Design with Nature 

The cities will grow as they have, enlarging the pathology of their hearts, growing into necropolis.

There is a model which contains the possibility of an inventory of all ecosystems to determine their relative creativity in the biosphere.

-The first is negentropy, the increase in level of order

-The second is apperception, the capacity to transmute energy into information and thence meaning- and to respond to this.

-The third is symbiosis, the cooperative arrangement that permits increase in levels of order and requires apperception.

-The fourth is fitness and fitting- the selection of a fit environment and the adaptation of that environment, and of the organism, to accomplish a better fitting.

-The final criterion is the presence of health or pathology- the evidence of creative fitting, requiring negentropy, apperception and symbiosis.

This Suggests an ecological value system in which the currency is energy….The biosphere does not consist of a pyramid of organisms but of ecosystems in which many different creatures coexist in interdependence, each with its own process, apperception, roles, fitness, adaptations and symbiosis.

The economic value system must be expanded into a relative system encompassing all biological processes and human aspirations.

In the quest for survival, success and fulfillment, the ecological view offers an invaluable insight. It shows the way for the man who would be the enzyme of the biosphere- its steward, enhancing the creative fit of man-environment, realizing man’s design with nature.

excerpts from Design by Nature by Ian L. McHarg. SEE BOOK   SEE LECTURE
project by Adriana Barra. SEE MORE