Eco-literacy, Ethics, and Aesthetics in Natural Design:
The Artificial as an Expression of Appropriate Participation in Natural Process
Daniel C. Wahl, BSc. (Hons.), MSc.,
Centre for the Study of Natural Design,
University of Dundee
Abstract:
The design approach advocated in this paper makes one fundamental assumption: the
appropriateness of any design is the extent to which it meets human needs and integrates sustainably
into the life-supporting natural processes of the planetary biosphere. The author suggests that an
aesthetic of health, based on ecological literacy, can inform the evaluation of the qualitative fit
between design and its environment. Eco-literacy - a detailed understanding of nature as a complex,
interacting, creative process in which humanity participates – results in a shift in perception toward an
ecological ethics and aesthetics of participation that considers cultural, social and ecological, as well
as economic value.
As perception becomes informed by ecological literacy it can begin to bridge the dichotomy
between the artificial and the natural, as well as between humanity and nature. Ecological literacy
creates awareness of the fact that a disproportionate amount of the artificial environments,
infrastructures, artefacts and processes that have been created since the Industrial Revolution are
harmful to natural process and decrease the dynamic stability and health of the biosphere. The
diversity of approaches within the Natural Design Movement affirms that we can create artefacts and
processes that are expressions of appropriate participation in natural process. Sustainable and
responsible design is a creative possibility and an ecological necessity.
Ecological literacy emphasizes that humanity is an integral participant in natural processes,
which are fundamentally unpredictable and uncontrollable. Local actions can have far reaching global
effects. Interconnectedness results in cause and effect relationships within complex systems that are
not linear but circular, multi-causal, and often time delayed. This awareness confronts us with the
need to assume responsibility for the outcomes of our actions and furthermore changes the perception
of humanity’s relationship to nature. The aim shifts from control and manipulation to appropriate
participation. There is therefore an important ethical and aesthetic dimension to ecologically literate
design.
The Natural Design Movement shares an ecological worldview. The movement unites diverse
disciplines ranging from ecological design, industrial and urban ecology, sustainable architecture and
bioregional planning to ecological economics, eco-literate education and green politics. Furthermore it
considers the philosophical, sociological and psychological implications of the ecological worldview.
Design in the 21st century will be grounded in eco-literacy and aspire toward community-based
designs that are adapted to the specific conditions of a particular place and culture.
This paper concludes that long-term sustainable design has to integrate into natural processes
as the basis for planetary and human health. There is an ecological dimension of ethics suggesting
ecological imperatives that transcend the relativistic moralizing of purely socio-philosophical ethics.
Eco-literacy creates awareness of these ecological imperatives that will help designers to create
responsible and sustainable artefacts, processes and organizations. Designing the artificial as an
expression of appropriate participation in natural process has to be based on ecological literacy and
supported by the emerging aesthetics of health, also referred to as the ecological aesthetics of
sustainability and the aesthetics of complex dynamic systems.
Keywords: aesthetics, complexity, diversity, eco-literacy, ethics, health, interconnectedness, Natural
Design Movement, participation, uncontrollability, unpredictability, salutogenesis, sustainability
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I) Introduction
Human designs are goal-directed responses to a certain way of perceiving reality. At the same time, a
design once created also co-creates reality and thereby influences future design decisions based on
that reality.
Being ecologically literate - to be aware of the complex web of interactions and
relationships that underlies the dynamics of ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole - changes how
nature and our role within its processes is perceived. Such a change in perception has important
ethical and aesthetic implications.
To clarify: when I refer to ‘nature’ in this paper, I intend to describe a physical, chemical,
biological, ecological and conscious process which contains culture in all its diversity of belief and
opinion. Arguably ‘nature’ is an abstract noun and its meaning is culturally and socially influenced, but
I understand nature as the larger all containing process that enables us to have our
misunderstandings in the first place. While in such a view of nature nothing falls without this process,
it nevertheless remains possible for designed artefacts and processes to either support or disrupt the
overall evolution of natural process.
The assumption is made that the process from which the
‘subsystems’ biosphere and humanity emerged is evolving higher levels of complexity, diversity, and
interdependence or symbiosis. The dynamic stability, or health of the biosphere and its sub-systems
depends on the continuation of this evolutionary tendency.
Furthermore, I wish to clarify at the outset that the term ‘system’, as it is used in the following
pages, can be equated with the words ‘process’ or ‘holon’ (for an explanation of the concept ‘holon’
see Koestler, 1970 & Wilber, 1996).
My intent is not to reinforce mechanistic metaphors where
systems describe wholes that are purely the sum of their parts and their study is aimed at increasing
our ability to better predict and control these systems. The term system is used here in the context of
complexity. Complex dynamic systems or processes defy control and prediction. The characteristics
of the whole are understood as emergent properties that depend on the complex dynamics of
interaction and relationship among the parts. A ‘complex dynamic system’ is always recognized to be
more than simply the sum of its parts. All complex dynamic systems are in a participatory relationship
with the larger processes that contain them.
This paper introduces the collective term ‘Natural Design Movement’ to unite the diverse
disciplines engaged in the creation of a sustainable future. It should be explicit at the outset, that the
intention is not to set up and define yet another design subdivision and specialization. It is not a
critique or alternative to, but an expansion of the existing ecological design approaches, as it also
considers consciousness, ethics and aesthetics.
The Natural Design Movement hopes to bring
together the diverse fields of design activity, which aim to integrate all design into natural process as
the basis of planetary and human health. All designs of human artefacts, institutions and processes
that aim to meet human needs in a sustainable way, thereby contributing to humanity’s appropriate
participation in natural process, can be considered expressions of the Natural Design Movement.
The movement unites all the efforts within design theory and practice that are engaged in
providing the philosophical, ethical, aesthetic and practical basis for sustainable design in the 21 st
Century. Appropriate participation in natural process requires ecological literacy. Such knowledge of
the complex dynamic of interdependencies and interactions that sustain life on earth has the potential
of triggering a shift in perception and therefore in aesthetic experience. Awareness of the actual and
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the potential ecological effects of his/her actions confronts the designer with the important question of
an ethical basis for design.
Human inventions and capabilities (for both good and ill – as always) are increasing at a
furious pace. Managing the torrent in a way that avoids serious insult to society and the rest of
nature is proving to be difficult. As awareness of the effects of our actions sharpens, we must
now ask the uncomfortable question: can art, craft or design be truly worthwhile and wonderful
if it engenders an environmental mess and ruined lives elsewhere? (Baldwin, 1998)
II) Design as an Interdisciplinary Integrator and Facilitator
In proposing that “the proper study of [hu]mankind is the science of design, not only as a professional
component of a technical education but as a core discipline for every liberally educated person”
(Simon, 1996, p.138) Herbert Simon concurs with Ranulph Glanville`s assertion that ‘science is a
special branch of design and not design a special branch of science.’ Glanville suggests the ultimate
expansion of the concept of design when he argues that ‘the process in which we draw up and shape
things could be called design. Human action is design’ (Glanville, 1997 translated from Jonas 2001).
Design should not be considered one of many specialized fields of human endeavour; rather, design
can be understood as the integrative process or activity that connects human actions and attitudes to
their material and cultural expression in form of artefacts, institutions, and processes.
As Homo faber, the human maker, our material actions and mental constructs shape our
world. “Every act of knowing brings forth a world. … All doing is knowing, and all knowing is doing.
…We have only the world we bring forth with others…” (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p.25 & p.249).
The concept of design, in its broadest possible sense can help us to integrate the remarkable
wealth of specialized knowledge and skill that rests within humanity. I will argue that in order to do so
wisely humanity has to become ecologically literate and reconsider ethics and aesthetics.
Since Herbert Simon, in 1969, first suggested design to be “the science of the artificial”
(Simon, 1996, p.134), the concept of design has clearly undergone a progressive expansion. In the
same year, Ian L. McHarg published Design with Nature, the first attempt of a theory and methodology
for design within the limits of the biosphere.
In McHarg’s insightful future forecasting scenario, “The Naturalists”(McHarg, 1969, pp.117),
he describes a human society, which has evolved to a level of ecological consciousness that has led
the society to regard the entire biosphere as an altruistic system in which they themselves and their
designs need to participate appropriately. McHarg describes the Naturalists’ co-operation-focussed,
rather than competition-focussed understanding of the natural world as follows:
Every organism occupies a niche in an ecosystem and engages in cooperative arrangements
with the other organisms sustaining the biosphere. In any case this involves a concession of
some part of the individual freedom towards the survival and evolution of the biosphere”
(McHarg, 1969, p. 121).
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Like Simon, McHarg saw the potential of design to act as an interdisciplinary integrator or
interface. They both agreed that design needed to include and be informed by natural science but
also to extend beyond it. According to McHarg, the extension of design beyond science included
social, cultural, aesthetic, as well as ethical consideration of interaction and interdependence. He
understood that our fundamental value systems and ethics critically influence our design decisions and
inform our aesthetic judgement.
McHarg suggested that to contribute to the continued evolution of culture and consciousness,
as expressions of the noosphere, human designs had to first and foremost fit into the dynamic
processes of the planetary biosphere. He introduced a strongly ecological, social, and ethical stance
into design theory and the evaluation of a given design or artefact.
III) Lessons of Complexity and Ecological Literacy
Truly, we are now in a new world where the old certainties are melting away and we have to
learn to think and act differently. We have to interact with these uncertain processes, which
affect our health, our food, our weather, our standard of living. The challenge that we now face
is how to live in a creative, unpredictable, magical world without destroying it by inappropriate
actions and attitudes that come from outmoded attitudes of control and prediction (Goodwin,
2001).
The increase in awareness regarding the pivotal and formative role that design plays in human affairs
and in shaping the relationship between humanity and nature went hand in hand with a growing
awareness of the fundamentally interconnected and dynamic nature of the complex world we inhabit.
In 1972 Donella and Dennis Meadows published their report to the Club of Rome, entitled
Limits to Growth. It was the first clear warning to humanity about the fact that we are living on a planet
with finite resources and a limited capacity to absorb pollutants (Meadows & Meadows, 1972). In the
1980s, the German biochemist and systems scientist Frederic Vester designed a travelling exhibition
entitled “Unsere Welt – ein vernetztes System” (Our world – an interconnected system) to raise
awareness of the profound implications that insights from bio-cybernetics and the resulting ecological
understanding had for human decision making at all scales of magnitude and societal contexts
(Vester, 1983).
As the effects of climate change and environmental degradation are becoming more and more
apparent, awareness is increasing about humanity’s participatory relationship of mutual dependence
within the complex dynamic system called the biosphere. The call for an ecological ethic as the basis
for sustainable design has many diverse expressions throughout global and local culture. In 1999,
Munich Reinsurance, the largest reinsurance company in the world, published an alarming report that
demonstrated the exponential increase in the number and severity of natural catastrophes that
occurred during the course of the 20th century. The report left no doubt that climate change and
environmental degradation was due to human activity and called for an immediate response in all
sectors of society (Münchner Rück, 1999).
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It is a fact to be lamented that since Simon, in 1969, proposed that the theory and curriculum
of design should act as “a complement to the natural science curriculum” (Simon, 1996, p. 136) rather
than a replacement, and McHarg called for an ecological basis for all design decisions, basic
ecological understanding and crucial insights from complexity theory and Earth System Science are
still lacking from the curricula of most design schools. In order to reach adaptively advantageous
design decisions and initiate the continuous and long-term path of learning that is sustainability, our
designs decisions will need to be informed by ecological, economic, social and cultural considerations
that are based on eco-literacy.
Insights from systems theory, ecology, bio-cybernetics and complexity theory (for an
introduction see: Capra, 1996, 2002; Goodwin, 1994, 1999, 2000; Gunderson and Holling 2002;
Maturana & Varela, 1992; Lovelock, 2000; Reason & Goodwin, 1999, Wheatly, 1999) provide a
scientific underpinning for a theory of design resulting in designs that fit the wider process
environment. Such a design theory would be informed by an understanding of natural process, without
being limited by the traditional bounds of natural science. The research described by these authors
demonstrates that from within science there is a strong call for what Frederic Vester called “vernetzdes
Denken” (Vester, 1999). This dynamic, ‘joined-up thinking’ extends into all human ways of knowing. It
relates and integrates the diverse insights gained from specialization and is fundamentally
interdisciplinary.
The holistic sciences study interactions and relationships in the behaviour of complex dynamic
systems. The focus is on the underlying patterns and emergent properties. These sciences carry
three important lessons beyond the bounds of traditional science. These lessons are:
i)
we are living in a fundamentally interconnected world where local actions can have
global repercussions,
ii)
in such a complex and dynamic web of changing interactions and time delayed, multicausal relationships it is of limited use and can have dangerous effects to isolate
individual and simplistic, linear cause and effect relationships,
iii)
the behaviour of complex systems is fundamentally unpredictable and uncontrollable
beyond a very limited time period and scale.
Design theory is not blind to these lessons any longer. Design and science are beginning to
accept the limits that fundamental interconnectedness, unpredictability and uncontrollability pose to
our knowledge about the world. Wolfgang Jonas argues for a “new role for design: more modest and
more arrogant” in response to being faced with “the paradox situation of increasing manipulative
power through science and technology and, at the same time, decreasing prognostic control of its
social consequences” (Jonas, 2003).
I would also include the ecological consequences in this
statement.
Design is becoming ‘more arrogant’, as we expand the concept of design to encompass all
human decision-making and action and thereby recognize its creative power and responsibility; and
‘more modest’, in the sense that we abandon the arrogance of believing that human ingenuity
empowered by science and technology, will provide designers with the tools to fix even the gravest
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mistakes. Lost cultures and lost ecosystems are gone for ever, plutonium remains carcinogenic for
40,000 years, lost topsoil takes millennia to regenerate, and changes in the atmospheric composition
affect climate patterns for millions of years.
Jonas suggests that: “Instead of expanding the islands of apparent scientific rationality (which
frequently turn out to be unsafe), we [need to] cross the border from knowing to not-knowing. And on
this side of the border we can determine (with scientific underpinning!) the areas of safe nonpredictability” (Jonas, 2003). This statement could be regarded as the essence of the precautionary
principle that should guide science, design and politics alike. If we cannot predict the outcome of a
certain action, but the possibility remains that it may have potentially disastrous side effects, we should
refrain from that action, or, at the very least, experiment on a scale and with the appropriate measures
of protection that would keep negative effects to an absolute minimum. It is time to drop old habits of
indiscriminate and worldwide application of what is technically possible and economically marketable!
Jonas’ emphasis is on methods of risk management in situations where we cannot know, but
nevertheless do have to act. An important aspect of ecological literacy is to make the fundamental
unpredictability and uncontrollability of natural process and all other complex systems more intelligible.
Eco-literacy will not always provide us with statistically significant predictions of the outcomes of our
actions. Its lessons take us beyond the certainty of rational analysis and linear cause and effect into
the chaotic and complex dynamics of natural systems. Islands of safe unpredictability are built by
considering the appropriate spatial and temporal scale for our actions and through ‘verneztes Denken’
that integrates what we do know in the humble awareness of what we can’t know.
IV) Ecological Literacy as a Prerequisite for Responsible and Sustainable Design
The three lessons of complexity theory, previously mentioned, form part of what David Orr has called
“ecological literacy” (Orr, 1992). Orr identified the lack of ecological literacy in society as one of the
key factors in the degradation of the environment and the continued propagation of thoroughly
unsustainable design methodology and design decisions.
The environmental educator Anthony
Cortese and David Orr, both advocate that eco-literacy should be taught alongside basic writing skills,
mathematics and physical education from an early age onward. It is a prerequisite for responsible
decision making in a fundamentally interconnected world. Cortese writes:
Because all members of society consume resources and produce pollution and waste, it is
essential that all of us understand the importance of the environment to our existence and
quality of life and that we have the knowledge, tools, and sense of responsibility to carry out
our daily lives and professions in ways that minimise our impact on the environment (Cortese,
1992).
Instilling basic eco-literacy in every citizen of the global village lies at the core of the
sustainability challenge. Responsibility can no longer be deferred to government or industry alone; it
has to be assumed by each and every individual. Everyday, civil society has to make choices that can
either increase or decrease the ability of future generations to lead a humane and healthy life. Design
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professionals and educators hold a pivotal position in the propagation of eco-literacy through the
creation of designs that are based on ecologically literate decision making processes but also embody
eco-literacy through the materials they employ and the way they integrate benignly or beneficially into
the natural processes that maintain the health of our environment and therefore human health.
In The Nature of Design, Orr puts forward a strong case for the crucial role of design in
guiding humanity towards a sustainable future.
Like the architect, William McDonough, and the
biologist and designer, John Todd, Orr suggests that we are at the brink of a cultural shift, more rapid
and more global than the Industrial Revolution. They argue we are beginning to witness an ecological
design revolution that through its material expression and corresponding awareness will redefine the
relationship between humanity and nature (see McDonough & Braungart, 2002; Todd & Todd, 1993;
Orr, 2002).
Orr proposes “ecological design is a large concept that joins science and the practical arts
with ethics, politics and economics” (Orr, 2002, p.4).
An understanding of the three lessons of
complexity - fundamental connectedness, unpredictability, uncontrollability – is transforming the
scientific worldview and promoting an ecological worldview. This ecological worldview will critically
inform the design of the 21st Century.
As design begins to face up to its crucial role in creating the world of tomorrow and designers
assume their own responsibility in this process of co-creation with nature, all designers will need to
become ecologically literate. Eco-literacy results in an awareness of the basic dependence of all
biological and ecological systems on their underlying physical and material systems. Science, culture
and society - Luhmann’s autopoietic social systems (see e.g. Luhmann, 1992, 1997) - in turn depend
for their existence on the continuing autopoiesis at the level of biological and ecological systems
(Maturana & Varela, 1992). As eating and breathing biological organisms, all humans, and all their
mental constructs and ways of perceiving and “being in the world” (Heidegger, 1978) depend on
underlying biological and physical process.
What Herbert Simon referred to as system hierarchy (see Simon, 1996, pp.182) describes a
linear, either/or (rational) logic based understanding of the dependence of biological on physical, and
rational (conscious) systems on biological systems. Arthur Koestler’s notion of the system holarchy
(Koestler, 1970) better anticipated the current understanding of emergence and complexity.
It
expresses a form of circular, both/and as well as either/or (non-dual) logic in describing the mutual
interdependence of biological, physical and conscious systems within an undivided, dynamically
transforming whole.
This non-dualistic logic that underlies such concepts as complex dynamic systems and their
holarchical relationships can be schooled through increasing ecological literacy. Fritjof Capra argues,
“the major problems of our time … are all different facets of one single crisis, which is essentially a
crisis of perception.” He suggests a shift towards an “ecological awareness” that “recognizes the
fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the embeddedness of individuals and society in
the cyclical process of nature” (Capra, 1994).
It is this necessary shift in perception, based on ecological literacy that Gregory Bateson
referred to in Steps to Ecology of Mind. Bateson argued that our concept of ‘self’ is a very limited one
that needs to be expanded and that we have to learn to identify our ‘selves’ with the wider ecological
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relationships that characterize and define us as humans (Bateson, 1972). He recognized the rigid
classification of self/world, humanity/nature, and mind/matter into mutually exclusive categories as
resulting from an adherence to dualistic/rationalistic either/or logic.
The shift in perception described by Bateson has profound implications for ethics and
aesthetics. It leads toward an ecological or environmental ethic that lies at the heart of the ecological
design revolution and informs a new ecological aesthetic, as well as the ecological worldview.
Ecologically literate design reflects the suggestions by Simon and McHarg that designed artefacts
have to establish the appropriate fit between themselves and their environment.
Design is not so much about making things as about how to make things that fit gracefully
over long periods of time in a particular ecological, social, and cultural context (Orr, 2002,
p.27).
V) Ecological Ethics in Design
While important lessons about an environmental ethic can be learned from many of the
world’s traditional cultures, the conservation ecologist Aldo Leopold provided the first modern
formulation of an ecological and environmental ethic within the Western cultural context. Leopold
proposed that: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
community; it is wrong when it does otherwise” (Leopold, 1966).
Leopold realized that ethics is
essentially not only a philosophical but also an ecological ‘process’. Ethics ultimately concerns the
relationship between the individual and the collective in aiming to define appropriate participation.
Moralizing, that masquerades as ethics, can quickly be identified when the ecological
component of ethics is understood. Leopold argued that “the extension of ethics to include man’s
relationship to the environment” was an “evolutionary possibility” but an “ecological necessity.” He
wrote, “an ethic ecologically, is a limitation of freedom of action in the struggle for existence. An ethic,
philosophically, is a differentiation of social from antisocial conduct.” Leopold continues, “these are
two definitions of one thing which has its origin in the tendency of interdependent individuals and
groups to evolve modes of cooperation” (Aldo Leopold, 1949, quoted in McHarg, 1964). Ethics guide
modes of participation through cooperation and symbiosis.
Ethics in its wider context is not only about guiding human interactions within exclusively
human communities.
A solely philosophical ethic, considered only within the social and cultural
dimension, is often abused for moralizing from the position of a single cultural and societal context and
set of values.
The wider function of ethics - its ecological imperatives - extends beyond
anthropocentric concerns.
According to the Australian eco-designer and design theorist, Tony Fry, designers can no
longer absolve themselves from their ethical responsibilities, by deferring such responsibilities to their
clients. Beyond a basic code of professional conduct and professional due diligence, the ethical
implications of any design need to be discussed during early stages of the design process, and they
need to be considered not only within an anthropocentric - often economically dominated - context, but
aim to preserve ecological, social, and cultural value and expand ethical considerations to a more bio-
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centric view. Fry proposes: “an ethics of now crucially needs to confront our anthropocentric being as
a structurally unethical condition” (Fry, 2004).
Understanding the ecological lessons of interconnectedness and mutual dependence triggers
a biocentric ethic, which found an early expression in the work of Leopold, McHarg and many others.
McHarg insisted that humanity has to learn the “prime ecological lesson of interdependence” and
understand that all humans are “linked as living organisms to all living and all preceding life.” He was
convinced that through understanding our interdependence “with the micro-organisms of the soil” and
“the diatoms of the sea” humanity would learn that when it destroys nature it destroys itself and when it
restores nature it restores itself (McHarg, 1963).
A concise introduction to various approaches to a guiding environmental ethic can also be
found in Bernd Löbach, “Theoretischer Hintergrund ökologieorientierten Designs” (Theoretical
Background of Ecologically Oriented Design, see Löbach, 1995). He traces the ethical implications of
various positions from egocentrism, via anthropocentrism and biocentrism to cosmocentrism.
In
Löbach’s opinion all designers need to confront these various ethical positions and their corresponding
value systems, since such a confrontation provides the basis for orienting their own actions and allows
them to assume and defend responsible positions through their own arguments and creative actions
(Löbach, 1995).
Dialogue about environmental ethics is an integral part of the ecological literacy curriculum
and so is the study of the complex dynamics of natural systems from a scientific perspective. We
need to understand the relationships between diversity, dynamic stability and health of natural
ecosystems. Diverse and richly connected systems are more able to adapt to drastic disturbances
through natural disasters or human forcing of the system.
An increased awareness of the extent of our dependence on the ecological, hydrological,
atmospheric and geological processes of the biosphere would clearly support a more biocentric and
holistic position and demonstrate the limited moral and mental horizon of the anthropocentric position.
Eco-literacy is the basis of an informed ecological ethic.
Ethic based on eco-literacy can guide
appropriate participation. Ethics are about the appropriate integration and creative participation of the
individual in the collective. Ethics are about conviviality at the level of the family, the community,
society, and the extended community of life.
Ecological literacy results in an awareness of conscious participation that integrates the aware
subject into the natural, social and cultural processes of the world. Such participatory awareness
emphasizes the need to assume responsibility for one’s actions. Ecological literacy makes us aware
of the effects of individual actions on global and local processes and it persuades us of the urgent
necessity to act responsibly.
Understanding the ecological component of ethics and identifying
oneself, as a living organism, with the community of life profoundly changes our perception of our self
and the world. As such, ecological literacy has not only ethical but also aesthetic implications.
VI) Ecological Literacy and the Emerging Ecological Aesthetics
In a recent article entitled, Reconciling Eco-Ethics and Aesthetics in Design, Jack Elliott reiterates
some of the points discussed above. Like Bateson, Capra, McHarg, Leopold, and others, Elliott is also
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convinced that “in order for real change to occur in human-nature relationships, all living things must
be brought into the orbit of ethical consideration. This requires human empathy to extend beyond our
corporal shell. The ethical domain must be reframed from the anthropocentric to the biocentric”. Elliot
points out that: “empathy is an important form of knowing, especially as it pertains to the aesthetic
subject” (Elliott, 2004, p.5).
An expansion of empathy towards the perceived ‘object’ will change aesthetic experience
profoundly. Expanding our empathy towards the living world, when combined with ecological literacy,
results in ecological consciousness and solves what Capra referred to as the crisis of perception. This
change in perception, or paradigm shift, lies at the beginning of the path towards sustainability.
Our perception and self-world conception changes at every stage of the extension of empathy
beyond ego, family, community, society, culture, and species. Ecological consciousness is reached as
empathy extends towards the community of life, the biosphere or even the entire cosmos. The founder
of integral psychology, Ken Wilber, describes this progressive expansion of empathy as the path of
individual development as well as a map of consciousness itself (see Wilber, 1996, 2001).
A discussion of Wilber’s work within the context of the role of design as interdisciplinary
facilitator and integrator would prove fruitful, but leads beyond the scope of this paper. At this point, it
should simply be noted that there are rigorous and complex models of the development of the human
psyche and the evolution of consciousness that suggest such an expansion of the empathic horizon
may be part of the evolution of consciousness in general.
Our perception of the world is critically influenced by our empathy for the world.
The
awareness of interdependence with the natural world that is mediated by ecological literacy forces us
to expand our empathy towards the community of life as a whole, the collective future of which is so
closely linked with our own.
How we perceive, especially our relationship with the world, is the determinant of our aesthetic
experience. Nicolas Bouriaud speaks of a “relational aesthetics” (Bouriaud, 1998) and Jale Erzen
equates this term with ecological aesthetics, since ecology is about interdependence and relationship
and such exchanges and relations always depend on mutual perception and thus on aesthetics.
Erzen argues “aesthetics and ecology can be said to be complementary and interdependent” (Erzen,
2004, p.22).
The German artist Herman Prigann sees the root of the environmental problems in our
“inability to understand the dialogue between nature and culture that defines their relationship through
mutual dependence” (Prigann, 2004, p111).
In Prigann’s opinion the undeniable environmental
problems we face demand “a new capacity for aesthetic judgement” (Prigann, 2004, p. 75). Prigann
emphasizes “it is not ecology that needs an aesthetic treatment, instead the aesthetic follows
ecological insights.
Nature does not need an aesthetic domestication” (Prigann, 2004, p.180).
Prigann formulates the shift in perception mediated by this ecological aesthetic insightfully:
An ecological aesthetic would be a perspective on our environment and society as well as the
ensuing theory and practice. This perspective would annul current, standard contradictions
such as nature – art // nature – technology // nature – civilization // nature – culture and
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proceed towards an insight of the principle of dialogue in and towards everything (Prigann,
2004, p.180).
Echoing Gegory Bateson’s search for ‘the pattern that connects’, Prigann suggests “aesthetics
is the recognition of the pattern that connects everything.” He believes that “through attentiveness to
pattern, that connection in everything – the universal togetherness – evolves an aesthetic perspective
of perception”. He calls for an ecologically based aesthetic that “emphasises the demand to direct
attentiveness of our perception towards the living, the living pattern of nature” (Prigann, 2004, p.181).
Prigann clearly understands the importance of ecological literacy and he also understands that such
literacy would not be solely based within a scientific paradigm. To the contrary it would gain part of its
strength through the intuitive and creative dimensions of aesthetic practice.
The landscape architect Udo Weilacher also believes that “a general environmental ethic is
urgently required.” He highlights that an ecological aesthetic “would tacitly accept that man as a living
organism is part of nature but as a cultural and reasoning being he has his autonomy and thus has to
take full responsibility for his actions” (Weilacher, 2004, pp.116). Weilacher’s comment reinforces the
link between ecological literacy and ethical responsibility by embracing the paradoxical situation that
as biological organisms humans are dependent on natural processes, but as cultural and rational
beings humanity has emancipated itself enough to be fully responsible for its actions.
VII) An Ecological Aesthetics of Participation
The cultural historian, Hildegard Kurt, argues that we are in search of a new “aesthetics of
sustainability” that expresses itself on the one hand through “forms of the less,” but at the same time
through “nature-friendly opulence” (Kurt, 2004, p.238). Kurt emphasizes that such a new aesthetic will
“grant a constructive productive force to sensual awareness and aesthetic competence, and use this
force for designing life-sustaining futures” (Kurt, 2004, p.238). Kurt also stresses the important role
that a participatory awareness plays in the development of such an aesthetic of sustainability. She
thereby clearly supports the eco-literacy-participation-responsibility-ethics-aesthetics to sustainable
design link this paper is hoping to communicate.
Since the path of learning about appropriate
participation that embodies sustainability has to be walked by the vast majority of the human
population in order to bring about the desired result of a sustainable future, I agree with Kurt in that “an
aesthetics of sustainability will always be an aesthetics of participation as well – or will have to become
one” (Kurt, 2004, p.239). She identifies another important point:
When the discourse about the aesthetics of sustainability articulates a new sensitivity to the
fact that there is effective creative knowledge beyond technical-instrumental reason, that
offers viable alternatives, then the question of the relationship between sustainability and art
can no longer be ignored. But it is at precisely this point that difficulties in understanding
presently arise (Kurt, 2004, p. 239).
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We have thus identified two important prerequisites of a culture of sustainability: Firstly, it has
to be based on participation. Secondly, the main barrier that inhibits full participation is our currently
culturally dominant worldview that is based on ‘technical-instrumental reason’. While this way of
knowing, when employed as a tool rather than an ideology has proved extremely useful, its dogmatic
and ideological influence on science, technology, economics and design has suppressed an ethical
and aesthetical contribution to the dialogue of an emerging culture since the scientific revolution and
increasingly since the Industrial Revolution.
Aesthetics play such an important role because aesthetic questions direct awareness towards
perception itself rather than detached observation. Aesthetics can raise awareness of the role that our
knowledge plays in the way we experience and conceptualise the world.
Aesthetics is about
perception, which emerges out of the encounter of direct sensory experience and mental patterns of
thought, concepts and basic assumptions (see also Bortoft, 1996). Instrumental reason, a clear linear
cause and effect logic based on dualistic, mutually exclusive opposites, has helped in the creation of
the now advanced version of the Newtonian map of a mechanistic ‘billiard ball’ universe - a map that
still proves useful in many daily challenges, but has its limits despite, and to some extent because of,
the manipulative power it provides.
A common cultural problem is to confuse the map with the territory. In a culture that classifies
the world through quantification and statistical significance, where economic gain is the main measure
of success, qualitative aspects and relationships can easily be neglected. Our environmental, social
and cultural problems are largely the result of a neglect of qualitative social and ecological value in
favour of purely quantitative economic value. The vastly oversimplified map that reductionistic and
mechanistic science has painted of the world does not sufficiently describe the complexity and
interdependence within the system in which we participate. It overemphasizes the role of competition
in evolution through its focus on separate individuals. At the level of the whole, nature is held together
by cooperation and symbiosis.
VIII) Towards a Design guided by an Aesthetics of Health and Salutogenesis
Health is, both, an emergent property of and the pattern that connects complex dynamic systems. The
holistic sciences are tentatively sketching a map of the world based on the metaphor of complex
dynamic systems and the concept of emergent order out of chaos. This map is a fuzzy map that
acknowledges limits to what is knowable, to prediction and to control.
Rather than focusing on
isolating single cause and effect relationships, this map tries to make multi-causal, non-local, timedelayed relationships of mutual interdependence more intelligible. Complex dynamic systems are
their own cause and effect in the creative tension between polarities. Mutually exclusive opposites do
not exist in this map. The paradox of both/and is not avoided but embraced (see also Reason &
Goodwin, 1999).
An aesthetic of health sensitises us to health generating interactions at the level of the whole
of nature. It may help us to trace out the map of relationships and interactions that lead to appropriate
participation in salutogenesis at the level of the whole. The aesthetics of health will guide us towards
actions and designs that increase the health of the planetary biosphere. The goal shifts from control
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and manipulation to appropriate participation. Interconnectedness sets the context for co-operation
rather than competition. This emerging map of the world as a complex dynamic system has its origin
in natural science and the ecological realities of natural process, but in acknowledging the limits of
instrumental technical reason and emphasising the dynamic and participatory nature of perception and
existence, the map is clearly acknowledging the important contribution that non-scientific ways of
knowing can make to the dialogue about appropriate participation and thus sustainability.
The emerging map is not an exclusively scientific map, nevertheless it acknowledges the
importance of ecological literacy in guiding appropriate decision making, based on the assumption that
humanity does want the evolution of culture and consciousness to continue and therefore needs to
integrate appropriately into natural process. In many ways, the emerging map is also an aesthetic
map, if we accept Timothy Collins definition of aesthetics as “the philosophy of ideas and physical
perception that informs experience” (Collins, 2004, p. 170).
The
aesthetics
of
complex
dynamic
systems
are
rooted
in
valuing
diversity,
interconnectedness, and cooperative exchanges or symbiosis as the basis for the dynamic stability of
the system. Such dynamic stability could also be referred to as resilience or health. As such, the
process of integrating the artificial through appropriate participation into natural process is informed by
an aesthetic of health. The guiding principle of design becomes salutogenesis (Baxter, 2003), the
creation of healthy, dynamically resilient systems. Design begins to act in full recognition of the
fundamental unity and interdependence of nature and culture.
Once again, McHarg provided an early formulation of the same thought. He wrote: “Because
this whole system is in fact one system, only divided by men’s minds and by the myopia which is
called education, there is another simple term which synthesizes the degree to which an invention is
creative and accomplishes a creative fitting. And this is the presence of health”(McHarg, 1970).
McHarg’s definition of ‘design with nature’ was a practice of design that increases interconnectedness,
diversity, fitness, complexity and health throughout the system as a whole. To McHarg this system is
nature and culture. Culture is the most rapidly adaptable means to re-establish a creative fit between
humanity and nature. Biological adaptations to a changing environment take a lot longer to evolve
than cultural adaptations! McHarg foresaw the shift from a culture that is intent on controling and
exploiting nature, to a culture of appropriate participation in the restoration of the earth and the health
of nature (see McHarg, 1996).
Such a culture of appropriate participation is now emerging. In the long term a culture of
sustainability will evolve, unless humanity takes the other route into continued mass extinction that will
sooner or later include our own species. An aesthetic of health can aid in choosing the former instead
of the latter option. The American artist Timothy Collins describes the new emergent aesthetics that
are sensitive to the relationships between diversity, complexity and health insightfully:
Health is a term for the aesthetic understanding of complexity. There is a thread connecting
biodiversity, cultural diversity and economic diversity. This is the metaphorical understanding
of the health of a complex dynamic system. This is an idea that few of us will ever be able to
conceptualise in detail, but I think that many of us are beginning to sense in terms of aesthetic
pattern. The relative health of a landscape, an organism, the health of a system, even the
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health of a technological construct, is a material problem of diverse complexity. … The
perception of health is a relative term, it requires intimate knowledge over a period of time and
a caring critical attention. In turn, a lack of health can be described in terms of emergent
dominant systems that mitigate the constraint of diversity. Diversity is healthy expression and
perception is an integrative, dialogic concept. This concept departs from the autonomous
object of classical aesthetics, defined as unity, regularity, simplicity, proportion, balance,
measure and definiteness. Within the aesthetic perception of diversity lies systemic
relationship, dynamism, complexity, symbiosis, contradiction to measurement and indefinite
and procreative vitality. I believe that an aesthetic of diversity is emergent but not yet cogent. It
is a theoretical view with an experiential basis that must be identified and pursued by many. It
will not be captured in terms of a singular theory, a definite practice or primary authorship
(Collins, 2004, p. 172).
IX) Summary and Conclusion
Where does all of this lead us? Do such theoretical, ethical and philosophical considerations really
belong to 21st century design? In my opinion, they form the basis of it. Ian McHarg once wrote “there
is nothing as practical as a good theory”(McHarg & Steiner, 1998) and Wolfgang Jonas recently
suggested, “there is nothing more theoretical than a good practice”(Jonas 2003). In general, it is a
good habit to embrace paradoxes and seeming contradictions as an indication of good holistic thinking
rather than something to be avoided.
They indicate a more comprehensive and integrative
understanding and invite us to go deeper. Donella Meadows proposed that our ability to comprehend
and participate in a complex system increases significantly once we can move between paradigms
(Meadows, 1997).
Coming to terms with paradoxes provides the basis for an informed design
dialogue that aims for approximate appropriate participation in natural process, in one word:
sustainability.
This paper proposed the concept of the Natural Design Movement as a collective term to bring
together the diverse attempts within design theory and practice that are aiming to create human
artefacts and processes as expressions of humanity’s appropriate participation in natural process. In
other words, Natural Design is not a new design specialisation; it unites all the currents of 21 st Century
design, which are contributing to the transformation of human society towards sustainable practices.
The Natural Design Movement encompasses such diverse fields as ecological product-,
process- and institutional design, sustainable architecture, community-, urban- and bioregional
planning, industrial ecology, and ecological engineering, but also political systems of governance,
ecological economics, education for sustainability, renewable resource based technologies and
energy production, as well as aspects of bionics, eco-technology, and green chemistry.
When human designs are understood in their broadest sense as all goal directed human
actions, as all artefacts, processes, and institutions of culture, then Natural Design concerns all of
these, which are intending to meet human needs while integrating benignly or beneficially into natural
process.
The Natural Design Movement is informed by an understanding of complex dynamic
systems and ecological literacy. Awareness of the fundamentally interdependent relationship between
14
humanity and nature and an understanding of the basic ecological life-support systems of the
planetary biosphere can provide the cognitive basis for comprehending humanity’s critical role as a
responsible participant in natural process.
I proposed that ecological literacy confronts with the need to take responsibility for our actions
and therefore with ethical questions about how to participate appropriately. Ethics was identified as
not only pertaining to a philosophical-social-cultural expression, but as having an ecological basis
which allows us to distinguish relativistic social moralizing from a truly co-operative, symbiotic and
synergetic ethics of contributing to the health of the community of life.
An increase in ecological literacy and a confrontation with the ecological as well as the social
dimension of ethics can result in an extension of empathy beyond the limits of the individual self, the
social or cultural group identity and even the biological species. Such increased awareness can result
in a profound shift in perception towards a form of ecological consciousness through which the world is
perceived with an ecological aesthetic.
This ecological worldview motivates the Natural Design
Movement.
I argued that since perception concerns the definition of self and world and the resulting
awareness of relationships and interactions, aesthetics, like ethics, has an intrinsically ecological
dimension. An ecological aesthetic is an integrative and participatory perception of relationships and
interactions between artificial and natural process. It leads to an informed dialogue between culture
and nature.
An ecological aesthetics places artefacts into a dynamic context rather than
understanding them as something separate from natural process. Everything is understood in terms
of where and how it emerged into material existence, how it relates to the physical, biological and
conscious processes around it, and how it will ultimately be reabsorbed by the wider natural process.
As such, an ecological aesthetic informs our understanding of metamorphosis, dynamic transformation
and change.
To recognize that reality in its physical, ecological and social dimension is ultimately more
complex than our models, or maps, could ever be and to accept the uncontrollability and
unpredictability of such complexity are the first steps of the humble process of learning how to
participate appropriately in that complexity. This process of continuous learning lies at the heart of
sustainability.
There is a basic tendency within complex dynamic processes, especially when living beings
are concerned, to evolve towards higher levels of interconnectedness and thus cooperative interaction
or symbiosis.
The health of complex dynamic systems seems to be intimately linked with their
diversity and the dynamic stability that results from intricately networked webs of cooperative as well
as competitive interactions.
An ecologically informed aesthetic perception of complex dynamic systems combined with
joined-up and holistic thinking trains the ability to empathically perceive the dynamic relationships
between all the diverse agents. Such an understanding of process and relationship informs intuitively
and empirically about the health of the system.
The perception, preservation and restoration of the condition of systemic health, or dynamic
stability, are the underlying strategies of all sustainable designs. Salutogenesis, or health generation
at the scale of local and global ecosystems and social systems has to become the priority of design in
15
the 21st Century if we want to create a sustainable global civilization through diverse, locally adapted
cultures of co-operation.
The design strategies of the future will aim to balance cooperative and competitive interactions
within a system in such a way that the overall resilience of the system is increased. This requires a
maintenance and restoration of diversity within the system (see Gunderson & Holling, 2002). Design
will have to learn from and mimic nature’s economy of zero waste, renewable resource use and
energy sources. An ecological ethic, together with an aesthetic of health will assure that designs are
considered within their ecological, cultural and social context, and are benign or health generating
rather than disruptive to natural process.
The creative challenge and opportunity for design is to meet human needs within the limits
and possibilities set by the overall process that maintains the health and diversity of the biosphere.
Such designing is critically supported by ecological literacy and guided by an ecological ethics and the
emerging aesthetics of health, diversity and complexity.
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About the author:
Daniel C. Wahl studied Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He
graduated with Honours in Zoology in 1996. In 2002 he completed his Masters in Holistic Science at Schumacher College and
the Department of Environmental Science of the University of Plymouth. He is currently writing up his PhD at the Centre for the
Study of Natural Design of the University of Dundee, Scotland.
Postal address:
Daniel C. Wahl
The Centre for the Study of Natural Design
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design
University of Dundee
Dundee DD1 4HT
Scotland, UK
Electronic mail:
d.c.wahl@dundee.ac.uk
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