 3 for more detail). In one sense, the disciplines of design are well positioned to adopt ecological perception. As a highly integrative field, design considers many scales and questions the relationships between whole and part, form and function, pattern and process. These, in some form or another, are familiar to the discourse and process of design, although not in explicitly ecological ways. Abstractly, it is a small step to say, ‘Design is a process of configuring and integrating systems’. It is a much more difficult task if we say, ‘Design is a process of maintaining the order of life’, that is, the task of Sustainable Design is to create patterns of organization between structure and process that keep our world healthy and alive. In this case, we are designing particular types of systems, that is, living systems. I am saying that from the perspective of eco-sustainable design, based as it is in the ‘hard’ ecological sciences: you and I inhabit a living planet. In doing so – in living on a living planet, living in a living landscape – you and I and Nature are interdependent in a very existential way that requires our intelligent action if we are to avoid the social and environmental nightmare looming in our collective future.

Introduction

261

According to Gregory Bateson, famous in several fields, ‘The basic unit of survival is not the organism, but organism-in-environment’ (Bateson,1972). So close are we (you, me and the ecological processes of living organism-in-environment ecosystems) that we cannot take a single breath, drink a cup of water, sleep one night under a roof, or eat a single bite of food that was not purified and provided by basic ecological processes. The processes of Nature maintain much of our human patterns of organization. Therefore, we cannot say that Nature is something to be connected with or to. We cannot talk meaningfully from the systems view about reducing human impacts on an external Nature ‘out there’. You and I and our environment are, in biospheric terms, one living system. The connection with or dissociation from Nature is an illusion in our perception. As we will explore in much greater depth in Part IV, connections to Nature are a function of both perspective and of level. For holistic ecological design, connection consists in removing our perceptual blocks, that is, in transforming our consciousness to ecological consciousness. The following shifts in perception are steps toward recognizing this truth of the embeddedness of our biological nature (not our mental or cultural aspects) within the systems web of life. This inquiry is intended as a richer and more embracing understanding of the objective and empirical world in which we participate than that of the more familiar Modernist-scientific rationality currently governing both green and grey design. While honouring the truth of our biological embeddedness in living ecological systems, I will also attempt to transcend and include this objective systems perception by including perceptual shifts that include subjective human interiors, the value domains outside of Nature which we have already introduced. Changing our perception is not some new elective, relative theory or opinion. Rather, it is a requisite advancement, a transcendence of our previous way of knowing, a moving up the scale of the orders of consciousness to one relatively more accurate and true. What follows is a discussion of six perceptual shifts. Each section covers briefly the nature of the shift, how we might reconceptualize design from this new perception and the primary skill that designers must develop to work from this perception. The six perceptual shifts are: 1 from objects to relationships to subject–object relations; 2 from analysis to context to analysis–context–ground; 3 from structure to process to unfolding; 4 from materiality to configuration to pattern languages; 5 from parts to wholes to holons; 6 from hierarchies to networks to holarchies.

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Ecological Design Thinking

Notes 1 I wish to acknowledge Fritjof Capra for identifying in theoretical terms many of the first half of these perceptual shifts (Capra, 1994a) and Barrett Brown of the Integral Institute for suggesting in an early critique of this work an expansion of the systems perceptions to the more Integral perceptions. That suggestion allowed me to develop the second half of these shifts.

References Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Russell, Archibald G.B. (ed.) (1906), The Letters of William Blake, together with A Life, by Frederick Tatham, Methuen & Co, London Capra, Fritjof (1994a) ‘From parts to whole, systems thinking in ecology and education’, Seminar Text, Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley Ehrlich, P. R. and Holdren, J. P. (1971) ‘Impact of population growth’, Science, vol 171, pp1212–1217 Lyle, John T. (1999) Design for Human Ecosystems, Island, New York Wilber, Ken (2000b) Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Shambhala, Boston, p41

13 The Shift from Objects to Relationships to Subject–Object Relations

From the

systems perspective ,

parts are really a set of relationships, patterns of

smaller parts, patterns in an inseparable web of relationships. This is, in a sense, a figure–ground reversal where the connections and flows between things are at least as fundamental as things themselves. But ‘fundamental‘ is not exactly the right term. Rather, I will say that understanding relationships is an explanation and completion of an understanding of the world as composed of objects. A more transcendent and inclusive perception includes both. In Nature, ‘All members of an ecosystem are interconnected in a web of relationships in which all life depends on one another’ (Capra, 1994a). In living systems, relationships reign. What then is an object? An object is the boundary of a pattern and a pattern, as we have already seen, is a configuration of relationships.

Figure 13.1 Shift from objects to relationships. Which do we see more: the things or how the things are connected?

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Ecological Design Thinking

Figure 13.2 National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, 1961; Kapadia + Banker, architects A building that cannot be understood as an object alone, but rather as a framework for changing relationships between inside and outside, between people and climate. Indoor space, courtyard and underneath space are inhabited at different times of day and year, depending on conditions; whole walls open for breezes in the hot season.

The Shift from Objects to Relationships to Subject–Object Relations

265

As an example, a tree is an object and, as such, it is also the boundary of the pattern of relationships among branches, trunk, leaves and roots (the structure) and among the phenomena of solar energy, photosynthesis, flows of soil nutrients, pollination by bees, habitat for birds that spread its seeds, worms and microorganisms that create and till the soil and root fungi that absorb ground moisture (processes). It is the relationships among the tree’s parts, and among the processes flowing through it, that makes the tree a tree and not merely a pile of cellulose. Another way to think of relationships is as interconnections of processes. In buildings, one place we can readily see and appreciate relationship thinking is in the activity of programming, in which the designer asks:

What are the patterns of human activity and use in the building? How can the patterns of spatial relationships reinforce and support the relationships among human activities? This perception is, of course, fundamental to design. Relationships among columns, beams and piers make a structural system. Relationships among windows and their elements, walls and their layers, structure and enclosure, colour and light all combine to make a facade. Sustainable Design, as relational design, expands this perception by asking the design questions:

What are the patterns of ecological relationships in which the design artefact (room, building, garden, landscape, city, etc.) participates? How can the patterns (configurations of relationships) of built form be fit to the patterns of significant ecological relationships?

Relational Design Skills The design skill to exercise and develop is relational analysis, or put another way, the skill of seeing-no-thing, in which we shift our perception to simultaneously seeing any object both as a thing as well as a pattern of relationships of smaller elements. The instrument we use to communicate the seeing of ‘no-thing’, of visualizing relationships in design, is most often in design the diagram. In making a larger point in his book Being Peace about the nature of the individual self, Thich Nhat Hahn gives a poetic description of visualizing the relationships of what seems to be a piece of paper:

Just as a piece of paper is the fruit, the combination of many elements that can be called non-paper elements, the individual is made of non-individual elements. If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water, the

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Ecological Design Thinking

trees cannot grow; and without trees you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. Paper and cloud are so close. Let us think of other things, like sunshine. Sunshine is very important because the forest cannot grow without sunshine, and we humans cannot grow without sunshine. So the logger needs sunshine in order to cut the tree, and the tree needs sunshine in order to be a tree. Therefore you can see sunshine in this sheet of paper. And if you look more deeply, with the eyes of a Boddhisattva , with the eyes of those who are awake, you see not only the cloud and the sunshine in it, but that everything is here: the wheat that became the bread for the logger to eat, the logger’s father – everything is in this sheet of paper.  (Hahn, 1987)

The Interiors of Relationships Is solving for ecological relationships all there is to successful eco-Sustainable Design? All designers know that there is more than one successful way to solve any design problem. All designers also know that there are simultaneous sets of relationships for which a successful design solution must solve. These relationships sets are both the relationships of the natural world (gravity, climate, hydrology, etc.) and of human relationships (human behaviors and social interactions, human perceptions and experiences and the relationships of cultures). Designing ecologically and considering the relationships of human interiors asks designers to look at how any designed relationship, however ecofunctional, places people into relationship with Nature in ways that embody meaning that is culturally embedded. Any system of ecological relationships that we design, or any ecological context that we design to fit, places humans into an inhabited system in which our relationships to natural forces and processes are tightly bound. Sustainable Design, as relational design, can expand its perception further than mere deterministic eco-relationalism by asking:

What are the patterns of ecological relationships in which the designed artefact participates? How can these relationships be made culturally significant and appropriate? Cultural significance and meaning arise from inter-subjective dialogues among members of a society over time. To have meaningful discourse about ecological relationships with and within design artefacts, individuals must be able to perceive and experience these relationships. The task of Sustainable Design is first

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The Shift from Objects to Relationships to Subject–Object Relations

to forward our individual experiences of ecological relationships. The question for Sustainable Design then becomes:

How can important ecological relationships – and the ways design creates relationships to these – be made into sumptuous human experiences?

The Wider Embrace: Integrating Subject and Object in Ecological Design Relationships Objects are always objects-in-relationship, as organisms are organisms-in-environment.

As we can now see, ecological relationships have both exterior, objective realities and subjective, interior correlates. Every systemic ecological design – for example, a low impact development (LID) site hydrology solution using a green roof, water harvesting, permeable parking, native plants and on-site biofiltration and infiltration – has a set of ecological relationships among its parts. Simultaneously, a set of relationships arises among the design and any individuals interacting with it – internal cognitive mappings of water flows, experiences of beauty, aversions to the unfamiliar and so on. At the same time, and potentially changing over time, culturally situated meanings of this Sustainable Design solution arise within group contexts – the landscape architect’s professional recognition for high-performance green design, the city stormwater engineer’s insecurity that his past industrial-era thinking design conventions will be judged poorly for their lack of ecological performance, the occupants’ new-found connection to the cycles of Nature and the lunch-time conversation it engenders, or the neighborhood’s concern over the effect on their property values of wildflowers on the roof. The ultimate eco-effectiveness of sustainable, eco-intelligent, systems-based design requires designing for both interior and exterior ecological relationships. To do this most effectively, the Integral Sustainable Designer requires integral

level 4

consciousness. Integral stage consciousness is the first level of human

development that can fully witness its own subjective perspective and also be aware of the multiple subjective perceptions that others hold in relationship to design artefacts. Mastering Sustainable Design ultimately means not only becoming ecologically literate, not only designing to respond to ecological relationships, but also designing in relationship to human individual and collective interiors. As we know, humans are truly complex living systems! Eco-effective design has to be ordered ecologically while also fitting to its cultural context in

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Ecological Design Thinking

Figure 13.3 Underwood Family Sonoran Landscape Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona; Ten Eyck, landscape architects, 2010 This project is organized and expresses ecological relationships and social relationships in an integrated way. It is social space and circulation, and an educational facility. It allies with the surrounding buildings providing shade and accepting their stormwater. `It exemplifies sustainable strategies of water harvesting, climate regulation, air and water cleansing, recycling, urban wildlife habitat and human well-being. The former greyfield is now a thriving habitat that shades the southern exposure of the new building with a vine-covered scrim. An 11,600-gallon tank collects water produced by the building to support the native garden.’ (ASLA, 2010)

The Shift from Objects to Relationships to Subject–Object Relations

269

an acceptable enough way to encourage individuals to experience ecological relationships though the designed artefact – and thus enter the cultural dialogue about the relationship of buildings, cities and landscapes to these lifecritical ecological relationships. The Integral Sustainable Designer’s broad perception views design objects not merely as things, for which the formalists argue, nor merely as relationships, for which the systems theorists argue, but as both things and relationships, depending on the perspective of the subject’s inquiry. Both perspectives serve the designer. Objects are always objects-in-relationship, as organisms are organisms-in-environment. And the essential characteristics of things are also always determined by a configuration of relationships. As we shall see next, relationships extend both upward and downward in complexity.

References ASLA (2010) 2010 ASLA Professional Awards, American Society of Landscape Architects, available at www.asla.org/2010awards/316.html Capra, Fritjof (1994a) ‘From parts to whole, systems thinking in ecology and education‘, Seminar Text, Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley Hahn, Thich Nhat (1987) Being Peace, Parallax Press, Berkeley, pp45–46

14 The Shift from Analysis to Context to Analysis–Context–Ground

From a systems theory perspective, the properties of parts are not mere intrinsic properties, but are properties best understood in context. To understand something, one places it into the context of a larger whole. This is the opposite of the old mechanistic model of analysis, which asks us to break down complex things into elemental constituent parts, to look for essence in the irreducible. Explaining things in terms of their context is to explain them in a situation, ‘in-environment’. It is to see each organism as part of a habitat, a community of other organisms and an ecosystem. What is important is to see the role of the part in the organization of the whole, to see how the part has both its own identity and, at the same time, is shaped in its form and behavior by participating in systems larger than itself. In this shift, the roles of parts and wholes are reversed from our ordinary perception.

Figure 14.1 Shift from analysis to context: Do we break the whole into parts or place it into its larger whole?

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In Nature, as Bateson said, we have to think of organism-in-environment as one thing. The physicist Henry Stapp says, ‘An elementary particle is not an independently existing unanalyzable entity. It is, in essence, a set of relationships that reach outward to other things’ (Stapp,1972). So, for instance, we cannot understand the nature of a hummingbird by analysis of its parts without also understanding the shape of the particular species of flower that has coevolved with the beak of the bird. Similarly, the millions of acorns produced in a lifetime by an oak, or the millions of blossoms of a redbud tree, from which only one or two new trees will grow to maturity, make no sense unless we understand the complex ecological relationships that form its habitat context.

Contextual Design The same is true of buildings and other design artefacts. For example, we can understand little about the true nature of a wall by identifying that it is made up of so many inches of insulation and so many pounds of steel and gypsum and so many ounces of paint and polyethylene. To understand it, we have to place it in its many contexts, understanding it in relation to the type of room and activity it bounds, its role or lack of role in the structural system, the nature of the outdoor climate, the view through its openings, the system of production that created it, the way it helps create space in concert with other elements of the room, the time and culture in which it was created and so on. Each of these contexts adds to our understanding in ways that the dissection of analysis cannot. In turn, analysis reveals understanding that contextual thought cannot. I started architecture school at Tulane University in 1979 and the word ‘context‘ was never mentioned in any of my classes. It was a school dominated by the Modernist view of building as independent object and sculptural expression. I was taught to design ‘from the inside out‘. With the advent of Postmodern thinking of various strands, the response of buildings to multiple contexts has become a familiar discourse in architecture, considering design also ‘from the outside in‘. Designs are now critiqued in terms of their fitness within an historical intellectual tradition, a climatic context, a site context of architectural language, a topographic context, a regional context, an urban context, a cultural context of interpretations – and now, a context of ecological sustainability. From the perspective of contextual thinking, the designer asks the questions:

What are the larger contextual systems – social, cultural, ecological, architectural and physical – in which this design participates? With what entities, beyond the scope of this design, is the design in dialogue and collaboration for the purpose of creating a larger whole?

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Figure 14.2 Student model, study of form generated by context A project set in an urban context. Sun studies to protect adjacent sites’ access to sun help generate a unique massing. What may appear arbitrary manifests an underlying order of place.

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Figure 14.3 The Rio Grande near Albuquerque (top) and the Columbia River Gorge (Washington side) (bottom) Two different landscapes, one rich in rainfall, the other dry. Could the Integral Sustainable Designer today ever design similarly in both contexts?

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Figure 14.4 Building in a Scandinavian climate, Gentofte Central Library, Denmark, Henning Larsen South versus north orientations (above) and interior versus perimeter spaces on a rainy day (below). More light in this climate is better most of the time, and it comes in winter only from the south (when sunny) and from the sky overhead (when overcast). A reading room, laid out like a winter garden at the northern main entrance, affords view of the surrounding park. Such a building belongs nowhere in America.

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For the sustainable designer, the design questions become:

What is the ecological context of this building (or landscape)? How can I shape form to best participate in, support and heal the ecosystem that the designed artefact inhabits? To fully understand the designed artefact or the nature of the design problem, the designer has to place it within its larger contexts: • a chair-in-environment; • a room-in-environment; • a building-in-environment; • a landscape-in-environment.

Contextual Design Skills Designers can make use of several related skills in working from the contextual perception. Shaping form from without: working with this skill, one identifies relevant contextual forces acting on the object of design from its various contexts – social, formal, economic, environmental, historical and social, etc. – then shapes the design in response to these contextual forces. This is by now a familiar Postmodern design approach, which is essentially ecological in its logic and fully in line with a Sustainable Design approach responsive to living systems. While ecological thinking uses contextual thinking, not all contextual thinking is ecological. In fact, the vast majority of current design contextualism has little to do with a living ecological systems context. A further contextual design skill is to connect the organization of built interiors with the organization of the built and contextual exterior at multiple scales. For instance, in formal architectural terms, interior rooms might be connected to a courtyard through an intervening loggia, while the courtyard might then also be connected to a larger open space though an intervening portal or gateway. This skill has as many applications as there are relationships between inside and outside. Building Larger Patterns: Stroud Watson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Tennessee and urban design progenitor of Chattanooga’s urban renaissance teaches the precept ‘The first job of every building is to help to build a great street, a civic place, a healthy neighborhood and the collective city.’

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Everything can be seen as part of a contextual system, and, equally valid, everything can be seen as composed of relationships disclosed through analysis.

Every person, place and thing is a part of or a member in many larger systems. The task of every designer is to find the physical, ecological and social patterns that the object of design must help to ‘complete’. In living systems, larger order can only emerge through the action and interaction of smaller parts, which are also systems. Contextual perception and thinking opens the door to site responses and issues of entry, circulation, utilities, servicing, public space, visual transparency and so forth. Additionally, ecological contextualism addresses the contexts of habitat, climate, land, hydrology and the material base of the building culture. Systems, including ecosystems, are conceptual frames for understanding that direct our perception. Everything can be seen as part of a contextual system, and equally valid, everything can be seen as composed of relationships disclosed through analysis. The Integral Sustainable Designer holds both of these views together.

Contextual Interiors In expanding design awareness to include the multiple contexts of design, particularly ecological systems, there is a potential pitfall. The integrated logic of complex, objective, systemic exteriors is seductive; however, it is not the ultimate order, but an important aspect of that order. While there is something very true about ecology as a system, is not so clear exactly where one draws the boundary of a system involving multiple organisms. It involves a human perspective that varies with one line of our interior development, which is the consciousness of ecology held by the observer. Defining and mapping systems requires a substantial degree of interior depth. Ecological contextualism with regard to design means, as John Lyle puts it, ‘designing human ecosystems’. Human ecosystems involve both human social systems and their non-human ‘natural’ counterparts in one integrated complexity. Humans are members in their ecosystems from the inside. Living inside a system looks different and certainly means something different than merely observing an ecosystem objectively from the ‘outside’. By living inside our ecosystems, at least biologically (and not culturally), we are also always at work altering them, transforming them, designing them and destroying them. This

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Figure 14.5 The Green School, Bali, Indonesia 2008, John and Cynthia Hardy & PT Bambu Set in the context of Indonesia, this school has a remarkable campus constructed completely from local sustainably harvested bamboo and powered by local, on-site renewable energy systems including a bamboo sawdust hot water and cooking system, a hydropowered generator and solar panels. The scheme responds to the contexts of climate, site, culture and ecology.

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insight is central to arguments about whether the city is in Nature or that Nature is in the city, as we discussed in Chapter 4 on environmental ethics. In any case, our understanding of the nature of ecosystem contexts brings us to consider the meaning of our place in Nature. What an ecosystem means to us, the stories we tell each other about it, profoundly affects our actions towards it. Part IV explores these ideas in depth.

The Wider Embrace: Integrating Analysis, Context and Ground Out beyond complex systems there is the awareness of the designer.

One of the insights of Postmodernism is that just about any important idea or artefact can be deconstructed to be understood as having been socially constructed as a result of its cultural context. In heading down this road, one often finds that each context has a context. In this sense, the academic argument often ends at the impossibility of any new ideas (infinite chains of influences and references) or with the total rejection of the validity of positivistic approaches (form cannot be fully explained by function, therefore function can be ignored as a progenitor of form). Must this be the outcome of contextual thinking? Consider another, more Integral view. As the ability to witness emerges with level 4 integral

consciousness, the very act of being aware of contexts and their

limits forms a larger context, the context of consciousness. What contains the opposites? What contains both analysis and context? What is the field that holds solid and void, the matrix that holds both the nodes and links of networks? Out beyond complex systems there is the awareness of the designer. There is another way that analytic thinking and contextual thinking apply to human interiors. Cultures can be analysed into smaller units, down to individuals and sub-personalities; simultaneously, the individual can be understood more fully if we consider how she participates in the various larger contexts of culture.

level 2 modern

rational consciousness tends to see the subject/object

distinctions of I and you, I and it, I and we as very distinct.

level 3 postmodern

consciousness (pluralistic relativism) begins to value all cultures (multiculturalism), while preserving their differences.

level 3

also extends care, concern and

rights to all individuals in spite of differences. In perceiving the environment, it can understand the rational conclusions of level 2 science about the dire vectors of ecological vital signs, and it extends the circle of value from humans (level

2

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Figure 14.6 Kandalama Hotel, Dambilla, Sri Lanka, Geoffrey Bawa, 1991 The project is both an elegant topographic response and a merging with the site in which the integration of human thought and the biological world is clearly expressed. ‘The concrete frame is used to support a second skin of timber sun breakers, which in turn support a screen of vegetation, while the flat roof has been turned into a tropical garden.’ (Geoffrey Bawa Trust, 2010)

values) to include other species and their habitats. Compassion increases while egocentricity decreases. The more egocentrism, the less an individual can see himself as part of a larger system. The developing consciousness perceives more, larger and more complex contexts. In the more holistic

level 4 integral

consciousness the individual has access

to the experience of being one with all people in a global-universal awareness. Integral consciousness, often symbolized by Wilber as the centaur, can reintegrate body and mind. Similarly, this level of perception brings an integration of human thought and the biological world, exactly what is called for in ecological design. At level

5 transpersonal

awareness, the individual can have the experi-

ence of being one with all of the manifest world, both humans and Nature. Why is all this focus on the development of consciousness important? As Kegan observes, at each new level of consciousness, what was the subject becomes now the object of a new expanded subject. At higher stages, context

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expands, the object of consciousness expands, the ‘I‘ as subject expands. This is important to ecological design because as one identifies with deeper levels of self within and with wider circles without, taking action to heal and protect the environment becomes more and more spontaneous. As my sense of I expands, there is no sacrifice in altruism. In fact, altruism morphs into just what one does or what is appropriate. If development on the self–sense line continues beyond Integral to the Transpersonal, one’s sense of self can be expanded to identify with everything that is arising in the manifest world. This is not only reported by a long history of individuals, and by the psychology of many traditions, but now also by recent developmental researchers. For Integral Sustainable Design, analysis and context, object and its larger system, can be seen less as a fixed reality and more a series of shifting and expanding perspectives on the very nature and dimensions of self, observer, object and context.

References Geoffrey Bawa Trust (2010) 'Solo – Contextual Modernism', available at www.geoffreybawa.com/work/Contextual_Modernism.html Stapp, Henry (1972) ‘The Copenhagen Interpretation and the nature of space-time‘, American Journal of Physics, vol 40, pp1098ff

15 The Shift from Structure to Process to Unfolding

Process thinking can be considered one of the three major strands of systems thinking, the other two being pattern thinking and contextual thinking. The word structure in the title of this section does not refer to structure in a civil engineering sense, but rather as ecological structure, one of the key criteria of living systems that we discussed earlier. That is, structure is the substance, material and shape of things. An ecologist cannot separate ecological structure from ecological function, just as a biologist or physician cannot extract anatomy from physiology. From the perspective of living systems theory, structure is a manifestation of underlying process and keeps its form only so long as the processes are kept intact. Living processes create structures which are changing, yet stable. These systems are known as open systems because they maintain a stable pattern of organization while being open to a constant flow of energy, materials and information (Von Bertalanffy, 1950).

Figure 15.1 The shift from structure to process: Do we see the form and anatomy of our design or do we see its flows and physiology?

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Miller (1978) identified 19 subsystem processes critical to the functioning of all living systems, including such functions as ingestion, distribution, conversion, production, storage, memory and deciding (the most critical subsystem). Energy, matter and information are exchanged among elements of a system and between system levels. These exchange relationships are mutualistic and contribute to both the welfare of the whole and to the benefit of the ‘individual’ at whatever level. The problem is that most of us have come to see only the structural side of this relationship. This is understandable for a couple of reasons: 1 Processes are mostly invisible and time-based, while structural objects can usually be seen and often sit still for us to contemplate. 2 Concrete thinking developmentally precedes process thinking, which is highly abstract cognition that has to be developed. We are not born ready for abstraction. Designers tend to see form as dominant, and if they perceive process, then it is often subordinated to an abstract geometry. Our challenge, if we are to think ecologically, is to see all forms in the world as manifestations of and participants in dynamic processes.

Process Design In Chapter 3, several Principles of Ecosystem were outlined (Center for Ecoliteracy, 2010) including: • Cycles: ‘Members of an ecological community depend on the exchange of resources in continual cycles.’ Cycles within an ecosystem intersect with larger regional and global cycles. For example, water cycles through a garden and is also part of the global water cycle. • Flows: Each organism needs a continual flow of energy to stay alive. The constant flow of energy from the sun to Earth sustains life and drives most ecological cycles. In each transfer, some energy is lost as heat, requiring an ongoing energy flow into the system. Chapter 3 also introduced the idea of the relationship of ‘structure and process’ as the basic ecological perception for design. The reader may recall the examples of the whirlpool, the human body, and in buildings, the processes of sun and wind, the detailed example of the solar heated building, the relationships of architectural form, in addition to the processes of sun movement, climatic cycles and heat flows. Chapter 3 also suggested that processes are present in the phenomena as revealed by perspectives in all the quadrants. Chapter 7 proposed the idea of the six essential lines of design awareness, each

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subject to stage-wise development: form and space, place and context, building systems, use, experience and ideas. Let me now propose that if we equate form and space with the ecological notion of structure, then the remaining five essential aspects of design occur as processes. Since the basic design question from an ecological systems viewpoint has to do with how we generate form that reflexively orders and is ordered by process, we can look at five specific relationships in building design, as shown in Table 15.1: Table 15.1 Types of process-form relationships in design

Place-form

shaping form in response to contextual processes

Behaviour-form

shaping form to maximize performance

Use-form

shaping form to support patterns of human activity

Experience-form

shaping form to engender rich human experiences

Thought-form

shaping form to embody ideas and meaning

These five relationships and their correlated intentions form the basis for a more conscious, if not entirely new way to perceive and conceive of finding or making form through design. We can no longer understand design form as mere objective pattern, but must rather see any design pattern as process-form, or event-form. I remember the days in school when we were taught to have ‘one big organizing idea’ for a building. Ecological systems thinking, where form guides flow, transcends that. That big organizing idea is dead as a means to wholeness. The planet we live on is simply more complex, and finding a way to live on it without killing most of it means having a whole ‘ecology of ideas’, not merely one, no matter how big it is. Eco-design literacy means competence with ecological process-form, the finding of form ordered in relation to: • ecological place; • ecological function and behaviours; • human uses and their requisite needs for energy, information and life support; • rich human experiences of Nature; • the cultural meanings of manifesting ecological relationships; • how people are placed into significant relationships with Nature. The reader may note that this list extends beyond the typical view of the tems perspective

(LR). It is really about taking a

systems perspective

other perspectives. That is to say that most often the

sys -

on all the

systems perspective

is not

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Figure 15.2 MICA School, Gujarat, India, 1991, Anant Raje, architect Courtyard and western facade. Understanding the process of the intense Indian sun generates a solution with no exterior west openings, but large, inset, protected openings facing the court. Light, through the order of the form, becomes all indirect.

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at all concerned with the interior experiences of individuals or with the cultural meanings of design found in the interiors of the culture. We can however, look out through the systems lens and see that all of the concerns of other perspectives do have a correlate from the

systems perspective .

Specifically, they show

up as systemic organizations of form and space (LR artefacts) informed by processes. In fact, all the quadrants are connected to each other.

Process Design Skills Shaping form to guide flow Sustainable designers now have to learn how to read and map processes and even how to design processes. Then, they can learn how to configure form to facilitate and support process. As the landscape architect John Lyle said, ‘Shape form to guide flow’ (Lyle, 1994). To do this, first we can learn and understand the basic life processes in which buildings and landscapes participate. Lyle describes landscape life processes as conversion, distribution, assimilation, filtration and storage. This will then allow designers to create form as a manifestation of the many flows interacting with the structure of their designs.

Figure 15.3 Rowhouses, Expo 2000, Stuttgart, Germany c1996 With a site not oriented cardinally, the organization of the rowhouses follows both the street and the sun. The solar collecting apertures cant towards due south. Fixed and movable shades adjust to the moving sun in summer. Operable windows for cross and stack-ventilation provide a high airflow rate, while operable louvers provide secure lower rates of flow.

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This principle applies just as much to social processes, such as circulation, work groupings, behaviour in public space and friendship associations, as it does to the abiotic processes of climate and geology and the biotic processes of food webs and habitat.

The Wider Embrace: Integrating Structure and Process in Unfolding Complexity Functionalism, including ecological functionalism, has its limits. The sustainable designer can design to fit structure to process in complex webs of relationships, but those processes also change over time. According to systems theory, systems behaviour can be described though a series of interrelated sources, throughput (transformations), sinks and feedback (informational loops). At the same time these systems, which are in dynamic balance, are also in the process of changing to a new order of process. Systems also exhibit dynamic, adaptive, goal-seeking, self-preserving and evolutionary behaviour (Laszlo, 1972, 1994, 1996). From an ecological perspective, living systems are co-evolutionary:

Most species in an ecosystem coevolve through interplay of creation and mutual adaptation. The creative reaching out into novelty is a fundamental property of life, manifest also in the processes of development and learning.  (Capra, 1994a) Post-Darwinism suggests new explanations for the unfolding of evolutionary capacity, beyond the conventional view of random mutation and selection, that act on long-term evolution and are behind much of the creation of novelty, complexity and innovation. Contemporary evolutionists offer several controversial alternatives, including (Kelly, 1995): • symbiosis: close and often long-term interactions between different biological species as a selective force behind evolution, sometimes resulting in interdependent co-evolution; • directed mutation: the idea that organisms can respond to environmental stresses by reorganizing their genes in a purposeful way, ‘directing‘ the course of evolution in a non-random way; • saltation: sudden, non-linear change from one generation to the next that is large, or very large, in comparison with the usual variation of an organism; • self-organization: the idea that the internal organization of a system, including evolution, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source, such as with the emergence of life itself.

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Ecological systems tend to evolve toward greater complexity over time. As introduced in Chapter 3, Capra formulated organizational patterns of living systems. To review some of the points, in living systems some messages travel in cycles to return to their origin (feedback), thus influencing future system behaviour. Using feedback, systems can keep themselves in dynamic balance (selfregulation). Because life is organized as a network of self-regulating processes, it can organize itself (self-organization), including its own direction, purpose and creative self-transcendence (Capra, 1994a). Traditional notions of evolution as constant linear development are being modified, with the perspective of chaos theory, general systems theory and the new sciences of complexity. Erich Jantsch, in his book Design for Evolution, defined evolution as the ‘order of process’, meaning the way in which systemic processes change their nature (transform) over time (Jantsch, 1975). He extended the Nobel laureate Prigogine’s concepts of ‘order through fluctuation’ from physical and biological systems to include social, cultural and knowledge systems, human consciousness and design processes. In this theory, human evolution (the development of individuals and cultures) is meaningful and important as a change agent to planetary evolution. From the perception of

level 4 integral

consciousness, the unfolding of

complexity applies to the natural world, to societies, to cultural worldviews and to the consciousness of individuals. Said another way, the perspectives in all the quadrants show development. This assertion is borne out by hundreds of developmental researchers across a wide range of fields. As we saw in Part II, in every major domain of human inquiry, researchers report an unfolding of complexity. Process thinking can consider the processes of this moment or the more complex life-cycle processes. From the perspective of integral

level

Sustainable

Design, process thinking expands by an order of complexity to include developments or unfolding of processes. This means that the Integral sustainable designer is called on to attend to his/her own process of unfolding up the spiral of human development (2nd to 3rd to 4th level consciousness and beyond), in general, and the unfolding consciousness of design complexity, in particular. Ecological thinking becomes evolutionary thinking, where ‘evolution’ is used in the broadest sense to mean stage-wise development. The design question from the perspective of this evolutionary unfolding becomes:

How can we design systems of built form that adapt over time as the processes that they guide change over time? Awareness of life-cycle processes in buildings takes many forms, including lifecycle costing, environmental life-cycle analysis, cyclical maintenance systems, design for organizational growth and facility expansion and design for adaptive reuse (or alternatively for robust structural persistence). To paraphrase Stewart

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Figure 15.4 Landscape as a Living System, Shanghai Houtan Park, Shanghai, China, 2010, Turenscape, China, landscape architects and Peking University Graduate School of Landscape Architecture ‘The Houtan Park is a regenerative living landscape on Shanghai’s Huangpu riverfront. The park’s constructed wetland, ecological flood control, reclaimed industrial structures and materials, and urban agriculture are integral components of an overall restorative design strategy to treat polluted river water and recover the degraded waterfront in an aesthetically pleasing way.’ (ALSA, 2010) It is form made of process in which the designers also take responsibility for the change and development of the landscape and social processes in the site over time.

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Brand (1994), the design question is: ‘How can buildings be designed to learn?’ We have said that the unfolding of complexity happens in various knowledge domains and value spheres. As we begin to see process all around us, we also see the beauty of elegant processes and the awkwardness of inelegant ones. We see the beauty of how design effectively organizes process or when it is misfit to the processes. There is an obvious aesthetics of process, which is also itself an unfolding. I remind the reader of the levels of aesthetic perception explored in Chapter 5 and the later unfolding prospects of the experiences tive

perspec -

in Chapter 10. An individual first becomes aware of static form perceived

with the senses, then form as related to process, then form as related to process over a life cycle, then form as related to the unfolding of process change (evolution). Ecological aesthetic perception seems to evolve with the designer’s unfolding consciousness of process. From this perspective, the Integral Sustainable Designer asks the questions:

How can we design to amplify the user’s perception of process and its change? How can design create the opportunity to experience the elegant relationships between the order of process and the order of structure? Social and technological systems also change over time as the processes that drive them change. Developments in cognitive capacity (higher levels of complexity thinking) allow developments in the socio-technical base of architecture. Usually, design is responsive, rather than planning ahead for predictable changes. However, some aspects of technological change are relatively predictable, such as the coming end of the fossil fuel era. A renewable energy/bio-renewable materials/industrial recycling-based economy is quite likely in the lifetime of buildings built today. From the perspective of technological unfolding the sustainable designer might ask:

How can we design for the inevitable retrofit of renewable energy technologies to buildings? Can we also design for the post-peak oil future when there is likely to be the necessity for natural ventilation, access to sun for water heating and electricity production on roofs, more local food production, and free passive solar space heating, requiring solar access to the southern winter sun? The Integral Sustainable Designer asks in addition:

How can we design for the ways society and culture unfold? This may sound like an impossible predictive capability unless one realizes that design is most often conducted in a social or cultural context that is anything but an omega state. Because we have good, empirically based maps of how individuals, organizations and societies tend to develop, along with an increasing understanding of the complexities of the different developmental stages and

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streams occurring simultaneously, it may be possible to design for the users’ or for an institution’s current stage of complexity and simultaneously to consider their/its next emergent level. The Integral Designer might then ask the question:

What design will both express the users’ current values (say Modernistrational) and support their values at the next level (Postmodern pluralist)? In the same example, the Integral Sustainable Designer might see the design question as:

How can we design to both speak to the users’ current values about Nature (in other words, Modern: ‘How can Nature profit me?’) and to support the unfolding of more complex (in other words, Postmodern: ‘How can I preserve possibilities for all species?’) ecological values in users?

References ASLA (2010) 2010 ASLA Professional Awards, available at www.asla.org/2010awards/006. html Brand, Stewart (1994) How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built, Viking, New York Capra, Fritjof (1994a) ‘From parts to whole, systems thinking in ecology and education’, Seminar Text, Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley Center for Ecoliteracy (2010) ‘Explore Ecological Principles’, available at www.ecoliteracy. org/nature-our-teacher/ecological-principles Jantsch, Erich (1975) Design for Evolution: Self-organization and Planning in the Life of Human Systems (The International Library of Systems Theory and Philosophy), George Braziller Inc., New York Kelly, Kevin (1995) Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World, Addison Wesley, Reading, MA Laszlo, Ervin (1972) The Systems View of the World: The Natural Philosophy of New Developments in the Sciences, George Braziller, New York Laszlo, Ervin (1994) The Choice: Evolution or Extinction, A Thinking Person’s Guide to Global Issues, G.P. Putnam, New York Laszlo, Ervin (1996) The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time, George Braziller, New York Lyle, John T. (1994) Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development, John Wiley, New York Miller, James G. (1978) Living Systems, McGraw Hill, New York Von Bertalanffy, Ludwig (1950) ‘The theory of open systems in physics and biology’, Science, vol 111, no 2872, pp23–29

16 The Shift from Materiality to Configuration to Pattern Languages

Here we return to the importance of pattern. Living systems are organized in recurring sets of process-defined relationships, or events. As Christopher Alexander has demonstrated in incredible detail in A Pattern Language, in buildings these patterns of events, natural and social, always correspond to a pattern of form or space (Alexander et.al, 1977). In Western thought, Capra argues, we have been too concerned with substance at the expense of understanding form. We have placed too much emphasis on the question of, ‘What is it made of?’ and too little on, ‘What is its pattern?’ These two scientific and philosophical traditions are still immediately evident in every design school and professional journal – in the splits between art and science, design and technology, creativity and production, design studios and supporting knowledge courses. Remember that we have drawn a distinction between ‘pattern’ as the organizational configuration of a system and ‘structure’ as the concrete embodiment of that pattern. The interdependence of these – pattern and structure,

Figure 16.1 Shift from materiality to configuration: Do we see what our designs are made of or what their patterns are?

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Figure 16.2 Student projects In design we find always the character of both fundamental materiality and significant configuration. Materials are configured in to patterns, in these examples in relation to spatial and structural order.

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or configuration and materiality – allows designers to heal one of the old conceptual splits in understanding the nature of architecture. Ordinarily, architects refer to the term design when they mean the patterns of plan, section, volume and facade organization of a building (its configuration). They often use the term building or construction when referring to the building’s concrete nature (its materiality). In architecture, designers can integrate both of these natures of buildings. Unfortunately, a common discourse in the field seems to be the debate between proponents who wish to value one over the other in a collapse of wholeness to a flatland of singular vision. Ecological thinking in design is not merely about the efficiency of materials or performance, but rather, requires a perceptual leap to configuration that links parts into systems, the order of which, in turn, drives performance.

Interconnected Design In creating an ecologically Sustainable Design of pattern, coordinating interconnectedness is the central task of design. We can say this because patterns are configurations of relationships. As we have said, these relationships are always process relationships. So, the designer’s question becomes:

Which patterns help to best interconnect related processes? Similarly, another related question for the sustainable designer is:

Which patterns help to best interconnect related processes of human ecosystems? Ultimately we find that rooms and buildings and towns are made up only of interlocking patterns at many scales. Remembering our discussion of patterns and experience from Chapter 5, think of the design pattern as that which connects the recurring patterns of events with the patterns of space. The pattern is what anchors the events in space, geometry and form. The character of buildings and neighborhoods arises from the patterns of events in space that keep on recurring there. This is all laid out beautifully in Alexander’s, The Timeless Way of Building, where he says:

It is obvious, intuitively, that some towns and buildings are more full of life: and others less … somehow the sense of life which fills one place, and which is missing from another, must be created by these patterns, too. (Alexander, 1979) We have the notion here that better, more alive patterns fit better with the processes and structures of life as our consciousness can perceive it; and we also get a hint of something more, something deeper than surfaces and exteriors.

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Interconnected Sustainable Design, as an ideal, is a kind of organic ‘superfunctionalism’, yet, most designers would agree that eco-effectiveness alone is inadequate to explain places that feel more or less whole and alive.

Interconnected Design Skills Shaping the patterns-that-connect The sustainable designer is challenged to refigure design processes to include learning to read patterns and to distinguish between disconnected, deadening patterns and richly connected, life-supporting patterns. This means learning to map and to diagram, not merely as analysis, but as part of a dynamic design process in which we propose patterns of form and interpret the patterns of process that they embody, refining until we find fitness, in which the conflicting forces are resolved. But even that is not enough to help us find the best, life-affirming, balancing, healing patterns of wholeness that we all, ultimately deep within ourselves, aspire to create. The complexity of processes and patterns can be overwhelming. In the end it is not reducible to formulas or first principles. 20thcentury

level 3

and

4

culture has invented a new complex scientific vision of

Nature for which the old level

2

design and perceptual tools are now woefully

insufficient, which is a gaping hole in the normative Sustainable Design of 2011.

The Wider Embrace: Integrating Materiality, Configuration and Pattern Languages We have said that patterns are configurations of relationships and that materiality is the embodiment of pattern. This is true only from a particular scale or level of observation. Things and even materials can, of course, be understood as configurations of relationships of constituent things. This is true up and down the scalar order of Nature, although we will define this in a more particular way subsequently. The point is that Nature from the systems view is a symphony of patterns within patterns, with similarities of the patterns often bridging scales. Bateson, in Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, described ‘the pattern-that-connects’ as a pattern of patterns-that-connect, or a meta-pattern. Often quoted, Bateson wrote:

What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all the four of them to me? And me to you? And all the six of us to the amoeba in one direction and to the backward schizophrenic in another?  (Bateson, 1979)

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Similarity between patterns, he asserted, was similarity (shapes, forms, relationships) of the relationships between the parts. Like Liv Ulman’s physicist character, Sonia Hoffman, in the film, Mindwalk (Capra, 1990), Bateson sees a web of interconnected patterns within patterns. Alexander developed a theory of building that organizes patterns in relation to one another as pattern languages. Design patterns at one scale are related to each other by organizing to build larger patterns. The particular set of patterns defines the essential characteristics and degree of life in a building or town. Buildings are made up of dozens if not hundreds of patterns, and so show similarity, but also uniqueness. Because patterns define only the essential elements and their relationships, the same set of patterns can generate many different buildings, each different in their particulars. Pattern languages as used by Alexander are traditionally (at level 1 ) often embedded either tacitly or unconsciously within the building culture. Trends in the design of buildings are in part explained by changes in the building culture and the adoption of new (for better or worse) patterns. Because the theory of pattern languages is the only truly process-based theory of building, it is possibly the design theory with the most potential as the basis of an ecological architecture, and perhaps also as a major aspect of Integral Sustainable Design theory. Many, if not all, Sustainable Design strategies require a host of other interrelated design patterns to be effective. For example, take the natural daylighting of a room, which requires successful implementation of design patterns at many scales. To use daylight, its access must be insured at the urban or site scale through daylight envelopes or other massing configuration patterns; the building itself must be configured so that one part does not block views of the sky from another part’s windows. The building’s use zoning and configuration of plan and section, such as thin wings, are necessary to place activities that require light near the source. The sizing and placement of windows, glazing with the high enough visible transmittance and attention to the details of shading and reflection elements all affect how much light enters a room and its distribution patterns. Room depth, proportions, finishes and colour determine how the light is reflected internally once it is admitted, while movable shading design and electric lighting controls affect how and whether or not occupants make use of available daylight. If any one of these interrelated daylight design patterns fails to be included or if the designer fails to use if effectively, then the whole ‘building-as-a-lighting fixture’ daylighting system can easily fail. Pattern languages, as Alexander uses them, are of special interest to the Integral Sustainable Designer. Typically a design pattern not only connects structure and process, but also orders the objective design of the environment with

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Great tank

Figure 16.3 The Surkej Resevoir Complex, west of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, 1446–1451; Muhammad Shah, architect. Site plan (top), view from arcade at mosque to great tank (bottom) and plan of tombs and mosque (facing page) A pleasure palace, lake, mosque, mausoleum and market complex from the Mughal era. This elegant composition is made of dozens of interrelated patterns at multiple scales, repeated over and over: walled courtyards, arcades, alcoves, domed vaulting, grids of pillars, pillars with geometric bases and capitals, patterned sandstone floors, ceremonial niches, tiered step-ghats, etc.

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MASJID

SMALL ENCLOSURE

GARDEN

GREAT TANK

TOMB OF BIBI BAJBAl HALL

WELL

TERRACE

PORTICO

PAVILION

TOMB OF MAMUD BIQARAK

TOMB OF A K M A D GANJ BAKHSH

GATEWAY

STEPS SURROUNDING THE T A N K

RAISED TERRACE

RAISED TERRACE

FEET

0

METERS

0

100 30

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299

Figure 16.4 Eishin College, Iruma-shi, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, Christopher Alexander and Center for Environmental Stucture, 1985–1989 The project was designed from a set of about 200 patterns from the urban scale of its large site to the detials of its ornament and paving, which defines ‘a way of life for a high school and university.’ (Alexander, 2001, vol II, pp363–366). A few examples: • • • •

separate classroom buildings; each building like a house; gardens between the classrooms; paths connecting classrooms exposed to rain.

‘Of all the projects we have done, this is one where the development of the pattern language and generative process received the most complete, and formal process of discovery of patterns, experiments, modification and formulation of patterns, hammering out a final version in committee, and then formal ratification of our final draft by the body of the whole school: directors, teachers, staff and students.’ (Center for Environmental Structure, 2006)

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its correlated subjective human experience and cultural meanings. Alexander’s pattern, light on two sides of a room is not merely about the pattern of light in a room as measurable foot-candle distribution. It is also about the quality of light that reduces the experience of glare and reveals the subtle three-dimensional expressions on the face of one’s companions during communication. Patterns elegantly connect the knowledge domains and perspectives of I, We and It; self, culture and Nature. The design question for the Integral Sustainable Designer is:

What set of patterns, configured in language-like relationships to each other helps to best create healthy human ecosystems?

References Alexander, Christopher (1979) The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press Alexander, Christopher; Ishikawa, Sara and Silverstein, Murray with Jacobson, Max; Fiksdahl-King, Ingrid and Shlomo, Angel (1977) A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Oxford University Press, New York Bateson, Gregory (1979) Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences), Dutton, New York Capra, Berndt Amadeus (director) (1990) Mindwalk: A Film for Passionate Thinkers, 112 min, Triton Pictures Center for Environmental Structure (2006) available at www.livingneighborhoods.org/ ht-0/eishincampus.htm

17 The Shift from Parts to Wholes to Holons

Living systems are integrated wholes, the properties of which cannot be reduced to the properties of the smaller parts. These holistic properties are called emergent characteristics, because they emerge only at the level of the whole or only from the organized relations of the parts. Such emergent system properties are destroyed when a system is dissected or analysed into its isolated elements. Dissect a living thing and it usually dies. David Orr, environmental educator at Oberlin College says:

The great ecological issues of our time have to do with our failure to see things in their entirety. The failure occurs when minds are taught to think in boxes and not taught to transcend those boxes. We educate lots of in-the-box thinkers … And there is a connection between knowledge in organized boxes, minds that stay in those boxes, and degraded ecologies and global imbalances. (Orr, 1996)

Figure 17.1 The shift from parts to wholes: Do we see essence in the constituent parts of our designs or their distinguishing qualities as emerging in their integral wholeness?

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The perceptual shift from seeing the parts as what is essential to seeing the larger wholes is difficult because as a culture we are so good at analytic thinking and generally so poor at contextual thinking. In general, Modernist architecture has been rightly criticized (with notable exceptions) for a preponderance of ‘object buildings’ disconnected from the context of the urban fabric or site. Yet even today, contextual strategies in architecture are so poorly defined and practiced that most designers have only a vague grasp of what larger whole their building should help to complete. The result is an American city whose most identifiable characteristic is the fragmentation that we see and feel daily. Relationships configured and assembled into languages, as discussed previously, always form patterns and the patterns in Nature occur mostly in the form of network patterns. Not only is each whole system a network, but it also contains parts, which are themselves networks. Arthur Koestler coined the term holon for an entity which is both a whole in itself and a part of a larger whole (Koestler, 1967). The reader will recall the discussion of holons and holarchies from the ‘Sustainable Design Ethics’ section of Chapter 4. As a simple example, a deer, its digestive system, its stomach and the cells of its stomach are all holons, both parts and wholes. Neither parts nor wholes are fundamental: holons are whole/parts. In some sense, buildings are whole/parts. Rooms are whole/parts. Walls, roofs and floors are whole/parts. Wilber distinguishes between individual holons and social holons. Individual holons (quarks, electrons, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, etc.) have a persistent identifiable pattern, self-agency, and at high levels of development, a locus of self-awareness, or in Whitehead’s terms, ‘a dominant monad’. As Wilber puts it, ‘If my dog, Daisy, gets up and walks across the room, 100% of her cells, molecules and atoms also move across the room.’ (Wilber, 2005) Social holons (such as families, tribes and societies), are more loosely organized, and do not have self-consciousness at any level. Social holons are made up of individual holons plus their exchanged artefacts. Artefacts are the material, energetic and intellectual production of holons, both individual and social. An artwork may be produced by an individual, but buildings, landscapes and cities are artefacts produced by social holons. The importance of these distinctions will become apparent here and in the following sections.

Whole Design Wholeness at one level is simply the ‘whole’ aspect of any holon’s dual whole/ part nature. But human systems are complex, and we participate in many overlapping networks simultaneously. We have already said that patterns can be

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of higher and lower quality, both in their fitness to functional (including ecofunctional) circumstance and as Alexander demonstrates, in their ability to generate greater or lesser fullness of life. We have also said that higher degrees of interconnectivity tend to create greater stability in living systems. Though systems theory deals mainly with objective wholeness in Nature and in the external, inter-objective processes of society, wholeness can also appear in self, culture and Nature, that is, in all quadrants. In individuals, wholeness might be found in the process of development toward an integrated ego, manifesting as a whole and complete, individuated human being, and onward to the transcendence of the ego. In cultures too, we find wholeness in the meanings that emerge from our shared dialogues, such as justice and a sense of belonging. Wholeness is always multi-perspectival. The Integral sustainable designer can then ask, ‘How shall we design to: 1 engender an experience of wholeness in each individual; 2 manifest shared meanings of wholeness in groups; and 3 organize systemically to create integrated whole systems that fit to Nature’s wholeness?

Figure 17.2 Bio-works, Kolding, Denmark, 1992 This government redevelopment of a large block of perimeter apartments created a neighborhood park and playground, which also handles stormwater runoff, and treats the neighborhood’s sewage in a combination of glassed (the pyramid) and outdoor constructed wetlands. There is no more ‘away’; cycles are complete and visible and alive. Whole.

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305

Using Wilber’s distinctions the design question is not, ‘How do we design buildings, landscapes and cities to interface better with Nature?’ Rather, the Integral Sustainable Designer asks:

How can we design human artefacts and systems (in the form of buildings and cities) to interface with Nature’s artefacts and systems (species and ecologies)? The point here is that buildings and cities are not individual holons (superorganisms), nor are they social holons (societies of organisms). Rather, they are the products of individual and social holons and therefore depend for their qualities and order on the consciousness of the holons that create them. Returning to the idea of levels of consciousness, at least

level 4 integral

consciousness, is

required to design ecologically, that is, to fit human systems to Nature’s systems. Sustainable Design wholeness, therefore, is also an internal affair.

Whole Design Skills Direct knowing Contemporary Sustainable Design and systems theory offer no tools for evaluating the wholeness or aliveness of a pattern. They have nothing to say about how we know a life-affirming whole from a pathological one, other than that it should be self-maintaining. The skill for developing wholeness in design is what

Figure 17.3 Taos Lodge, New Mexico A space with the feeling of wholeness. Filtered light, shade, cool breeze, a good meal, companionship, a view to a living landscape from a place filled with life.

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I call direct knowing. Direct knowing is the ability of human consciousness that integrates sense perception, emotion, intellect and insight into a whole being knowing. If you are quiet, you will know without training what is beautiful. If you are centred in your whole being, perceiving places without preconception, you know immediately what places bring you joy, life, peacefulness, and you also know which places make you ill, depressed and anxious. This is what Alexander means in The Timeless Way of Building, when he says that human feeling is the objective, empirical measure of the success of a pattern at resolving all the conflicting forces in a situation, which brings about ‘the quality without a name’ (Alexander, 1979). Again, in The Nature of Order, he develops techniques using the inherent faculties of being human to determine the degree of life, the degree of wholeness in a thing, building or place (Alexander, 2001).

The Wider Embrace: Integrating Part, Wholes and Holons in Wholeness Perhaps no one has thought and written about wholeness in architecture more than Christopher Alexander. In his Nature of Order, Alexander notes that it is self-evident that we live in a highly ordered universe, a fact that we experience in Nature as order (Alexander, 2001). He hypothesizes that:

What we call ‘life’ is a general condition which exists, to some degree in every part of space: brick, stone, river, painting, building, daffodil, human being, forest, city … and that this degree of life is well defined, objectively existing, and measurable.  (Alexander, 2001, p77) Order arises because of the configurations of and the nature of space, and the degree of life in a space is a function of this order. In that case, Sustainable Design has as its task:

... the creation of towns and buildings which are a part of the living fabric of the earth and which are themselves, in short, alive. (Alexander, 2001, p28). This is quite different from the conservationist idea of Sustainable Design and ‘means creating life in man-made things and natural things together’ (Alexander, 2001, p28). Life in this sense is a quality that humans can perceive directly, by feeling acutely, as more life-affirming or more deadening, more or less intensely alive. A building’s ability to support high degrees of life comes from its working as a whole. For Alexander, wholeness means ‘that we see it as part of an extended continuum’ with other buildings, gardens, trees and streets and with the wholes within it, ‘unbounded and continuous in their connections’ (Alexander, 2001,

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307

p80). He goes on to develop the idea of wholeness, defined ‘as the system of larger and smaller centers, in their connections and overlap’ (Alexander, 2001, p90). ‘Centers’ are taken to be sub-wholes or evident parts, which are distinct physical systems, located in space, with distinct coherence. Wholeness emerges as a quality of places, out of the interaction of a field of centres, rather than defining a whole as having a particular boundary. The full exposition of this theory is well beyond the scope of this chapter; however, in simple terms, we might just say that, for Alexander, the wholeness quality of a given entity increases with the quality of its individual constituent sub-wholes and with the density of their relationships. When wholeness increases beyond a certain threshold, what emerges is ultimately a living architecture (or a whole living landscape) in which we humans can be most alive, most radically free, reaching our highest potentials of expression. In a whole, alive architecture, we weave our lives and habitat together with that of our relatives, all other species, in such a way that they too are most alive. This aligns well with Wilber’s claim that an artefact can transmit to the viewer (user, occupant) the state of consciousness of the holon that created it. Wilber and Alexander agree that it is designers who are in a high state of consciousness that create inspirational and sacred architecture. The same appears to be true in the creation of a Sustainable Design that is living, whole and inspirational.

References Alexander, Christopher (1979) The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press, New York Alexander, Christopher (2001) The Nature of Order: An Essay on The Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe; Book 1, The Phenomenon of Life, Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, CA Koestler, Arthur (1967) The Ghost in the Machine, MacMillan, New York Orr, David (1996) ‘Reinventing Higher Education’, in Collett, Jonathan and David Ehrenfeld, (eds) Greening the College Curriculum: A Guide to Environmental Teaching in the Liberal Arts, Island Press, Washington Wilber, Ken (2005) conference call with Ken Wilber on the topic of Integral architecture and cities, 17 April 2005

18 The Shift from Hierarchies to Networks to Holarchies

Every holon is both a part of a larger network and contains networks within it. So we can say that all living systems are nested networks, systems within systems within systems. The pattern of living organization is multi-levelled and multi-scalar. Networks are the fabric of complex living systems; therefore, they are key to reorganizing the built environment ecologically.

The shift from hierarchies to networks is a perceptual shift away from the organizational structures for complexity that are often, formally and topologically speaking, expressed as pyramids and trees. Many people take the idea of hierarchy to be synonymous with power hierarchy, in which there are oppressors and

Figure 18.1 The shift from hierarchies to networks: Do we see the patterns our designs as like a tree or as like a many-levelled web or lattice?

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309

victims. There is no malevolence in a tree or the topology of a sewage drain system structured like a tree. Such hierarchical structures, when organizing social systems, however, present the opportunity for people who may be undeveloped on the moral line to take advantage of others lower in the hierarchy. Yet the pyramidal structure of a corporation or government does not compel its leaders to oppression. Living systems are very hierarchical; however, it is a hierarchy of organization and function, or a hierarchy of growth, not one of power. Because holons are nested within each other (such as molecules within cells within organs within organisms) there is a natural hierarchy, sometimes referred to as a holarchy. Further, network organizations, as compared to tree hierarchies, have more connections among members at each level and more connections between levels. From the

integral perspective ,

self, culture and Nature are all holarchic. One

of the rules of holarchic organization is that deeper holons transcend and include their juniors. This holds true for individual holons (organisms transcend and include organs) and for social holons (tribes transcend and include familial clans), but we have to be careful in these generalizations because individuals can participate in several overlapping (lattice-like) social holons (family, institutions, neighborhoods, church, etc.). Nevertheless, the vertical structures are holarchic. Artefacts such as buildings often follow a holarchic order: 1 materials (brick, glass, steel); to 2 elements (windows, plywood, columns as configurations of materials); to 3 building systems (structural, mechanical, roof systems as configurations of

elements); to

4 rooms and courtyards (configurations of building systems); to 5 whole buildings (configurations of rooms and courtyards). The city, too can be seen as a holarchy of: 1 urban elements; 2 blocks patterns; 3 neighbourhoods and districts; 4 quarters or boroughs; 5 whole cities and so on. However, the order and development of these artefact holarchies is not necessarily sequential and continuous. Stages and levels in the ‘spatial holarchy’ can be skipped. Some cities have no identifiable quarters, for example; neighbourhoods overlap each other, socially and spatially. Nevertheless, buildings, open spaces, transportation systems, neighbourhoods and cities seem to have an inherent degree of holarchy to the extent that the social holons that create and maintain them are also holarchic.

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Networked Design A network is simply the pattern that living systems take on that allows process relationships to occur. Networks are the fabric of complex living systems; therefore, they are key to reorganizing the built environment ecologically. Networks can be highly or loosely connected; as a general rule, in living systems, more highly connected networks are more stable in the face of disturbing or unbalancing forces. It is easy to see many networks at play in buildings: electrical and air distribution networks, circulation and social networks, transportation and economic networks and so forth. There are also networks we rarely notice, such as the network of watersheds and stream trellises that drains the land, the network of spatial habitat structure that allows plants and animals to migrate and feed, and the networks of fuel and food that power our cities. Capra (1994b) says, ‘The pattern of life is a network pattern. Wherever you observe life, you observe networks.’ The implication for a living architecture in a living world seems plainly evident. In the mathematics of network theory, networks are made of hubs and links. A house is one form of hub because it is linked into several other networks. For instance, one link in the water supply system brings in potable water to the house, while another, in the sewer system, takes wastewater away. The house and its inhabitants use or transform the water in processes, such as the process of drinking or washing dishes. There are many kinds of network patterns, or topology, including trees, stars, grids, triangulated nets and polycentric patterns. The question for designers is:

What is the order of the network, the organization of the pattern holarchy for a given design situation?

Network Design Skills Scale-linking A neighborhood, a building, a room and a wall are all artefacts with order similar to holons. Each is an organization of patterns below it and each helps to complete patterns above it in the network of environmental structure. Alexander, in A New Theory of Urban Design suggests that the fundamental rule for urban design is that each act of design must do three things: create something whole, help to complete a pre-existing but incomplete whole, and begin a new whole that can be completed in the future by a new act of building (Alexander et al, 1987). Indeed, the patterns in A Pattern Language are organized such that each

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Figure 18.2 Green Infrastructure Network, Downtown Plan, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 2003 GreenVision Studio, Mark DeKay and Tracy Moir-McClean (2003) Network of interconnected green places and green links: parks, cemeteries, floodplains, highway edges, greenways, pedestrian paths, etc.

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Nallah

O N

60 ft Road

18 m

Figure 18.3 Belapur Housing, Phase II Plan, India; Charles Correa This housing project links multiple scales of open space in a connected, hierarchical, nested, network of social, circulation and spatial relationships: 1) the shared open space of the stream that cuts through the community; 2) the large public squares shared by 50–60 household; 3) the 3–4 smaller courts that open onto each square; 4) the housing cluster courtyards shared by 6–8 houses and 5) the private walled courts or gardens of each house

313

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Road

Carpark

o

N 60 ft 18 m

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pattern helps to build a larger pattern, organizes itself as a whole and complete pattern and in turn, is built by smaller patterns. The design process skill for networked architecture is scale-linking, meaning the cultivation of the ability to shift one’s design attention back and forth between system levels. A good example of scale-linking in the built environment is that of the network patterns traced by the path of water. On a roof it is a molecular and particle scale; in the gutter, it is a volume; reaching the ground it becomes a site-scale issue; with impervious surfaces, its concentration quickly becomes a neighborhood issue, which if aggregated, becomes an issue at the scale of the urban landscape. Similarly, the pattern Hierarchy of Open Space calls for urban open spaces (courtyards, squares, greens, etc.) to not be isolated and fully enclosed, but to each be connected to and look toward a larger open space, so forming a continuous spatial network of multiple scales (Alexander et al, 1987).

The Wider Embrace: Integrating Hierarchies and Networks in Holarchies Everywhere in Nature the systems thinker sees networks. Everywhere in the built environment designers see hierarchies. In Nature the Integral ecologist sees hierarchies and networks integrated in holarchies. In the built environment the Integral Sustainable Designer sees potentials for designed holarchies. Traditionally, designers think in terms of multiple scales, each scale having characteristic issues. This perceptual shift asks designers to become conscious of how patterns at different scales are related and are actually nested within each other. In ecological terms, we have discussed the shift in perception from structure to process. Again, this perceptual shift allows a designer to see processes as essential components of design patterns and as nested into networks in holarchic order. Holarchic awareness is a powerful tool for piercing into the nature of design problems to find what is incomplete and to explain why many design solutions are so often experienced as unfulfilling. Further exploration needs to be done to describe how built artefacts mirror the holarchic structure of their related individual and social holons – and ways in which they do not. It is not yet clear to me whether or not holarchic order is absolutely necessary to Integral ecological wholeness, although I have a deeply felt suspicion that it is. What is clear is that it is certainly possible, workable and useful to structure much of design knowledge in this way. Holarchic structure can be a revealing tool of analysis, design programming and design methods, which can all be built upon it.

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References Alexander, Christopher; Ishikawa, Sara; Silverstein, Murray with Jacobsen, Max; FiksdahlKing, Ingrid and Shlomo, Angel (1977) A Pattern Language: Towns, Building, Construction, Oxford University Press, New York Alexander, Christopher; Neis, Najo; Anninou, Artemis and King, Ingrid (1987) A New Theory of Urban Design, Oxford University Press, New York Capra, Fitjof (1994b), see bibliography, also available online at www.ecoliteracy.org/ essays/ecology-and-community DeKay, Mark and Moir-McClean, Tracy (2003) Green Center: Planning for Environmental Quality in Downtown Chattanooga, TN, a report to the Chattanooga Downtown Planning and Design Center

Part III Conclusion

To summarize, Sustainable Design for ecological fitness requires that performance techniques, technologies and design patterns be organized by ecological perception. Ecological perception relies on an understanding of living systems as the model and context of design. To understand ecological sustainability we have to become ecologically literate by learning the principles of ecosystem organization, including the three key criteria of living systems: patterns of organization, structure and life processes. The development of ecological perception and thinking is characteristic of cognitive and values developments to the Integral Stage of human development: Gebser’s Integral-Aperspectival Epoch (Gebser, 1985), Wilber’s Integral-Centaur Level (Wilber, 2000c), Kegan’s Fifth-Order Consciousness (Kegan, 1982), Beck’s Spiral Dynamics Yellow Level (Beck and Cowan, 1996). This means transcending and including both rationalModern

level 2

and

level 3

pluralistic Postmodern levels of cognition/values.1

To work with ecological organization in design requires changing our perception of the world, including at least these six shifts: 1 objects > relationships > subject–object relations 2 analysis > context > integration in ground 3 structure > process > unfolding 4 materiality > configuration > pattern languages 5 hierarchies > networks > holons 6 parts > wholes > holarchies. These shifts are indicative of a deeper, more inclusive perception that both transcends and incorporates the former, more singular perceptions. The past is not rejected, but becomes part of the transmitted material for the new stage of the evolution of design consciousness.

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Despite the necessity of solving ecological problems by design, Sustainable Design as currently conceived is neither fully holistic nor sufficient to solve the problems it identifies. It is often the product of

level 3

thinking, which, as a

first-tier level of values, will generally reject its predecessor (level Modern thinking). So

level 3

2

rational-

Sustainable Design will often argue for relation-

ships, not objects, for context (fit to the web of life), not analysis, for form as dependent on process, not structure and so on. Rather than ‘this-not-that’, Integral Sustainable Design opts for ‘both-and-enfolding’ thinking. The truth of ecological systems thinking in design, which is yet to become fully embedded in Sustainable Design’s theory and practice, much less in conventional design practice, lies in its identification of the intelligence embodied in living systems as the necessary and non-elective fundamental basis upon which any sustainable culture must be built. Its partialness commonly lies in its ignorance or worse, frequent rejection of human interiors, both individual experience and collective meanings. Reducing the world to objective realities stifles the emergence of the very awareness required to design ecologically and to collectively come to agreement on a course of action that aligns with the ecological solutions that Sustainable Design advocates. An ecological design of depth is an Integral practice that requires an Integral awareness of relatively high developmental accomplishment. Future work by this author will explore how such developments in consciousness can be fostered among designers. It is clear that changes in perception, particularly the kind of shifts argued for Part III, come with hard work. The development of consciousness ‘up the dynamic spiral’ unfolds over time. There are many challenges to the flowering of a widespread deep, Integral Sustainable Design practice. Are there practices that can speed up the process of developing

integral level

consciousness? What would design education

that develops Integral ecological perception be like? Can designers expand their awareness fast enough to contribute to solving the ecological crisis? Can design itself become an Integral practice for embedding ecological consciousness in the built environment? While many questions remain, the future paradigm of Integral Sustainable Design, now still emerging, will be revealed by practices, methods and injunctions arising in part out of these six related perceptions. In the end, these perceptual shifts are not fundamentally about the theory of Sustainable Design, but rather, about the root of its practices from the tems perspective .

sys -

Seen through new eyes, new facts and new patterns emerge.

Integral Sustainable Design is not merely another way of seeing the same old Nature and city. It is a method of revealing a new Nature and a new city not disclosed by the perception of earlier orders of consciousness. If one wants to understand the nature of Integral Sustainable Design, one actually has to

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perform the practice of taking these new perspectives and working through design problems using them. In my view Integral Sustainable Design will be broadly successful only if schools and design offices develop and adopt specific practices for cultivating Integral sustainable perception and begin to form learning communities of practice.

Notes 1 Architects often interpret Postmodernism as a style or theoretical school of design, sometimes including deconstructivist architecture and sometimes wholly distinguished from it, rather than understanding the new forms of architecture as a product of developments in thinking and values, the leading edge of the culture. Because all first-tier waves of consciousness tend to reject the stage before them, and because there are both healthy and unhealthy expressions at every level, Postmodern architecture has both rejected much of the valuable aspects of Modernism while also producing some unprecedented dysfunctional, pathological examples of buildings and urban spaces. This does not however erase the fact that Postmodern thought in architecture created several important intellectual innovations that Modernism as a widespread movement was generally incapable of, including, among others: 1) contextualism: artefacts designed to help build larger wholes; 2) environmentalism: designs to increase ecological health; 3) pluralism: recognition of the value of many diverse approaches, including the reclamation of historic precedents; and 4) cultural theory: the reassociation of form with meaning and the languages of design situated in cultural interpretation. See also Chapter 7.

References Beck, Don Edward and Christopher C. Cowan (1996). Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change: Exploring the New Science of Memetics, Blackwell, Malden, MA Gebser, Jean (1985 [1949]) The Ever-Present Origin [Ursprung und Gegenwart], translated by Noel Barstad and Algis Mickunas, Athens, Ohio University Press, Ohio Kegan, Robert (1982) The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Wilber, Ken (2000c) Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy, Shambhala, Boston, MA, p144

Part Four

Designing Relationships to Nature: Metaphors and Injunctions for Deep Connections

Introduction to Part IV ‘The role of technology in architectural design is to present the natural world to people in a way that allows them to understand, and hence to belong within, that world.’ 

(Lance LaVine)

Part IV expands on the theoretical views of Integral Sustainable Design introduced in Part I by exploring more deeply the

cultures perspective .

The primary

investigation is:

How do I design to place people into rich and significant relationships with Nature? We will explore different ideas of what people think Nature is and their concomitant principles of designing relationships to Nature. Each primary view gives rise to a variety of metaphors in language that describes our understanding of Nature. In addition to metaphors for Nature, design metaphors describe the essential task of the designer when designing to manifest Nature. These design metaphors are powerful tools for generating design solutions and for organizing the many smaller ideas contained in any design project. Finally, we explore a set of design injunctions with examples of some of the many ways designers have elegantly related people to Nature through design. In Part I we explored the expansion of the conventional idea of Sustainable Design from that of employing technology to improve resource efficiency and reduce pollution to including perspectives from the other three quadrants outlined by Integral Theory. This part addresses an important and timeless question from the cultures

perspective :

How shall we design to relate people to Nature? What is our understanding of this particular ‘Nature’ to which we want to connect and relate? In Chapter 4, we looked at how Sustainable Design could expand to include design as meaning-making stories. ‘We used less’ is not a particularly inspiring story. It was argued that design patterns encode cultural meaning that communicates to occupants through the symbolic and metaphoric language of design. Green design can embody our significant myths, stories, and beliefs about how society and Nature are related. If we accept this as true (or even conditionally true as an exercise), this idea that part of design’s role is to manifest our culture’s idea of Nature, to convey it, and to relate people to it, then many questions arise:

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Designing Relationships to Nature

Figure IV.1 Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, 1980, E. Fay Jones, architect

Introduction Subjective

Objective

PERSPECTIVE OF EXPERIENCES

PERSPECTIVE OF BEHAVIOURS

Shape Form to ENGENDER EXPERIENCE

Shape Form to M A X I M I Z E PERFORMANCE

Individual

[UL]

323

[UR]

Energy, water, materials efficiency Zero energy & emissions bldgs LEED rating system High performance buildings

Environmental phenomenology Experience of natural cycles, processes, forces Green design aesthetics

I

IT

Collective

WE ITS PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURES

PERSPECTIVE OF SYSTEMS

Shape Form to MANIFEST M E A N I N G

Shape Form to GUIDE FLOW

Relationships to nature Green design ethics Green building cultures Myths & rituals

Fitness to site & context Ecoeffective functionalism Bldgs as ecosystems Living buildings

[LR]

[LL] Figure IV.2 The four Sustainable Design perspectives

• What are these beliefs that we weave into a view of Nature? • Is there one Nature or many in our culture today? • Given what we think Nature is and the way we view it – and our relationship as humans to it (or in it or it in us?) – how shall we design to tell that story? • What intentions can designers hold when ‘designing relationships to Nature’? • How have other designers configured space to place humans into a significant relationship with Nature? • Are there some themes or replicable strategies designers can use? You will remember the four-quadrant framework introduced in Chapter 1 (see Figure IV.2). 'Green design ethics' was introduced in Chapter 4; it investigates four different levels of the

cultures perspective

focusing on our intentions to-

ward Nature (Nature managed, Nature used, Nature saved and Nature united). As you will see, ‘levels of complexity’ is a helpful tool for understanding various ideas of and design responses to Nature.

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Designing Relationships to Nature

The Design Principles Expanded in Part IV Part I identified principles of Integral Sustainable Design in each of the four foundational perspectives. The principles for the cultures

perspective

are repro-

duced below. In Part IV we focus on the second and third of these principles.

Principles of Integral Sustainable Design from the cultures perspective • Design based on a high and conscious environmental ethic in which humanity and Nature both thrive in regenerative human ecosystems. Constitute yourself (who you are being) as a stand for designing to insure the appropriate rights of all species and ecosystems and of future generations. • Design to place people into significant relationships with Nature by making visible how culture is interconnected with living systems. Manifest natural processes and ecological services via design. • Design for cultural communication by using the symbolic and metaphoric languages of design. Use the power of design as an inhabited art to make evident the meaning of ecological systems and our place in the many levels of the Kosmos.

19 The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

The Who and What of Connecting to Nature

Figure 19.1 Tennessee River sky

Our big question in Part IV is about how to connect to Nature by design. The ‘who’ in this case is who it is that is doing the designing and who it is that is experiencing the connection. Part II examined four levels of the sustainable designer, holding various values of the Traditional, Modern, Postmodern and Integral. Each becomes a prospect, a particular point of view that reveals and

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Designing Relationships to Nature

understands Nature in different ways. Similarly, the users, owners, clients and occupants of buildings and landscapes are distributed in contemporary society across this spectrum of values from Traditional to Integral. The Integral designer must then take into account that there is no one Nature to be connected to, but many. In the same way, there is not one way to properly understand Nature but many. It follows that the algebra of connecting to Nature involves several variables and can generate a wide variety of design strategies, built forms and user interpretations. The Integral designer recognizes that while it is not necessary or even possible to design for every idea of Nature and every person’s meaning given to it, more successful solutions will arise from considering at least the major cultural meanings given to Nature today. They form the frames through which Nature is viewed, the interpretive context in which a design solution lives. Each level has a different idea of Nature.

The ‘what’ of connecting to Nature refers to what it is that we are connecting to, the kind of Nature we have in mind. Culture has multiple conversations about the nature of Nature and its meaning. Values are both held by individuals and influenced by the cultural context of those individuals. The culture itself can be said to have a ‘centre of gravity’ or worldview at a certain level based on the interaction of its many minds. At the same time, subcultures will express at levels of worldview above and below the dominant culture. For example, in the United States, Modern is the dominant level of culture, while Traditional and Postmodern also occur as substantial minorities. Each level has a different idea of Nature that we will examine in the next section.

What is Nature? What we think Nature is has everything to do with Sustainable Design, but we often don’t stop to think about what we mean by ‘Nature’. What exactly is it we want to sustain or preserve or conserve or regenerate or heal with sustainable/ green/ecological design? Integral Ecology (Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman, 2009, p25) recognizes three common ways in which we refer to Nature, represented as nature (all lower case), Nature (capital N), and NATURE (all caps). Table 19.1 explains these distinctions.

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Table 19.1 NATURE, Nature, nature

NATURE as ‘The Great Nest of Being’ [UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

T N B P

SYSTEMS [LR]

[LL] CULTURES

all quadrants

physiosphere, biosphere, noosphere, and expanding also to a new level, the Theosphere (T), which is also potentially, the fundamental ground of being.

NATURE refers to the whole universe, the ‘Kosmos,’ (not just the material cosmos), the totality of reality in all levels of its interiors and exteriors. NATURE has ‘all quadrants and all levels’. This is the approach of Integral Ecologists. From this view, the unfolding of evolution, where higher holons enfold lower ones (transcend and include) applies to all quadrants. Nature as ‘The Great Web of Life’

[UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

N B P

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

right quadrants

physiosphere, biosphere, noosphere

Nature refers to the exteriors only of the Kosmos, those domains studied by the natural and social sciences. Nature is understood as a complex living system. Nature is composed topically of complex exteriors only (UR/LR). This is the view of rational materialists (Nature studied with reason); it uses third-person practices and methods only, with an absence of interiors (UL, LL). Most often this view denies higher levels of reality above the biosphere. This is the ‘disenchantment of nature’, along with the denial of spirit, the primary view of Moderns. It is the view of Nature held by most modern environmentalists and scientists. nature as ‘The Great Biosphere’

[UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

B P

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

all quadrants

physiosphere, biosphere

nature refers to the simpler, pre-mental levels of both the exterior, empirical-sensory world and the interior, felt-emotional world. One way to think of this is nature as opposed to (that is, unaware of) culture, or nature as opposed to (that is, a less inclusive holon than) the noosphere (mental level). It incorporates empirical facts plus interior biophysical experiences at the levels below mind and culture. It is the domain of pre-rational environmentalism. This is the primary view of most Traditionalists and of regressionist, eco-romantic, back-to-nature proponents (who study nature with pre-conventional, pre-rational feelings). Such seekers desire a primal unity.

Source: developed from Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman, 2009. Diagrams by author P = physiosphere; B = biosphere; N = noosphere; T = theosphere

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Designing Relationships to Nature

Two distinctions may help clarify the ideas in Table 19.1: 1 From Chapter 9, all quadrants show development or unfolding complexity, which we refer to as levels.

Figure 19.2 A common framework for levels across quadrants

[UL] EXPERIENCES Self + Consciousness

BEHAVIORS [UR] Parts + Performance

Meaning + Woldviews [LL] CULTURES

Social + Environmental SYSTEMS [LR]

2 From Chapter 4, another helpful sequence of complexity is the progression from matter to life to mind. Stated otherwise, from the physiosphere (chemistry and physics) to the biosphere (biology and ecology) to the noosphere (the realm where consciousness and culture emerges). The unfolding complexity of levels is holarchically inclusive. Life is built on and includes matter. Mind is built on and includes life, etc. A Matter B Nature

C Culture

Level 3

Level 2

Figure 19.3 Levels of evolution: A = physiosphere, B = biosphere, C = noosphere

Level 1

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

329

Levels of Complexity and the Idea of Nature Higher levels are more significant/deeper. Lower levels are more fundamental. In Chapter 6, we laid out four contemporary structures as levels of complexity in design. Remember that we said that each higher level in its healthy form transcends and includes its predecessor. The Modern transcends and includes the Traditional; the Postmodern transcends and includes the Modern and the Integral transcends and includes the Postmodern. Higher levels are more significant/deeper. Lower levels are more fundamental. Higher levels are more complex, but depend absolutely on lower levels. The transcendence consists of taking the wholeness of lower levels and expanding to a wider, deeper inquiry. Levels of complexity define a structural or growth hierarchy, NOT a value hierarchy and take on the following characteristics (Table 19.2). Table 19.2 Characteristics of a structural hierarchy

‘Higher’ Levels

‘Lower’ Levels

More complex

Less complex

More significant

More fundamental

Later

Earlier

More inclusive

Less inclusive

Includes lower

Part of higher

To the sequence of four levels laid out in Chapter 6, we add a fifth level, necessary now because of the need to include a range of experiences, phenomena and cultural interpretations. This new level we will call the Transpersonal. ‘Transpersonal’ refers to the insights of Transpersonal philosophy and psychology:

which is inspired by the intuition that a fully-realized human is ‘transpersonal’ in the sense of transcending the limits of his or her own ego, so as to identify with a wider sense of ‘Self.’ By developing such wider identification with the ‘single unfolding reality’ of which all entities are aspects, people overcome anthropocentrism, develop greater compassion for non-human beings, and thus realize their true human potential.  (Zimmerman, 2003) Each level of complexity that humans use to understand Nature reveals a different idea of Nature.

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Designing Relationships to Nature

As we are delving into what it is to design for connecting to Nature, let us consider that many people through time have described ‘becoming one with Nature’, or of expanding their sense of self to include all of Nature. There also exist many claims and reports about the relationship between spirit and matter, life and mind. In some cases, these reports point to the Transpersonal. As we will see soon, each level of complexity that humans use to understand Nature reveals a different idea of Nature. Expanding on Table 6.6 to include level 5 , the transpersonal level ,

yields Table 19.3.

Table 19.3 The five contemporary levels of complexity in design

Worldview

Design structures



Level 5

Transpersonal

>

Unitive Perspective

Level 4

Integral

>

Transformative Networking

Level 3

Postmodern

>

Pluralistic Practices

Level 2

Modern

>

Independent Professionalism

Level 1

Traditional

>

Guild Traditions

Metaphors for Nature Our idea of Nature exists in language. In language, metaphors and other figures of speech play a central role in our understanding of Nature and our relationship to it. Metaphor can be defined as:

a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money ); broadly: figurative language.  (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2009) In this book, I will use ‘metaphor’ as broadly figurative language, loosely, as many architects do. Designers often use metaphors as part of generating design solutions. Because two kinds of objects or ideas are associated, new combinations can be found that offer inventive ways of seeing the project. Metaphors are invaluable in expressing otherwise ineffable ideas. As such, our language is used both to describe and to create. Our language ‘implicitly and explicitly carries values and ways of seeing; it lends itself to contradictory interpretations and uncertain meanings, and is intimately related to how we experience and give meaning to the world’ (Meisner, 1995). So far we have briefly described three distinctions for ideas of Nature found in Integral Theory. These were labelled metaphorically as The Great Biosphere,

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

331

The Great Web of Life and The Great Nest of Being. Now, let’s expand these metaphorical distinctions by considering the idea of Nature at each developmental level of worldview.

Table 19.4 Historic metaphors for Nature at five levels of development

Level of Complexity

Metaphor: Nature as …

Level 5 Transpersonal

the Great Self Manifesting consciousness light/fire the self (unity identity) Kosmos expression of Tao vibrations dance of Shakti abode of Spirit manifestation of being the body of God

Experiences [UL]

Behaviours [UR]

T M P I Tr [LL] Cultures

[LR] Systems

Level 4 Integral Experiences [UL]

Behaviours [UR]

the Great Matrix of Perspectives the living community embedded in culture holarchic contexts co-arising with culture (networks of networks) intersection of multiple perspectives and levels global ecosystems energy patterns/chi living system or being

T M P I

[LR] Systems

[LL] Cultures

Level 3 Postmodern Experiences [UL]

Behaviours [UR]

T M P

[LL] Cultures

[LR] Systems

the Great Web of Life a complex, integrated system processes and networks harmony in diversity text for interpretation food web Gaia

cultural construction perspective taken chaos/complexity home/bioregion a community of species victim/oppressed

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Designing Relationships to Nature

Level of Complexity

Metaphor: Nature as …

Level 2 Modern Experiences [UL]

Behaviours [UR]

the Great Natural Environment tree/organism agricultural crop/farm pyramid/hierarch bountiful resources machine amenity/commodity clockwork universe objective view book to be read

T M

[LR] Systems

[LL] Cultures

Level 1 Traditional Experiences [UL]

Behaviours [UR]

T

[LL] Cultures

the Great Primeval Garden the Great Biosphere enchanted realm/gods the great wilderness sacred trust a great fabric woman/mother macrocosm of man handmaiden of God music of the spheres friend/teacher/healer divine perfection/miracle great chain of being lost Paradise

[LR] Systems

T = Traditional, M = Modern, P = Postmodern, I = Integral, Tr = Transpersonal

Ideas of Nature: Exploring the Five Metaphors Traditional ideas of Nature In the traditional

level , as you may remember from Chapter 6, we have grouped

all pre-Modern levels. In many developmental systems, this includes stages such as the archaic, magical, mythic and authoritarian. In design, it includes vernacular and classical traditions, ancient and Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque, along with the neoclassical, Beaux Arts and neo-romantics. Admittedly this is a substantial compression of history and of ideas. We are in the realm of large ‘orienting generalizations’ here. Though all this may seem purely academic in its relevance, two significant Traditional ideas of Nature remain influential in the contemporary psyche. Nature in the pre-Modern world was most often thought of as wilderness, which has taken on two views in Western culture (Light, 1995):

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

333

1 The classical idea of Nature as savage and uncivilized. 2 The romantic idea of Nature as a pure place of dignity, untouched by humans.

Nature as the great wilderness: Classical Nature [UL] EXPERIENCES

T T

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

Figure 19.4 Traditional Classical Nature N

B

Nature (exteriors) is split from culture and self (interiors). Humanity and culture are above and beyond Nature.

P

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

Note: In figure 19.4, 19.6, 19.8, 19.10, 19.12, 19.13 and 19.16, the following abbreviations apply: P = physiosphere (matter), B = biosphere (life), N = noosphere (mind), T = theosphere (spirit)

Wilderness for the classical was dangerous, the home of savage people.

The Classical view is close to ‘hell on earth’, the Romantic view ‘heaven on earth’, the earthly garden of paradise. Both have been around from the earliest culture: Adam and Eve were cast out of the paradise garden into the wilderness. Wilderness for the classical was dangerous, the home of savage people, ruled by passions and emotions, with little self-will and self-control, home of, in addition to wild animals, the wild side of humanity and symbolically, all the darknesses of the human psyche. The wild is a threatening if not evil force over which humans must reign superior in the fight. This is a nature to be conquered. Norman Crowe argues that the duality of humans and Nature is a natural phenomenon borne out of our evolutionary capacity for self-reflection and consciousness of Nature, a capacity that inherently separated us from Nature and set us on the path of creating an idealized ‘man-made-world’ (Crowe, 1995). This eventually gave rise to classical traditions in many cultures as ‘expressions of timeless values manifested in architecture’, affirming ‘rationality and perfection’. The city developed as the ultimate expression of artifice, of the manmade-world created as an alternative to living in the natural world, what Crowe calls ‘second nature’.

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Designing Relationships to Nature

Figure 19.5 Nature as the great wilderness, ‘The Pastoral State’, Thomas Cole, 1833 Cole’s landscape depicts the power of Nature and the abundance humans create by cultivation, work, and improvement of it. Life is carved out from the wild (Hendrich, 2009).

Nature as the lost paradise: Regression of the Romantics [UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

B P

Figure 19.6 Traditional Romantic Nature, culture and self (interiors) are collapsed into Nature (exteriors). Biosphere is expanded and equated with higher levels of noosphere and theosphere; Nature = spirit. See note in Figure 19.4.

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

The Romantic view reacts to the isolated culture created by the classical separations and later, the Modern subjugation of and disconnection from Nature. In the Romantic view, wilderness can only be corrupted by humans. Can you see how this gives rise to an obstructionist or preservationist view of environmentalism? The wild is a place of reverence, of cleansing, a place for meditation as a path for clarity, a place of healing and spiritual sustenance. Romanticism ‘upholds the mysterious, spontaneous, often spiritual side of nature and the man-made’ (Crowe, 1995). In the Romantic view, wilderness can only be corrupted by humans.

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

335

Romantics wanted to heal the perceived split between culture and Nature, that is, culture separate from (lower case) nature. At the same time, the great Romantics – especially the transcendentalists – pursued NATURE as spirit or the abode of Spirit. Thus there is much confusion about the Romantic tradition because it has taken two directions, both still with us in practice: 1 the regressive, pre-rational, back-to-nature view, a merge with the Great Biosphere or, in more contemporary expressions, the Great Web of Life, and 2 the evolutionary, trans-rational, transcendentalist view, a merge with the Great Nest of Being, to which we will return soon. This first version of the Romantic view of Nature celebrates the sensory and emotional contact with Nature. It focuses on unity with the exteriors of the larger system, the web of life. Humans essentially become natural animals and the subcultural levels are celebrated. According to Wilber, ‘They aimed for NATURE, got Nature, and ended up glorifying nature’ (Wilber, 2000b, p495). Contemporary romantic environmentalists often want to merge with the great web of life.

Annie Dillard is considered a master of first-person nature writing. Her extended account of meeting a weasel is fascinating. A short excerpt shows the Romantic view of Nature as a place of retreat from the world of the mind into a greater purity:

I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I come to Hollins Pond not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don’t think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular – shall I suck warm blood, hold my tail high, walk with my footprints precisely over the prints of my hands? – but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical sense and the dignity of living without bias or motive. The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in its talons. I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel’s: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will. (Dillard, 1982)

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Designing Relationships to Nature

Figure 19.7 Nature as the lost paradise; ‘Twilight in the Wilderness’, Frederick Church, 1860 Here the beauty of Nature stands alone as a pristine land, free of human intervention. In the context of the industrialization of America, which was happening alongside Church’s development as an artist, this painting represents man’s desire to rediscover Nature as it once was: paradise.

Nature as the great primeval garden [UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

T (-N ) B

Figure 19.8 Traditional ‘garden’ Nature. Humans exist(ed) in a created Nature managed by spirit (T). More natural = more spiritual. The original Eden contains no societies (N). In the heavenly garden on earth, N is collapsed into T. See note in Figure 19.4.

P

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

If Romantics want to get ‘back to nature’ it is not the wild, untamed, disordered, chaotic, dark, Classical Nature that we must fight against being overrun by. It is most often a longing for the idealized Nature of the Garden of Eden, of Nature before the ‘fall’. The vernacular and pre-classical nature of myth is a Nature of the archaic, magic, and tribal that feeds the sublimated levels of the human psyche suppressed by rationality. It is also the Nature of divine perfection on Earth, the creation of the Great Designer. It holds an implicate order in its mystery. Contemporary romantic environmentalists often want to merge with the great web of life, to become a strand in the web of the complex systems. The great primeval garden can be variously:

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337

Figure 19.9 Nature as primeval garden: With its restorative powers and overwhelming sense of purity, Jason Stark captures the role of Nature as a mother and source of life, to which man is intrinsically drawn

• the act of a benevolent creator; • an enchanted realm where all things are filled with spirits great and small; • Mother Earth, friend, teacher, healer and provider. According to this view, since Nature is given by God or gods, Goddess or goddesses, it follows that humans have a sacred trust to steward this creation, to play our appropriate part in the great mythic dramas.

Nature as the great natural environment: Modernity Integral Theory argues that Modernism differentiated the three great domains of value: art, science and morals (I, We and It/Its); or put another way: Modernism differentiated self, Nature, and culture. Nature for the Modern became articulated as the exclusive domain of the sciences, distinct from the church, from ethics, morality, culture, worldview, aesthetics, subjectivity, art and meaning. In the 19th century, Nature was stripped of its metaphorical aspects and became considered almost entirely as it manifests in the quantitative and literal thinking of empiricism and scientism. Moderns mostly came to view the world as having no higher levels at all, just the great biosphere.

338

Designing Relationships to Nature

[UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

B P

Figure 19.10 Scientific empirical nature. All quadrants are radically, grossly reduced to their objective and fundamental behaviors. No higher levels than what can be observed exist. All other phenomena are derivative. See note in Figure 19.4.

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

Figure I9.11 Nature as the great biosphere; 'Pre-Genetelogical Research', Maarten Vanden Eynde, 2000 Working with the remnants of wooden beams, Vanden Eynde’s work highlights the natural origins of this common building material, while the work as a whole serves as a reminder of man’s mastery over the natural world

Nature had become mechanical, ‘disenchanted’. It was studied rationally; it could be mapped and understood. The order was vast and complex, but ultimately all related, and in time, humans would fit it all together in a harmonious, interlocking, system of objective ‘Its’. Moderns became so enamored of this perspective that they denied realms, domains, or planes higher than the material. If there were only exteriors in the Modern world – Nature as object and human thought, feeling, and soul as epiphenomena, as having a secondary, derivative existence – then human interiors were not really real. With no interiors, Moderns mostly came to view the world as having no higher levels at all, just the great biosphere. The universe could be seen as a clockwork and Nature, as a hierarchical food pyramid. Metaphorical language developed around the idea of Nature as an economic system: resources, timber harvesting, fish stocks, weed species and Nature as a farm. The metaphor of nature as machine at first was used as an argument for the existence of God (the clock requires a clockmaker) and for the idea that Nature

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The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

has a purpose (a machine was made for a purpose). Gradually, God faded away or became the retired engineer of the self-running machine of the world. It’s a quick trip from God doing the wind-up in the beginning to the no God of a secularized Modern culture in which Nature has no need of Spirit. Of course, machines have parts and can be tinkered with and controlled.

Nature as the great web of life: Postmodernity Ecology itself exists in language and is an interpretation of our perceptions. To begin with, we have said that the perspectives of all quadrants show unfolding structural stages of complexity that we call levels. The postmodern of consciousness shows up in both the

systems perspective

and the

level

cultures

perspective .

• In the systems

perspective

(LR) Nature becomes seen as more complex, as

a web of relationships, as a complex integrated system. It makes use of advances in systems thinking to view Nature as dynamic and networked, based on sophisticated mappings of information, materials, and energy flows. • From the cultures

perspective

(LL), the postmodern

level

gives rise to

the awareness of multiple views, of essentially, the consciousness of perspectives. Perspectivalism can be in some sense equated with Postmodernism. The complex sciences moved from what they called atomistic views of Nature (a reductionist study of the parts) to a relatively more holistic view (systemic), a shift from the dominance of the sciences in the the systems

perspective ,

behaviours perspective

to a dominance of

a shift from physics to ecology. Meanwhile, the cultural

view shifted from the representational paradigm to the perspectival paradigm.

BEHAVIORS [UR]

[UL] EXPERIENCES

N B P

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

Figure 19.12 Web-of-life Nature. Interiors are collapsed to exteriors. Subtle reductionism. More holistic than empirical gross reductionism. See note in Figure 19.4.

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Designing Relationships to Nature

Figure 19.13 Culturally constructed nature. In the radical Postmodern view, all quadrants are collapsed (deconstructed) into culture. Higher levels are suspect as hierarchy. All other phenomena are derivative. See note in Figure 19.4.

[UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

P B N T [LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

As Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman put it, ‘The representational paradigm believes that the unbiased, rational mind is capable of mirroring or representing things in the One True Way (have you met that unbiased mind?)’ (EsbjörnHargens and Zimmerman, 2009, p34). We can understand this as a shift from seeing science as representing the truth to taking a perspective on what is real. Ecology itself exists in language and is an interpretation of our perceptions. Yes there are real rocks, trees, lakes and otters in the world, but our knowledge of them is often indirect (even through the senses). What Nature means is dependent on the particular culture in which the interpreting occurs. Ecology itself has taken on many perspectives and methods. Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman catalogue over 200 distinct approaches to understanding Nature. Each one reveals and hides in a different way. If Nature depends on your perspective and

Figure 19.14 Nature as the great web of life; ‘Ash Dome’, David Nash, 1977 Through the typological construction of a dome, here formed by the shaping of trees over several decades, does Nash illustrate the dynamic and integral relationship between humans and Nature

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

341

interpretation, then we can see Nature as a text for interpretation. One common expression is to define Nature as socially constructed. The metaphorical view of Nature as the web of life allows us as humans to find our place in the web, to be a part of the larger system. Nature is where humans belong, as a part of the great interlocking order. Nature, and its more accessible version as ‘bioregion’, is home. Other species are our neighbours and relations, our friends; and of course, our friends deserve our respect, and they have rights, too: Nature as community. And to be more than democratic about it, even those species not our friends have rights, too. We seek Nature as harmony in diversity.

Nature as the great matrix of perspectives: The Integral level What part of reality is being looked at, who is doing the looking? And how is the looking being done? Where the pluralist and Postmodernist find relative values, create few distinctions of value, tend to work against hierarchy in favor of valuing all perspectives more evenly:

Integral ecology reinstates the reality and importance of holarchy: some truth claims are better – more inclusive, more comprehensive, more insightful, more generative – than others. (Zimmerman, 2009) The

integral level

is the dominant perspective taken in this book. It values

multiple perspectives and multiple levels of complexity. Integral Ecology can be defined as (Integral Ecology Center):

the mixed methods (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) study of the subjective and objective aspects of organisms in relationship to their intersubjective and interobjective environments at multiple levels of depth and complexity. The Integral view on Nature can be understood clearly from a few ‘planks’ from the ‘Integral Ecology Platform’ of the Integral Institute’s Integral Ecology Center: • Integral Ecologists use the conceptual tools of Integral theory’s ‘allquadrant, all-level’ approach to analyse, characterize and develop comprehensive solutions to environmental problems. • Integral Ecologists recognize there are many ways to honor and include quadrants, levels, lines, states, types and bodies. • Integral Ecologists examine the enacted nature of phenomena: what part of reality is being looked at, who is doing the looking and how is the looking being done? Integral ecologists recognize the world-disclosing

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Designing Relationships to Nature

capacities of all perspectives and the methodologies they use to investigate various domains of reality. We should not, however, confuse the

integral level

insights as something en-

tirely new or contemporary. Individuals at any adult age, at any time, can establish development and thought at any level. Aldo Leopold was such an early environmental thinker, combining multiple perspectives, when he wrote in The Land Ethic (Leopold, 1949):

Quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem [ LR: social systems ]. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically right [ LL: cultures ] and esthetically right [ UL: experiences ], as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty [ UL ] of the biotic community [ LR: natural systems ]. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. 1

The How (Methods or Schools)

The What (Views of Nature)

Eco-Integralist

Developmental Systems Ecology

Global Holarchical Ecosystem

Eco-Holist

Planetary Ecology

Global Ecosystem

Postmodern

Eco-Radical

Social Ecology

Multiple Ecosystem

Modern

Eco-Strategist

Population Ecology

Ecosystem

Eco-Manager

Folk Ecology

Local Ecological Regions

Eco-Warrior

The Five Senses

Immediate Natural Surroundings

The Who (Worldviews) Integral

Traditional

Figure 19.15 The Integral Ecology framework: Who x how x what; Integral Ecology Center

Source: redrawn from Integral Ecology Centre

[UL] EXPERIENCES

BEHAVIOURS [LR]

T N

Figure 19.16 Integral Nature as living community. This is ‘all-quadrant, all-level’ Nature. The theosphere (T) is incorporated in theory and glimpsed as a state, but is not established as a permanent stage of experience. T is more a personal than cultural phenomena. See note in Figure 19.4.

B P

[LL] CULTURES

SYSTEMS [LR]

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

343

Figure 19.17 Nature as the great matrix of perspectives The Integral level is comfortable with paradox and complexity. Seen from one level the oil storage canisters reflect the morning light beautifully and the train’s colours are amplified. The scene, with its reflections and verdant setting, is beautiful from another level. There is the decaying detritus of a long derelict waterfront and the icons of our petroleum-addicted society clashing with and invading the order of Nature, full of life. We are dependent on Nature’s resources and that relationship always has its consequences for which we can take responsibility. The image is a poignant reflection of our times.

Nature as the great self manifesting: the Transpersonal level Sooner or later one has to come to terms with the relationship between not only humanity and Nature but also Spirit and Nature. The Transpersonal level, in our rather broad and simplified system of development, is the level of the soul, the domain of the psychic, subtle, and spiritual forces in humans and in Nature. Transpersonal means ‘beyond personal’, but not as without the personal. The personal levels of self are transcended and included, so Transpersonal means, as Wilber puts it, ‘personal plus not personal minus.’ Like all other levels, a cultural view of Nature emerges from the dialogue and shared understanding of individuals operating at a given level. The transpersonal level cultures perspective

on the nature and meaning of Nature

emerges from the interactions over time of many transpersonal

level

individu-

als. This is not necessarily so esoteric, as Wilber suggests (Wilber, 2000d, p288):

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… You yourself can, right now, be aware of your objective self, you can observe your individual ego or person, you are aware of yourself generally. But who, then, is observing? What is it that is observing or witnessing your individual self? That therefore transcends your individual self in some important ways? Who or what is that ? … The observer in you, the Witness in you, transcends the isolated person in you and opens instead – from within and behind, as Emerson said – onto a vast expanse of awareness no longer obsessed with the individual bodymind … That which observes or witnesses the self, the person, is precisely to that degree free of the self, the person, and through that opening comes pouring the light and power of a Self, a Soul, that, as Emerson puts it, ‘would make our knee bend.’ Whether or not we have personally had an experience of oneness with Nature, or oneness with spirit in Nature, or unification with all the manifest world, we have to accept that the reports of such experiences, such expansion of awareness beyond the personal are so common across centuries, cultures and philosophies as to be a phenomenon of human existence that any with an abiding interest in the nature of Nature must find a place for in a theory of Nature and its consequent implications for designing in relationship to Nature.

Figure 19.18 Nature as the great Self manifesting Susanne Bennett’s image suggests the luminosity and dance of Nature as embedded with a wondrous and mysterious life force that presents the viewer the possibility of a shared resonance beyond the ego’s limited ‘I-ness’

345

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

Now, we have been building up new and expanding ideas of Nature, each with novel metaphors, each associated with a predominant level of complexity in the exterior systemic Nature, each associated with an unfolding of new and more embracing levels of human consciousness, each an expression of collective values and shared explaining stories. At the integral

level ,

one can integrate and understand the relations between

matter, life and mind, between physiosphere, biosphere and noosphere. The Integralist can also take each of the four foundational perspectives and form a more holistic, holarchic view of reality. At the

transpersonal level ,

the self

is experienced as what Emerson called the ‘Over-Soul’, or what Wilber, like Buddhism, calls the Witness, what is sometimes referred to as the World Soul, and what the siddhas of India call simply the (capital-S) Self. It is this Self who observes and knows the self that appears in full awareness at the

transpersonal level

and ‘becomes directly one with the physiosphere,

biosphere, and noosphere’. It is an identification with ‘a conscious union, with all of manifestation itself: not just with humans, but with all of Nature, and with the physical cosmos, with all beings ‘great and small’ (Wilber, 2000b, p292). In his essay Nature, Emerson writes of his ecstatic experience in Nature even in an ordinarily uninspiring circumstance, not as poetry but as his real experience and perception:

Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods we return to Reason and faith. Standing on the bare ground, – my head bathed in the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.  (Emerson, 1883) This is Nature as the face of Spirit and the self as unified with that same spirit. Sooner or later one has to come to terms with the relationship between not only humanity and Nature but also spirit and Nature. What is the nature of God and the world and how are they related? As long as nothing higher than the mind (noosphere) exists, the question can be avoided (only the lower levels are real). As long as the interior realms of individual experience and cultural meaning are excluded from the consideration of Nature (only the right quadrants are real), then the perception of spirit or Emerson’s unification experiences are disallowed altogether. Emerson (1883) proclaims again in Nature in one powerful and amazing compound sentence:

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Designing Relationships to Nature

But when following the invisible steps of thought we come to inquire, Whence is matter? And Whereto? many truths arise to us out of the recesses of consciousness. We learn that the highest is present to the soul of man, that the dread universal essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for which all things exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates; that behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; one, and not compound, it does not act upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves: therefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pore of the old. The essence of Emerson’s message, and that, I believe of the Transpersonal relationship to Nature in general, is that Nature is a symbol or manifestation of spirit, not spirit itself. Spirit is immanent and within Nature, but transcends and includes Nature, that is, spirit cannot, as neo-paganists and regressive romantics might state, be equated with nature. As the Siddha Yoga master Swami Muktananda once wrote:

It is wrong to consider the world as either matter or as void or something which is made of stone and clay and minerals. This you realize when you have a direct experience of the Truth. The world is nothing but an expansion of what you call God or Chiti or Consciousness. God himself has become whatever you see in the world … So therefore it is not difficult for feelings of the heart to permeate the atmosphere. Whether you understand it or not, the fact is that outer space is one with inner space. Their nature is the same. The echoes produced in outer space resound in inner space as well.  (Muktananda, 1990)

Overarching Intentions for Designing to Connect People to Nature Part IV is primarily intended to address one significant aspect of the perspective :

cultures

the relationships to Nature that design can foster. We have explored

in a broad sketch five views of Nature from different developmental levels of complexity. But what do these different worldviews of Nature have to say about how we design in relationship to Nature? Remember that, from the perspective ,

cultures

we are not so much interested in how Nature works, or how to func-

tionally integrate design with Nature (which is very important when we take the

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels systems perspective ).

347

We are more interested for this consideration, given how

people interpret and give meaning to Nature and their encounters with it, in how design facilitates intersubjective relationships between people and Nature. Given the range of worldviews found in our culture today, and the observation that the exteriors of Nature are revealed differently from each worldview, how can design establish significant relationships with Nature? In generating designs that take account of knowledge disclosed by methods and practices from the cultures perspective ,

designers might consider questions such as:

• What kinds of opportunities can we design for meaningful relationships among species? • How does the design create shared inhabited space? • How can the various values of users toward Nature be accommodated? • How can the design communicate what is significant about Nature in this place? • Does the design create educational opportunities about our relationships to Nature? • What are the opportunities for narratives and metaphors about Nature that are relevant to the local culture? • Can the design facilitate dialogue about its relationship to Nature that gives rise to shared understanding or meaning among humans? • Can the design be sourced in the eco-cultural history of the place? • How can the design become an ‘abode for Spirit’ or a ‘sanctuary for Divinity?’ • Does the relationship to Nature embodied in the form express a cosmology? • Can the design unfold ‘naturally’ and ‘become nature’ as a non-dual reality? As Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman explore at length in Integral Ecology, relationships in the

cultures perspective

can be considered at multiple levels of

complexity, in order of increasing complexity including what they term (EsbjörnHargens and Zimmerman, 2009, pp195–214): 1 Communion (physical/bodily or intercorporeal dimensions of relationship as shared somatic experiences of and with the natural world). 2 Community (shared horizons of belief, values, and worldview as background for the experience of place and relationships with the natural world). 3 Commonwealth (compassionate perspectives as shared worldviews of the relationship of spirit with the natural world).

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Designing Relationships to Nature

All this Integral touching-of-many-bases can get a little unwieldy for practical application! While there are myriad ways to relate culture to Nature from multiple perspectives and worldviews, for me one particular kind or relationship seems to arise over and over as a basic design question:

How can design connect people to Nature? Since it is individuals who are experiencing a designed environment, the answer to this fundamental question is found in how individuals experience a connection to Nature via the design. However, that experience and its interpretation, both what one sees and feels, and what one makes it mean, are also influenced by and set in the context of one’s cultural worldview. When groups of individuals have experiences of the same environment, the same design for relationship to the Nature of the worldview, then shared meaning has the potential to arise. That interpretation of relationship to Nature may be a reinforcement of the pre-existent worldview, or it may be an opening for change, for development or for an alternate interpretation. How can design connect people to Nature? Underlying the developmental view I am taking is the knowledge and evidence that ecological systems thinking and its associated values are

level 4 integra l

capacities, but not the high-

est level of human development by any means. Thus, there is a necessity for a significant portion of the population to develop to those cognitive and value levels where they are capable of ecological thought and action. This book’s developmental perspective is also grounded in the proposition that temporary high state experiences can possibly act as attractors for level (permanent stage) development. Therefore, I assert three overarching intentions for designing to connect people to Nature: 1 Designing to address the full range of developmental worldviews about Nature: this offers an opportunity for each person to have a significant relationship to Nature exactly where they are. There is nothing to fix, as each worldview level is appropriate in its sequence. 2 Designing to give breakthrough state experiences of a relationship to Nature: this offers a glimpse of what it is like to see and ‘get’ Nature from a higher prospect. Peak experiences, as Maslow found, have profound impacts on restructuring consciousness. A peak experience is an experience of the world from a state at a higher level than one’s ordinary awareness. 3 Designing to manifest the next level in a local culture’s dominant worldview about Nature: this offers the potential of shifting the background cultural context influencing individuals’ experiences and interpretations. The higher the cultural context, the easier the work for an individual's transformations in consciousness.

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

349

Five Primary Intentions for Connecting People and Nature by Design Given these overarching intentions for designing to connect with Nature, we can also now look at intentions from each of the five levels of worldview about Nature. Although each level could have multiple intentions, and each of the intentions below could manifest at more than one level in different ways, I have tried to express these intentions in such a way as to stand for the range of intentions dominant or common from each particular worldview. These are summarized in Table 19.5. 1 Traditional: connect people to Nature as primal force and structure. Nature is a model of perfection, the divine creation, Heaven on Earth. Design environments where people experience, using their senses in direct ways, the harmony, intention, balance, perfection and beauty of Nature in its rhythms and delights, the ‘music of the spheres’. 2 Modern: connect people to Nature as resources and services. Nature is an abundant source of all humans' need and want. Design environments that celebrate and honor with the eye and mind, in rationally transparent ways, the flows of resources, the sun, wind, water, energy, food and materials – and the ecological services, the pollination, purification and so on – that Nature provides. 3 Postmodern: connect people to Nature as community. Nature is the relations we have with the great community of other species, all of humanity and with the Earth itself; we share the planet with the web of life. Design environments that forward our caring, protective, and emotional relationships, in topophilic and biophilic ways, with plants, animals and natural communities, in context and in place. Design for an equitable distribution of environmental resources and risks among people. 4 Integral: connect people to Nature as complex living systems. Nature is many things in the great matrix of perspectives; as an occurrence in the biosphere, it is a holistic, nested, holarchic, open systemic appearance of underlying human and non-human processes flowing in elaborate ways. Design environments that unveil, in multiple ways, the network structure, dynamic patterns and living interactions of human ecosystems. 5 Transpersonal: connect people to Nature as access to the unity of Spirit. Nature is the abode of Spirit manifesting in the world, as it also does in humans. Design environments that provide context and opportunities for people to experience merging with natural phenomena, the luminosity/ love/light of the natural world, and the oneness of all life.

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Designing Relationships to Nature

We have covered so far: 1) five ideas of Nature as expressed in metaphors from each level of contemporary worldview 2) three overarching intentions for designing to connect people to Nature and 3) the common intentions for designing to connect people to Nature that can be associated with each worldview. These are summarized in the table below. Table 19.5 Designing relationships to Nature: Level, metaphor and intention

Level of Complexity

Metaphor: Nature as the …

Intention: Connect people to Nature as …

Level 5 Transpersonal Great Self Manifesting access to the unity of Spirit Level 4 Integral

Great Matrix of Perspectives

complex living systems

Level 3 Postmodern

Great Web of Life

community

Level 2 Modern

Great Biosphere

resources and services

Level 1 Traditional

Great Primeval Garden primal force and structure

The 10 Injunctions for Connecting to Nature The world is disclosed, that is, it appears to us, via the injunctions, precepts, methodologies and practices by which we inquire into it. These methods and injunctions frame our perception and are at the root of what it is to have a worldview. In this book, we are exploring the practice of taking an Integral perspective, which, among other things, means exploring a range of worldviews simultaneously. An integral designer takes account of this range when designing, selecting the emphasis and range of perspectives appropriate to the project. It seems useful here to articulate at least some injunctions from each level for designing to connect to Nature. What follows are ten injunctions, two from each level. There could be one from each level or ten from each level. The injunctions presented embody common ideas about Nature from each level and touch on enduring themes. Like most statements in this book, they are based in evidence and scholarship, yet can be considered as hypotheses stated in a declarative voice and subject to further investigation, testing and validation or invalidation.

The Nature of Nature from Five Levels

351

Traditional: Connect to Nature as primal force and structure 1 Design spaces for human rituals to fit natural rhythms: human comfort, joy and significance are nurtured and enriched when our lives are grounded in the dynamic, changing and repetitive patterns of Nature. Design to link patterns of shelter occupancy and social ritual with timeless, cyclic rhythms of place. 2 Experience begets relationship begets meaning: shared human experiences and awareness of Nature are prerequisite to the relationships that underpin care and value. Designed environments, as spaces of shared inhabitation are also places of shared meaning. Give expression to the felt forces of Nature as gourmet sensory experiences.

Modern: Connect Nature as resources and services 3 Fashion materiality with natural origins: as we are literally surrounded by them, construction materials are our most direct and immediate experience of design. We are connected to Nature as the source of human sustenance through our intellectual linking from tool and surface back to mine, tree, clay, and quarry, and from there to the grand scheme of events that brought them into being. 4 Express touching lightly; express plentitude: Nature is at once cornucopia and finite; it is richly abundant, providing all our material needs, while sources and sinks are stressed from consumption and pollution. We connect to Nature via design when an ethical essentialness metaphorically associates us with the sensitive nature of the materials and processes that provide for us.

Postmodern: Connect to Nature as community 5 Cohabit the site with ‘all our relations’: Native Americans often speak of ‘all my relations’ when referring to other species and to the communities of Nature. As in any community, the rights of other members to a flourishing life are to be preserved. Recognize that designing human habitat is an opportunity for the creation and preservation of multiple habitats in, on, around and beyond buildings. 6 Engage the metaphoric power of Nature: the meanings we associate with Nature can arise from the range of metaphorical possibilities embedded within design configurations set in context. We are connected to Nature when the constructions we inhabit open us to interpretations of human nature and the nature of Nature, to the myths, origins, archetypes and explaining culture’s stories about Nature.

352

Designing Relationships to Nature

Integral: Connect to Nature as complex living systems 7 Source design order in the Great Order: the grand project of

integral level

Sustainable Design is the synthesis of cultural and natural orders, interpenetrating, as reflective of a singular underlying structure as revealed, paradoxically, through many views. We are connected to Nature when the order of sustainable development expresses through its geometry, pattern and organized response that same order also followed by the forms of Nature. 8 Manifest ecological process as inhabited living systems: the structure of the world we build around us is a medium of existence that embodies tacit knowledge and beliefs. We are connected to Nature when its flows, organized via design’s forms, are made visible, proclaimed, expressed, revealed, and culturally voiced such that we become established in their knowledge, as participating conscious members.

Transpersonal: Connect to Nature as access to the unity of Spirit 9 Light a blazing fire with beauty: there may be no greater access to the experience of an expanded self than the deep and real aesthetic response to beauty resonating with the human soul. As love of one’s beloved is access to the insight of the compassionate aspect of Ultimate Reality, then beauty is the access we have to knowing the nature of order in the world as the unified action of Spirit. We are connected to Nature when we perceive in design the consciousness that animates all things 10 Create opportunities for silence: the true and clear perception of beauty is an art that must be regained and cultivated though development of the human interior. In places of ‘silence’ our inner self can become familiar; contemplation, reflection, meditation, awareness of internal states can arise. The self that is known to the self as the Self can recognize this same Self in beings, in buildings, and in all of Nature. We are connected to Nature when design establishes this recollection.

Notes 1 For an extended discussion of this, see Zimmerman (2009).

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353

References Crowe, Norman (1995) Nature and the Idea of a Man-Made World, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Dillard, Annie (1982) Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, Harper Collins, New York Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1883) ‘Nature’, in Atkinson, Brooks (ed.) (2000) The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Random House, New York Esbjörn-Hargens, Sean and Zimmerman, Michael (2009) Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World, Shambhala, Boston Hendrich, Sarah (2009) Commentary on Machine in the Garden, available at sarahherdrich. blogspot.com/2009/02/machine-in-garden.html Integral Ecology Center, available at www.integralecology.org/vision Leopold, Aldo (1970 [1949]) ‘The land ethic‘, A Sand County Almanac: With essays on Conservation from Round River, Ballatine Books, New York Light, Andrew (1995) ‘From Classical to Urban Wilderness’, The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy, vol 12, no 1, pp19–21 Meisner, Mark S. (1995) ‘Metaphors of nature, old vinegar in new bottles?’, The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy, vol 12, no 1, pp11–18 Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2009) www.merriam-webster.com Muktananda, Paramahamsa (1990) ‘The natural state of meditation, questions and answers with Baba Muktananda’, Darshan, In the Company of Saints, Theme issue: Nature, The Face of God, no 36, pp42–49 Wilber, Ken (2000b) Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, 2nd revised edition, Shambhala, Boston Wilber, Ken (2000d) The Marriage of Sense and Soul, One Taste, The Collected Works, vol 8, Shambhala, Boston Zimmerman, Michael (2003) ‘A contest between transpersonal ecologies’, essay, published online ‘Integral world: exploring theories of everything’, available at www.integralworld.net/zimmerman4.html; also available from University of Colorado, Center for Humanities and the Arts at www.colorado.edu/ArtsSciences/CHA/profiles/zimmerman.html Zimmerman, Michael (2009) ‘Interiority regained: Integral ecology and environmental ethics’, in Swearer, Donald K. (ed.) Ecology and the Environment: Perspectives from the Humanities, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

20 Designing in Relationship to Traditional Nature

Injunction 1: Design Spaces for Human Rituals to Fit Natural Rhythms Human comfort, joy and significance are nurtured and enriched when our lives are grounded in the dynamic, changing and repetitive patterns of Nature. Design to link patterns of shelter occupancy and social ritual with timeless, cyclic rhythms of place.

When the rituals of life become tied to rhythms of Nature, then Nature becomes associated with the meaning that emerges.

Humans construct their lives in repeated, often ritualized events that occur over and over again. Some are daily, some seasonal, and some on annual days, holidays, festivals. The spaces in which cyclic events occur take on symbolic meaning. Stairs are the joining of community. Doorways are thresholds to separate domains, marking territory. The family dining table comes to mean family communion. Similarly, when the rituals of life, of family, community, work and civic life become tied to rhythms of Nature, then Nature becomes associated with the meaning that emerges. Connecting people to Nature means connecting the significant events of their daily lives to the event patterns of sun, light, wind, rain, plants and animals. Ralph Knowles expresses the lost opportunity of a disconnected mechanical architecture driven by ubiquitous air conditioning and electric lights, in his book, Ritual House:

Designing in Relationship to Traditional Nature

355

Architecture, by depending too much on machines, has worked against adaptive rituals as a mode of self-expression. This is the result of neither designed nor accidental chaos in the patterns of space and events. It is, rather, the product of rhythms that are too simple and continuous to capture our notice and challenge our imaginations.  (Knowles, 2006) From these comments one can read the call for a return to the lost dignities of pre-Modern, pre-industrial architecture, which, of necessity, developed ritual strategies relating climate and the occupancy of space. The results, posits Knowles, ‘have been time-honored conditions of ecological balance, of personal choice, and of creativity‘. By engaging the rhythms of Nature more closely than architecture now does, we also yield ‘comfort and joy’ and are ‘linked to a place, adding meaning to our lives’. Knowles has studied the relationships of natural forces, rhythm and form over a long and distinguished career at UCLA. He has grouped connections to natural rhythms in buildings and cities into several strategies: migration, metabolism, transformation and rituals of the day and season.

We are connected to Nature when a variety of indoor, outdoor and inbetween climatic experiences facilitate migration. Strategy: Provide for migration as the adaptive movement of people from place to place or space to space, following the cycles of the day and season Migrations include the travel of nomads, moving between summer and winter residences, transitions to lower cooler floors in summer, or to outdoor rooms on the shady side of a building as the sun moves. Pueblo cultures, and many peoples in arid climates, sleep on the roof in summer and move inside during the hot day, reversing the cycle in winter, spending time on sunny terraces during the day and sleeping inside during the cooler night.1

The transits of movement are inevitably associated with the cycles of climate, giving a direct relationship. In the pre-industrial building, without complex mechanical conditioning or fluorescent lighting, space did not often have singular uses; rather, occupants moved the activity to where the conditions were best. Function, in other words, was less tied to particular spaces. Light and heat were not uniform across all areas of a building. Migration is a design strategy that offers a rich compositional

356

Designing Relationships to Nature

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