Design with Nature

It seems appropriate that Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature should be taken down from the Urban Design library shelves immediately after Nan Fairbrother’s New Lives New Landscapes (UD147, p26). Both Fairbrother and McHarg were landscape architects and both books were published close to 1970. Design with Nature preceded New Lives by a year. By coincidence it also seemed appropriate that I should be rereading Design with Nature whilst enjoying the dune-backed beaches of western France.

There are marked differences in approach and style but both books reflect the growing concern at that time of the impact of mankind on the natural environment, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had been published only seven years earlier in 1962, and the call for environmental professions to work more closely together was increasing. Here the similarities end. Design with Nature had been commissioned by the American Conservation Foundation and grew from a series of lectures that McHarg had given at the University of Pennsylvania. These lecture-based elements are interleaved with case studies, also derived from work done in Pennsylvania.

The lecture origins of the bulk of the text is clear and McHarg’s Scottish origins shine through. There is something of the Presbyterian minister about his style and he writes with a passion that verges on anger. By interleaving theory and case studies the danger of the book becoming solely a polemic is avoided. Throughout the book there are dramatic illustrations and fine graphics, which are especially strong.

Following an introduction by no lesser character than Lewis Mumford, the opening chapter City and Countryside, establishes McHarg’s commitment to the joy of the natural environment and his strong distaste for the ruthless destruction of nature that he sees as being wrought by narrow minded single focus action. McHarg was writing at the time of the Vietnam War and the first space missions. Mankind could destroy jungles with Agent Orange, yet could look down on planet earth and see, for the first time, the isolated and self-contained nature of our small world.

The first of the case studies follows the initial scene setting chapters and as this is McHarg writing, it is not simply a case study but is dramatically entitled Sea and Survival. It is here that my experience of the French coast springs to mind. The focus of the study is the dune-backed coast of the American Eastern seaboard and the destructive consequences of past failures to recognise the frailty of the area that resulted in the loss of both homes and habitat. McHarg uses this to make the case for more regulatory planning. The same cavalier approach to these frail areas could be seen on the French coast in the early seventies. Today the dunes are protected and the earlier free-for-all is now under careful management, a McHarg effect perhaps, but there is more to Design with Nature than dunes.

There are six discursive chapters setting out McHarg’s underlying philosophy, separated by eight practical studies. The studies cover a range of scales, from a restricted valley in Maryland to the ambitious Comprehensive Landscape Plan for Washington DC.

McHarg follows the dune study with his exploration of the opposing views of mankind’s role in the world: either as ‘master of the universe’ or being submerged in nature. He clearly favours the latter view and the next case study looks at what McHarg sees as the tyranny of the highway engineer. He seeks to demonstrate that there is a better way of highway planning that takes land characteristics and especially local ecology as the guiding principle rather than simple crude highway geometry.

Taking space exploration as the means of showing the interconnected nature of the world and the need or a place for nature McHarg then looks at a research project Metropolitan Open Space from a Natural Process carried out in Pennsylvania University. The notion of using the analysis of land characteristic is developed further to identify a strategy for urban open space that goes beyond what he quaintly describes as ‘organised sweating’. Having examined the way in which landscape and landform have values, the book moves on to look at the co-operative action of landowners in rural Baltimore and the way in which a local plan of action can be developed. The key to preparing a successful plan is seen as co-operation and a deep understanding of the local ecology.

As the book progresses, theory and practice are increasingly blended together and McHarg demonstrates the use of his favourite tool, overlays. It is here that the graphics serve so well. The mapping of the elements that compose a site, region or city are brought together so that previously diverse elements are blended together to enable a hierarchy of locational opportunities and design solutions to be integrated and identified. The overlay or sieve technique had been used by geographers for many years and should not be confused with the sieve analysis process used by construction engineers. McHarg demonstrated that by categorising the various elements that make up an area it was possible to bring together diverse issues ranging from hydrology to scenic value, from slope to ethnicity, and use this merged information to create a broadly based solution to developmental problems. Whether such an apparently rational process is as truly objective as McHarg suggests is perhaps debatable. It is certainly convincingly presented and has been much used.

McHarg is at great pains to show that mankind is not the only force on earth worthy of consideration, we are but a part of a whole world system. To quote McHarg: ‘Our eyes do not divide us from the world, but unite us with it. Let this be known to be true. Let us then abandon the simplicity of separation and give unity its due. Let us abandon that has been our way and give expression to the potential harmony of mannature. The world is abundant, we require a deference born of understanding to fulfil man’s promise. Man is a uniquely conscious creature who can perceive and express. He must become the steward of the biosphere. To do this he must design with nature.’